What do you think?

The first thing I did after finishing the book was rush to see if Scott had a blog. (Obviously, he did). Second, I checked to see if he had a Twitter account (Obviously, he did.) Third, I went to see in both places whether he engaged with people. (He did).

The Opportunity for Authors

Things have changed. Fans are no longer silent onlookers in the experience of books (or art of any kind). They are participants. At the 2009 Tools of Change conference, Bob Stein came up with this new definition of a book: A book is a user-driven media where readers and sometimes authors congregate.

Let that sink in. A book doesn’t have to be a rectangle of paper. We know this. Trust Agents isn’t just paper. There’s an audio download, a kindle ebook version, etc. But that’s just one facet: the media.

If a book is a media where readers and sometimes authors congregate– CONGREGATE –it means that authors get the opportunity to build relationships in a whole new way with readers. It means that the stories don’t have to stay linear, that the ideas don’t have to stay on one side of the page, that the experiences don’t have to end at the edge of the page.

Not all authors won’t want to interact. Several are already trying their hand at the Twitters and Facebook Fan Pages of the world. Some are just trumpeting their book’s virtues. Others are interacting and making relationships happen. Some authors just want to bury themselves in their writing and produce content. That’s not a bad choice, as such.

But the opportunity to empower your audience to actually be a community is a huge one, and shouldn’t be shrugged off without consideration. Not only could authors create differently, should that be of interest, but at the very least, they have the chance to build relationships of value, that will work in their favor for future projects.

I see that when I see how Scott Westerfeld and Paulo Coehlo interact with people on Twitter. I see several other others taking the opportunity to make relationships happen. And then, I see several who either use the tools to simply crow about their books, and/or I find several who don’t bother with the tools at all.

Seems like a missed opportunity to me. What about you?

Oh, and I strongly recommend picking up Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. It’s a really well done book. I can’t wait to read book two, but then, I see he’s been out researching its setting on his blog, so I know I’ll have a while to wait.

You see, Eric probably would say that it’s so cool that he’s got this really well-produced Audio CDs that come with the books. These things are closer to Hollywood productions versus your typical audiobook. There’s a lot of heart and emotion put into the readings, and I get that.

To me, the messages were the selling point.

Eric isn’t just a kids’ book author. He points out on his site that he “…has a B.A. in Psychology and an M.F.A. in Acting, with a minor in making kids laugh.” He’s right. All these things come together really well in the Kidswick products I received, BAD RATS and A FROG THING.

The first book, BAD RATS, has a great message about non-conformity and the importance of creativity. Eric would probably say it differently, but that’s what my kids and I came away with. The second book is a great primer for personal goal-setting and success as told by frogs in A FROG thing.

Sure, the audio CDs really make it an added treat, but wow if the amazing art by James Muscarello and the well-delivered messages by Drachman don’t make that just seem like a bonus.

There, I’m done raving. But man, it was really REALLY refreshing to read books with a very different message than what I’m getting out there in the mainstream press.

I’m not sure how well-distributed they are, but swing by Kidwick Books to check out the stuff for yourself. And thanks for the birthday present for Violette, Eric. She thought it was cool to get an autographed book.

Julien and I have a book coming out in May 2009 (earlier, if we can type faster) from Wiley tentatively titled Trust Agents. The premise, and we’re still working to define this word more succinctly is, “people who use the web in a very human way to build influence, reputation, awareness, and who can translate that into some kind of business value. That’s my definition at the moment. Julien and I send each other countless little emails a day that say, “What about THIS definition?”

It’s a business book, not a tech book. We talk about the web, but we discuss it as a tool, not in terms of how great Twitter and Friendfeed are, but rather, what someone can do with the tools of the moment with regards to the web at large.

Here’s the thing: though a company like Microsoft spent millions and millions of advertising and marketing dollars trying to improve our perception of the brand, none of us gave a sh!t until Robert Scoble came along and put a human shape around their online and event presence for us. Robert acted as a real human, with thoughts, opinions, and – gasp – he sometimes agreed with us that MSFT didn’t have something right. It was brilliant.

Lionel Menchaca at Dell is a trust agent. Pam Finnie at HP is a trust agent. Matt Cutts at Google is a great example of a trust agent. Caterina Fake when at Flickr was a great trust agent. Kathy Sierra is one of the ultimate trust agents.

Are these things related to tech only? Hell no. I’m just listing a few that we have batted back and forth a lot. There will be more.

Know who’s the non-web equivalent of a trust agent? Oprah Winfrey. To a lesser degree, so is Paris Hilton. We’ll talk about that, too.

Book writing isn’t exactly the same as blog posting. Julien and I are doing a lot of talking, a lot of reading (well, Julien is), a lot of research (again, more Julien than me- he digs that stuff), and a lot of storytelling.

I spoke with Seth Godin over lunch today. A little later, I spoke with business partners David Meerman Scott and also Paul Gillin. We talked about books and publishing and the business overall. It’s some tricky stuff, but it can be rewarding, if you do it with passion and get a decent book turned out.

While I’ll be putting lots of this information into the manuscript, I wanted to open up some conversations about trust agents, about who you think fits that description, and about what you think it means before knowing more than what I’ve written about what goes in the book.

(Side note: I’ve written in some form or another since age six. I’ve wanted to be a writer my whole life, and never realized on the way up the scale that I *was* a writer. It all changed when I stopped worrying about BEING a writer and just started writing. If this is an aspiration of yours, you can do it. The key? Practice. The other key? Practice. Third key? Read a LOT of books. )

What do you think? Your ideas mean the world to me, and to Julien as well. We’ll ask you bits here and there from time to time. You know me. I ask questions. Right?