Andrea Vascellari

Episode: VMC #206 – Social Media Behind the Book – J.C. Hutchins, 7th Son [right click to download 'Save the link as...', video-player available below]

I love to read. 80% of the books I read are related to strategic online marketing, PR and communications. Then I try to keep a 20% that I dedicate to read books on other topics I’m interested in. I don’t have much time and I’m really picky on books so if you are the author of a book that makes it to that 20% you gotta be damn good. Then if you are able to even capture my attention an make me listen to your audio-book… you are an outstanding stellar author. There’s just one person that was able to get me on my iPod to listen to his unbelievable novel. He is J.C. Hutchins and his book is 7th Son.

So why am I talking about him? Why am I sharing this with you? Simple. The difference between J.C. and other authors is he understands social media.

Back in 2006 book publishers didn’t seem to pay attention to his work so he decided to share it online with a podcast. Here’s what he did:

• Hosted a launch party for the podcast in secondlife.
• Invited other well known podcasters and celebrities to appear in the podcast.
• Did a nationwide podcast book tour.
• Joined the conversation in over 50 interviews with podcasters worldwide.
• Let the community of fans contribute with their picts and multimedia material to an anthology of the book.

His podcast (on iTunes here) now counts over 100.000 monthly downloads. In October 2009 the dream became reality. After three years of hard work and promotion in the social media space 7th Son was published and Warner Bros have already optioned for motion picture development.

I recorded a VMC episode with J.C. in which we talked about the book and social media. I’ll release the episode soon so stay tuned Meanwhile you can:

• Download a 10 chapter PDF of the book.
• Buy the book if you love it (I did!) -Disclosure: no, this is not a sponsored post. I truly love J.C.’s work and I highly recommend it (especially if you like stories on human cloning and conspiracies for the assassination of an American president).
• Listen to the audio-book.
• Watch the following video in which J.C. ‘tagged’ a copy of the book for me!

Andrea

@jchutchins: It was great to meet you in New York during the Web 2.0 Expo. A big hug to you and to all the clones!

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Show Notes & Credits: J.C. Hutchins, 7th Son, @jchutchins, audio-book (iTunes), Web 2.0 Expo New York, Web2Open New York.

Author: Andrea Vascellari

Andrea Vascellari is the CEO of itive.net. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present. If you liked this post feel free to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to this blog.