How Social Media Can Turn a Book into a Best Seller

After Lisa Genova wrote the book Still Alice, a novel about a young woman’s decent into dementia, she spent a year trying to sell the work to literary agents and publishing houses. Unfortunately, no one would listen. The agents that did consider the project told Lisa the book wouldn’t sell. So what did Lisa do? She created a website about Alzheimer’s Disease and started writing a blog. She also decided to self-publish her book. As a result of the valuable information on her website and blog, the book sold quickly, and in 2008 Simon & Schuster purchased the book at auction for just over half a million dollars. The book was re-released in January 2009 and after two weeks made the New York Times Bestseller list. Lisa tells Web Ink Now, “You absolutely have to have a Web site. Get a profile up on Facebook and MySpace right away. When you get press, people will immediately want to go to your site.”