Self Publishing: Blogs and wikis are part epilogue, part marketing

I saw an interesting piece in the NY Times Arts & Leisure section this weekend ("The Author Will Take Questions Now")
examining the go-to-market strategy for Amazon AND the Google Search Results Page (SERP).   

The head web strategist at Harper Collins admitted she would rather have the author promote themselves online.  It proves as a nice complement and the Publishing company can steer clear of the online marketing.

In response to this demand, Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired, recently started another venture (http://www.booktour.com).  BookTour.com is a site for authors to market their books online along with their book signing/reading schedule.  

Is this the next chapter of the Long Tail?  Anderson, in "The Long Tail", explains how Amazon matches its profits from the best-seller list with backlist of millions of books.

Authors want increased attention.  When you don't make it into the Sunday Book Review- don't sweat.  Maybe you can have your book announced instead on thousands of blogs, social networking sites, and Wikipedia!   

For example, one article might bring 10,000 hits from the Book Review.  By contrast, you need 100 hits from 100 other sites to reach the same amount of traffic for you book!    And- as an added bonus... you might be in the top 5 for your target keywords on Google. Check out SEOMoz for more on Search Engine Optimization