As an writer, there probably wasn’t much that was more thrilling than seeing that “Oprah’s Book Club” sticker printed on your book. Of course, a Pulitzer or a National Book Award would be nice – but that Oprah seal of approval meant one thing for sure: people were going to buy the hell out of your book.
Could the same thing happen with Mark Zuckerberg?
You may have heard that the Facebook CEO recently pulled an Oprah and decided to launch his own book club of sorts. Zuckerberg’s New Years resolution this year was to read a new book every couple of weeks – and he has asked the Facebook community to join him on the journey. He set up a dedicated Facebook page called ‘A Year of Books’, and invited the more than a billion Facebook users to join in an anything-but-old-fashioned book discussion.
For this first selection, Zuckerberg chose The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used To Be by Moises Naim. Within hours, the book was out of stock on Amazon.
Now it’s back in stock and selling like crazy. Zuck’s endorsement has skyrocketed the book to #8 on Amazon’s bestsellers list – and it’s still climbing.
The book is also rising on the ebook charts, now residing at #31.
Call it the Zuck bump. And if he keeps his promise, 25 or so lucky authors will likely see a big spike in sales in 2015.
Image via Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook