According to a new survey of readers' book-buying habits, "nothing sells better than the recommendation of a friend or relative." To summarize the survey's results:

• "One in four" chose their last book based on word of mouth.
  
• Those under 35 were even more likely to select books this way.
  
• "Loyalty to a favoured author" also determined the purchases of 26% of readers polled.
  
• Only 6% chose a book because they saw it advertised.
  
• 7% based their purchase on cover art.

Author Alexander McCall Smith, however, cautions that word of mouth publicity can take a "little bit of time to get going ... In my case, it was about two years."

On a similar note, today's Publishers Lunch reports on an AAP presentation by BzzAgent founder Dave Balter, who "presented some interesting conclusions from his company's own study of their actively-managed word-of-mouth campaigns on behalf of about a dozen books." To revert, once again, to magic bullets:

• Word of mouth "starts to die down" "somewhere between the 13th and 17th week."
  
• "Word-of-mouth windows don't always occur when your book releases."

Also noted by Michael Cader in today's Lunch was Adrants' positive assessment of Knopf's "blog ads" for Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore:

In an interesting and refreshing twist, an online ad for a new book by Murakami Haruki, Kafka on the Shore, does not link directly to the author's or the publisher's website. Rather, the ad, running on weblogs via the BlogAds network, links to other weblogs which have commented on the book. Publisher Knopf Books has hit on a unique form of paid, word of mouth advertising.