Word of mouth in the book industry

There is an interesting article in "The Independent" of the UK which compare the effectiveness of marketing methods publishers are using.

They found that "25% of those polled said that the last book they read was on the basis of what a colleague or family member had told them, with almost a third of under-35s citing it as the most important factor. Only loyalty to a favored author counted as much, with 26 per cent of readers saying their last choice of a book for pleasure was because they had read others by the same author."

I was amazed that teams who spend up to £100m on book advertising every year, only 6 per cent said they chose a book because they saw it advertised, with 7 per cent citing the cover design as the deciding factor.

They do however say that word of mouth takes a while to work, yes it can do but two years is not a long time if you have done no work to promote word of mouth. If publishers like Harper Collins started using word of mouth marketing techniques they might be surprised at the results!