Bob Dilenshneider's book "AMA Handbook on Public Relations" has grown a long tail from the author's controversial appearance on Fox News. The book, which had been floundering for a year after its publication, keeps spiking on Amazon.com. For a while it was in the 30,000 ranking. Today, it's in the 85,000 ranking. Those numbers pull it out of the dead zone to the security of respectable sales, at least in this recessionary marketplace.
On July 15th, Dilenschneider indirectly defended Rupert Murdoch on a Fox program hosted by Steve Doocy. Among others, THE ECONOMIST commented on that bold out of the box move. Soon enough, Dilenschneider's most recent book the "AMA Handbook" began selling. He was a guest on other media such as NPR.
What we in communications learn from this is the power of controversy to create that long tail or continuous sales of books and other items which won't ever be best-sellers. Over time they sell enough for authors to make a decent buck and be heard. Tht phrase "long tail" was coined by WIRED editor and himself a book author Chris Anderson.
My concern with this particular long tail is that I had been contracted to receive 50% of the royalties because of my assistance with the book. Here is the invoice [Download Dilenschneiderinovice] from me to Dilenschneider for the royalties computed by the publisher the American Management Association [AMA] for the time period between February 15, 2011 and August 15, 2011. For February, I received no royalties. Our luck changes, doesn't it.
Book promoters have a wonderful case study for leveraging controversy to re-start sales - and keep them rolling.
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