The New York Times reported this week on Vincent Bugliosi’s controversial book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, and how it has become a bestseller largely due to an aggressive Internet campaign. The TV shows and book reviewers that helped to make Bugliosi’s previous books bestsellers passed on this one. Even mainstream advertisers passed.
ABC Radio refused to accept an advertisement for the book during the Don Imus show, said Roger Cooper, the publisher of Vanguard Press, which put out the book.
Behind this successful Internet marketing campaign is Fauzia Burke and FSB Associates, the company she started thirteen years ago. “They truly helped turn this controversial and provocative book into a grassroots bestseller with their terrific Internet marketing campaign,” according to Vanguard Press Publisher Roger Cooper. “One of the major reasons The Prosecution of George W. Bush has made it on to The New York Times Bestseller (and five others) without any print ads or major media coverage is because of the passion, innovation and creative energy of FSB Associates.”
“The Bugliosi book proves that web publicity is now able to make a book a bestseller, even when more traditional media outreach falls short,” shares Fauzia Burke. “It would have been tough to get the amount of coverage we did if we weren’t constantly working with the bloggers and building relationships. We strategically used three short excerpts to pepper the Web with content from the book throughout the two month campaign. And the progressive bloggers who supported this book were key in creating a virtual word of mouth marketing campaign.”