[FM Discuss] ideas on PR/Marketing/Media/Outreach for FM

[Anne Gentle]

Hi all -

Greetings from Winter Camp 09. :) We had a discussion with a subgroup of
those of us FLOSS Manuals folks at Winter Camp on Tuesday, and I wanted to
share these ideas (and potential actions) with the list. We'd love to hear
your feedback on these ideas and help us take the outreach efforts in new
directions. The ones marked with a Q: are specific questions we'd like
feedback on.

Thanks,
Anne

Public Relations, Marketing, and Distribution ideas for FLOSS Manuals -
Books and Website

Amazon and Other Bookstores with ISBN
One way to distribute books beyond Lulu is to obtain an ISBN number so that
they will submit it through the Amazon (for the OLPC book, we did it through
Lulu at a cost of about $100 plus the price of purchasing review copies to
ensure the printing meets Lulu's guidelines. We purchased an ISBN through
Lulu's "Published by you" program, which required US-based contact
information. Plus, we had to change the layout dimensions in Objavi to get
the dimensions that are acceptable to Lulu for self-publishing.

Amazon/ISBN actions:
Q: Can OBJAVI default to a printout that is acceptable to Lulu, or should we
stay with our original output dimensions and the maintainer who makes the
final print-ready PDF substitutes in the CSS that works for Lulu's published
by you requirements?
Q: Do we need someone to outline the process for getting wider book
distribution? Here's an outline of what I think has to happen: ISBN
obtained, cover created, get Lulu account access, upload the PDF, purchase a
proof copy, approve the proof copy, then submit for approval (by Lulu if
that is the processor in this case.) Currently much of this happens between
Adam and the maintainer, is there a way to streamline or automate any of
this?
Action: Need to determine which books should get ISBN numbers and be sold
through Amazon and other distributors.
Action: Need a new cover for the OLPC Laptop Users Guide that matches these
new dimensions (with the ISBN on it).
Action: Need to find out if there's another (cheaper) method of obtaining an
ISBN and distributing books to other resellers.

Lulu
Lulu does have tools to help you promote your book, but they consist of
either free buttons to have on your website, which we already have through
the FLOSS Manuals sidebar book store. The rest of the "promotions" they list
cost upwards of $100, and involve things like editing your draft-ready press
releases, but it doesn't say if you have to buy a list to send it to.
Action: Investigate the rest of Lulu's promotion offerings and see if any
are a match (Anne's quick glanceover did not seem to see a match for FM's
needs.)

Sidebar Book store
What can we do to encourage more uptake of the book store? We could run our
own program like Amazon Associates does, but we may also in the mean time
want to get more books on Amazon so that people can become Amazon associates
and make a few percent off the sales that come directly from linkthroughs on
their site or blog.
Action: How can we find out who has the bookstore widget on their site now?
That might help us see where patterns of uptake have happened.

PR and Media List
We currently have a PR list that contains people that Adam, Anne, and Zita
(and others) have personally emailed, asking if they want to be on our PR
list. We could purchase a more focused PR list. Or we could have a second
list started that is media people only, with very targeted magazines that
focus on open source - such as Linux Journal.
Also we would like to request reviews of books - perhaps by sending copies
of the book to bloggers and so on. I personally have reviewed two books in
the last 2 years on my blog and on Amazon and I'm just a blogger who likes
to get free books. I think that sending books to bloggers would get us
coverage.

Action: Linux Journal would be a great place to get a review of the upcoming
FSF Book Sprint on The Command Line. Be on the lookout for other journals or
magazines that contain book reviews and see if we can match up with our book
catalog at FM. When you know of one, email pr at lists.flossmanuals.net.

Q: Should we create a Press Kit? What would it contain? Ideas: latest press
releases, contact information.
Action: Go to PR wire site and find out more on pricing of PR lists specific
to our audiences.

In person events
Take copies of books with you to any conference you go to and either carry
enough to sell or point them to the link on Lulu.

We could make a flyer or "booth kit" that conference attendees could take
with them - hand out stickers, buttons, whatnot, plus a flyer (or book
mark?)showing our book store catalog.

Some conferences offer non-profits free booth space. Anne contacted both
SXSW Interactive and Maker Faire about booth space, but it was prohibitively
costly. (no return on investment that we could see immediately) Be on the
lookout for conferences that you attend in any given timeframe and see if a
(free) booth is an option.

FM Ambassador Kit
An FM Ambassador would be people who could help increase uptake of FM
content, or increase authorship.
Q: If we were to build a kit for people to go talk about FM, what would it
contain? The book about FM, the book about Book Sprints, what else would be
useful? The screencast?

Per book promotion ideas:

OLPC Laptop Users Guide book
Get the book on Amazon. (A couple of actions have to occur before we do this
but they are easily completed.)
Also, there are two web sites that sell related products such as
ilovemyxo.com and xoexplosion.com, both site's owners are hosting the book
for sale by linking to the Lulu site.

Sugar Users Guide book
This is an idea that other books may want to use. SugarLabs' wiki connects
directly to FLOSS Manuals' site and there is a lot of work around
translating the guide that comes through from SugarLabs folks saying "FM is
our official doc site" - the same happens with Inkscape.
Anne is presenting at Cosn next week in Austin and will promote the book
through her talk, although she can't get copies in time to give them away at
the conference.

Inkscape book
They are also connecting their end-users directly to FM for documentation.

Censorship book
Get the net neutrality petition list and see if there are people on there
who would be interested in the book?
Identify and then send a copy of the book to key bloggers - who are they?
Who are civil rights activists who we should ask to help promote the book?

Firefox book
Link to Lulu sale site on the Mozilla site?

FSF book on The Command Line
FSF will promote this book - what else does FM need to do?

Related ideas
What about pure electronic distribution? What can we do to increase uptake?

Generate excitement around the book Sprints - big-time publishers only get
about a 3-week window to generate buzz anyway, how can we harness the buzz
generated around a Sprint to help promote the book?

This effort isn't merely about printed books and book sales - it's also
about increasing traffic to the FM site. Ensure the user/reader experience
keeps them coming back. Ideas included Twittering when a book chapter is
finished in FM during a sprint, integrating the FM chat with an IRC channel
so that visitors to the site can see current conversations. Also the Talk
part of each chapter can be used more.

Q: Should we always give away the base manual, as organized by the
maintainer, but charge extra for remixes? It is a value-add that no one else
really offers that we could charge for.


-- 
Anne Gentle
email: annegentle at justwriteclick.com
blog: www.justwriteclick.com
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