First, the book has just been nominated by Small Business Trends as one of their picks for 2009 Best Small Business Books – Reader’s Choice Award. I would love it if you’d cast your vote! (Make sure you use the checkbook in the upper left-hand corner of my book cover. The layout is a bit deceiving.)

Second, it’s been receiving some great reviews including one from Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends.

Real estate coach Terri Murphy posted a four-part series podcast from an interview she did recently with me on her blog.

Ann Handley has been running a series of excerpts from the book over at MarketingProfs. She also did an interview with me regarding the use of Facebook for business at AMEX’s Open Forum site.

Turn Here has done a video promo for the book for free!

So, lots of good things to report. More to come I’m sure.

The Digital Handshake is available at Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and at all leading bookstores.

We’re kicking off a video contest for fans of The Digital Handshake Facebook Page. The idea is to come up with an official real life version of the “digital handshake.” 

The rules are simple:

• You have to be a fan of the Page. 
• Create a 30-60 second video demonstrating your handshake idea and briefly explaining why you chose it. 
• Upload the video to the Fan Page (or upload to YouTube and submit the link to the Page.

On Monday, September 28, we’re going to choose the winner. 

The prize is threefold. The winner receives:

• A complimentary, autographed copy of the book. 
• A set of digital handshake laptop stickers (we’re getting those done now)
• Designation as the creator of the official real life version of The Digital Handshake

It’s fun. It’s cool. I hope you’ll enter. 

First, I’ve announced a special contest on the book’s Facebook Fan Page. It’s a video contest where entrants come up with a real life version of the digital handshake. The criteria to enter is: 1) You must be a fan; 2) The video must be no longer than 60 seconds; 3) You must demonstrate your handshake and explain your idea. Pretty simple and should be fun. I hope you’ll enter. Details here. 

The official hashtag for use on Twitter is #digishake. Please use it when tweeting about the book.

Though the book was not scheduled to be out this soon, it is. Unfortunately, it came out at the same time as another Wiley book on social media, Socialnomics. This impacted TDH negatively in two ways: First, it threw me off my marketing schedule. I was expecting a launch on September 22nd and was gearing up for that. Second, it pitted TDH against another Wiley title on the same topic, something I’m none too happy about.Why they would have allowed that, I don’t know. It seems like a real oversight on their part.

That being said, I’m going to hold to September 22nd as the official launch date. The book’s rankings have fallen well down at Amazon and I’m hoping for a big push on the 22nd to boost them. I’m also hopeful you’ll help me promote it like crazy on that day. 

Even with that, the book is beginning to garner some good reviews. 

Gregg Morris wrote an extensive review where he said, “If you’re that small business owner or marketing executive that Paul talks about, and if you don’t have the time to read extensively on the subject, which I assume you don’t, I would say that this should be your “go to” book…” 

Gregg also wrote a review on the book page at Amazon, as did Caroline Barry who said, “I found there to be much more information that was relevant to my small business. This book not only gave me specific ideas about how to use social media for marketing my small business, but also taught me more about the nuts and bolts of each medium so that I can better understand how to create content.”

I welcome all reviews whether positive, negative or somewhere in between. Once you read it, please consider writing a review on your blog and at Amazon. 

A number of people have videoed or taken photos of themselves with the book:

Ginger Wilcox, co-founder of the Social Media Marketing Institute (where I serve on the board of advisors) introduced at the beginning of her SMMI update.

Realtor Susie Blackmon posted this to 12seconds.tv:

Looking at The Digital Handshake and eating Hummingbird Cake. on 12seconds.tv

Another Realtor, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, poste this photo:

To say the real estate community has embraced this book would be an understatement. In fact, I suspect most of the sales thus far have come from that industry. (And I’m extremely grateful.)

Lastly, I have a number of interviews coming up. Denise Wakeman is crowdsourcing questions from her blog readers for one. Beckly Cortino of Red River Writers has a live interview on Blog Talk Radio Wednesday, Sept. 16. I’m also trying to garner a number of interviews on the 22nd, either live or blogged. I’d really like to fill the day with one after the other and would appreciate any help with that effort. Thanks.

That wraps it up for this week. Look for another next Monday.

• The book is hitting store shelves. Barnes & Nobles has copies already; Books-a-Million is getting them this week so I’m told; don’t know about Borders (please report with a comment if where you’ve seen it)
• Amazon.com has it in stock, though it’s not available at Amazon.co.uk as of yet
• Today, September 8, it’s ranking at #1,464 in overall books at Amazon, #4 in Web Marketing, #4 in Retailing and #5 in Ecommerce. 
• It’s in the Top 20 in Marketing at Amazon as well
• The somewhat official Twitter hashtag is #digishake, which I think is cute. Got a nice ring to it
• I’m starting a video contest on the book’s Facebook fan page tomorrow asking fans to submit entries to come up with the official real life version of the digital handshake 
• Wiley has promised laptop stickers of the handshake image from the book cover; I hope to have those soon
• Even though the book is already in the marketplace, I’m sticking with September 22nd as the official launch date; I’m trying to set up a series of interviews for that day, plus kick-off a virtual book tour via several blogs (Contact me if you’d like to participate in either) 

That’s it, the first TDH report. More to come next week. 

Posted via email from Paul Chaney’s [Other] Blog

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