In an era of Social Media, the sales of books get pushed overnight if they get endorsed by celebrities and public figures in the era of social media. And the same happened when Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg chose reading books as his new year resolution.
Publishers taken by surprise
Mark Zuckerberg as his New Year resolution for 2015 has chosen to read two books a month. He wants all his 31 million Facebook friends to join him. For this purpose a Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) page, ‘A Year of Books’ has been created by Zuckerberg over the weekend that will help users to remain updated of the books being read by him. They will also be able to discuss the books read by him.
On the 2nd of January, close to midnight Eastern Time, the CEO posted his first selection, “The End of Power” by Moises Naim. The selection from the Facebook CEO though a pleasant news came as a surprise to the publisher of the book, Basic Books.
“We had no prior notice and learned about it at the same time as everybody else did,” said David Steinberger, president and chief executive of the Perseus Books Group. “Orders are pouring in.”
‘The End of Power’ was released, in March 2013, in all the formats, and had already sold 20,000 copies of which 4,500 were e-books. After the announcement from the CEO of the world’s largest social-media the book sold even more number of e-books as informed by Mr. Steinberger. Orders for 10,000 more copies were placed by booksellers on Monday, and on the best-seller list of Amazon it got to the 19th position.
Social media and books
Books talking about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies will be at the focus of Zuckerberg as mentioned by him on his personal Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) page. He gives all the books a personal feedback, which works in their favor. Zuckerberg described the ‘The End of Power’ as a book that “explores how the world is shifting to give individual people more power that was traditionally only held by large governments, militaries and other organizations.”
Last summer, Bill Gates comments on some of the books he read including “Business Adventures,” by John Brooks. Following the comments the book bagged the second spot on the New York Times nonfiction e-book best-seller list.
