From E-book to X-event: The Interview

It feels nice to be blogged about, but even better to be discussed in an online interview.

Robin Good and Alex Williams just did that recently and discussed how my "Unleash" e-book can be transformed in to an ongoing event. This is practically a follow-up to the suggestions that Robin already gave me publicly some time ago.

a] Read Robin's in-depth article on X-events

b] Listen (look at it:) to the interview here

Now, to make some comments to what Robin and Alex were discussing:)

1] Time investment
Yes, the investment in time in trying to create an X-even from a singular product is huge. Robin's suggestions really were a work of genius, but putting all of them in to practice, while still executing my own marketing plan, takes much time. So I've been doing it slowly and step by step, starting first with an RSS blog, then continuing with an RSS e-zine and finally starting a podcast series of RSS. A Wiki is coming very soon:)

And all of this has to be done along with some less "exciting" tasks, such as sales channel management, partnership management and so on.

Robin's ideas on the other hand help extend the e-book in to a continuous event.

2] E-book as a PDF, instead of a blog
While I like the idea of publishing a book as a blog, it wouldn't really be a book anymore:) From my experience people usually print out e-books and read them on paper and that really wouldn't work for such a large book if it were a blog, instead of a PDF document. But still, it's a good idea and I might provide the e-book as a blog in a special member's area of the web site.

3] New revenue sources
Robin goes on to suggest that the e-book can be used as the basis to create new revenue sources, using all the new media communicational channels, such as podcasts. Like the idea, haven't considered it yet:)

4] Opening up the e-book for outside contributions using a Wiki
Robin suggests to release portions of the e-book through a Wiki and use it as a basis to create an extended collaborative effort, as an opportunity for people "to take a dive from the platform that the author provided" to expand our views on RSS. A wonderful idea that I hope I can make work:) A Wiki should be prepared very soon.

5] Branded media aggregators
The interview further on revolves around branded media aggregators, which is really an important future development line for RSS. Everyone interested in branded aggregators should also check-out Quikonnex, who created a branded aggregator for their publishers and their publishers' readers.

6] Doing a webcast to promote the e-book
A wonderful idea. That's one of the things that fell under the "to do" category, which mostly contains items that need more time ... which unfortunatelly isn't available just yet.

7] P2P Networks
Robin suggests seeding P2P networks with special bundles (excerpts from the e-book) to be planted in these networks. Now, here my first question would be if P2P networks really reach the correct target audience for my e-book. Let's presume that they do, but are P2P users really looking (searching) for information on RSS, or are they only interested in music and stuff like that?

Robin actually thinks that the best way would be to develop your own file sharing channel, surrounding your product.

In conclusion to my comments to the interview I'd like to say that Robin is completely correct by saying that creating a real X-event requires a managed and professional effort. If you have that kind of staff ready, this might be one of your best marketing investments yet.

And oh, the best thing: Robin and Alex will be doing one of such interviews every week, so check back with them often.

Their next topic will be customized RSS feeds, actually one of my favorite RSS topics.