Bookbuzzr: a writer's essential tool

Dan Holloway
Author
Songs From the Other Side of the Wall
Read Now - http://bit.ly/YT12b




I'm not going to do a long "how to" with this, because that's been done (I wish I hadn't forgotten the link, but it was recommended by the lovely Danny Gillan). I will, though, tell you a little bit about this fantastic device.


The Bookbuzzr is, in essence, a small virtual copy of your book (you can see mine for Songs from the Other Side of the Wall above), that you can embed in your blog, your Facebook page, as your e-mail signature, all over the place in fact. You can use it wherever you'd normally use a picture of your cover. Furthermore, anyone else can do the same, simply by visiting your Bookbuzzr homepage and clicking share.


The widget allows people to turn the pages of your book (my only quibble is that in the quest for authenticity, they've used shading that can make some of the pages a bit tricky to read) and read it (you can choose exactly how many pages they can read - from only a few, to the whole book) without leaving your web page.


It's also a great way to store all kinds of information about your book - where it's available to buy, for example; and people can leave reviews and ratings.


The Bookbuzzr is the brainchild of Vikram Narayan, along with the website Freado, where readers can go and read all the books (or as much as you have allowed to be read) for which Bookbuzzrs have been created. what's so great about Bookbuzzr, Freado, and, indeed, Vikram, is that not only do they care about writers - they listen to writers. They respond swiftly to feedback - they will even try to make changes. They actually want to give writers a tool that works for them. And they've succeeded. Bookbuzzr is the best widget I've ever found on the web. And would go on my essential top 10 web toolkit for writers.


Talking of which, you can follow @bookbuzzr on another essential, twitter. And unlike many, they will gladly @ reply you. They represent, in fact, everythng that's positive about writing on the web. 10/10