British novelist Hari Kunzru will conduct a social networking experiment with his upcoming novel, offering a free copy of Gods Without Men to a group of influential online leaders.
Using the influence tracking tool Peer Index, Kunzru built a list of online influencers who might be interested in the themes of his book. Instead of focusing on a long list of book reviewers, his campaign will target readers in a variety of fields. What do you think about his targeted campaign?
Here’s more from the novelist: “Peer Index have used their technology (based on eigenvectors, which also form the basis of Google PageRank) to identify a group of influential people who have some connection either to me, or to the themes and ideas in the book. The first list, unsurprisingly, had rather too many fiction writers and book journalists on it, so we weeded it and added some other names. As I say, this is an experiment. It’s a way of testing a hunch about social media, and acknowledging that professional literary journalists (excellent as many of them are) shouldn’t be the only gatekeepers when it comes to literary fiction.” (Via NY Observer)