I continue to be impressed with the marketing campaign behind this book, and it’s clear that Seth walks the talk. Following the pre-release copy to the first 3,000 people who made a donation of at least $30 to the Acumen Fund, the book signing sessions offer a two hour Q&A: http://www.squidoo.com/thelinchpinsession I would snap tickets up for this if I was in New York.

The review over at Lowell’s they note that many of the themes in Linchpin will be familiar ones to readers of Seth’s previous writing, which is the impression I got from the preview. It also seems I may be right in suggesting that this is more of a self-help book than previous works. The team over at Lowell’s, ’struggled with how to categorize this remarkable book. Is it a self-help book? A leadership book? A business strategy book?’ I can’t anwer that yet, but I look forward to being able to soon.

This week, marketing’s answer to Alain de Botton launched the free presentation ‘What Matters now.’ You can download it here. The project gathered some of the smartest digital thinkers and asked them each to contribute a slide on what we should be focused on right now. Then boom – it’s launch time, and each one of the contributors announces it on their blogs, and the download becomes a Twitter trending topic for seven hours.

On the first slide of the download our guru informs us that ‘In a digital world, the gift I give you almost always benefits me more than it costs’ and at the same time lets us know that his new book Linchpin is coming out in January. Aha.

The presentation itself is a mash-up where the contributors fuse their personal styles with Godin-like sage and concise advice. It’s pretty good, but I just wish they’d asked Scott H. Greenfield to contribute – there’s a man who’ll get internet marketers thinking. One of my highlights was the Long Tail’s Chris Anderson, ‘Peer production, open source, crowdsourcing, DIY and UGC—all these digital phenomena are starting to play out in the world of atoms, too. The Web was just the proof of concept. Now the revolution gets real.’ My, it sounds exciting! The diagram below is a good one too.

source: http://thisisindexed.com/

This is the second wave of Seth’s book launch strategy, following on from him sending a pre-release copy of Linchpin to the first 3,000 people who made a donation of at least $30 to the Acumen Fund. This latest effort is twofold. First he has accessed the tribes of the contributors, and secondly he has brought these contributors further into his inner circle. No doubt we will see Aaron Wall and others reviewing Linchpin in January.

If as Guy Kawasaki says on his slide ‘the future belongs to people who can spread ideas’ then Godin is sitting pretty good, and  I need a few more readers, so why not hit my RSS button? Oh yes, I’m supposed to give you something first.

The Dome of Marketing

Seth Godin is the marketing man’s Alain de Botton. Almost daily he pops up with a short post that casts things in a new light, and energizes you to take on the established post-industrial machine. But by the end of the first morning meeting you have had the Godin knocked out of you, and are back to promoting butter with binikis. What is the solution?

Well luckily Godin is more than a blogger; he writes books that you can immerse yourself in. Books that give you the energy to try and do things differently for at least a week! Maybe things would be even better if de Botton would write a book on marketing, but for now Seth is Guru No.1 for many marketers (and even Scott H. Greenfield likes him!)

The next book due to hit our shelves is Linchpin, and it has already become notable because Godin is going to send a pre-release copy to the first 3,000 people who made a donation of at least $30 to the Acumen Fund. So now 3,000 of the readers who most want a copy of the book are going to fill the blogosphere with reviews before it hits the stand. Godin is bypassing the traditional critic gateway, and reaching consumers through 3,000 of his tribe. When the book launches in January expect a social media explosion.

(I’m getting a review copy myslef. If you want an honest review then check back in January.)

What is going on here is leveraging a crowd for marketing/promotion (crowdsourcing marketing). The problem is that you need a crowd to start with. Well if you don’t have one, then why not gather a crowd to make your product and promote it. There’s a case study of that here, that garnered three million You Tube videos from a standing start.

So there you are, even if you have no product, and no tribe, it is no excuse for not being able to reach three million people with your message. Just don’t let anyone knock the Godin out of you.