| Many writers, especially little known writers, are given small or no marketing budgets from publishers and are thus burdened to self promote their books. Unfortunately, writers often are not sufficiently knowledgeable in self promotion, giving too little attention to word of mouth (WOM) as an effective, affordable, and achievable option and to early adopters and opinion leaders who are good targets for spreading WOM. Using cross sectional quantitative surveys, this study sought to profile early adopters and opinion leaders to understand these consumer segments. The results revealed that early adopters and opinion leaders relied on and spread WOM. The study recommends authors to use book providers, WOM, and social networking channels like Facebook to reach early adopters and opinion leaders, and social and emotional angles to motivate them to spread WOM. |
