[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxschLOAr-s]

But seriously… Just like with the MySpace/music promo trend the literary world is getting clever at self-publicity, leveraging a social media fanbase to get published with awards such as The Blooker Prize and self-publishing service Lulu.com which even provides a sales channel.

I’ve been admiring a friend’s work to promote his children’s book The Mousehunter, published by Faber and released earlier this year. The book has a website, blog, facebook group, Twitter stream and a whole lotta interactive stuff going on.

While all this activity has been off his own back, Faber seems to be quite web aware too running a seminar day for their authors on using the web and setting up their own YouTube channel amongst other things.