Bestseller Labs blogs on Hugh Howey's Clever Book Promotion

During my morning check of the blogs I read I came across this at Bestseller Labs.
Hugh Howey's 'DUST': The Cleverest Book Promotion I've Seen In Years | Bestseller Labs

Hugh Howey, one of the most successful of the self-published fiction authors, has done some clever things to promote Dust, the final book in the Wool series.

Clever is good. Too many self-published authors are floundering around trying to figure out how to promote their books. Some, modest, do next to nothing to promote. Others, perhaps following bad book promotion advice, alienate potential readers by book-spamming all over social media--- not because they are egotistical, but because they have been made to believe that 'buy-my-book' spam is the right way to promote books.

The Wool series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which the survivors, fearing radiation, must live in massive shelters, forbidden to go outside. The radiation warning symbol--- the black-and-yellow symbol in the photo above--- is thus a powerful symbol of the series.

Howey created an item to give to those who would spread the word and create book-buzz for him--- a thumb drive with the radiation warning sign, which contained ebook versions of all three of the books in the Wool series. This thumb drive is still available on Howey's web site.

He also has incorporated a version of the three-triangles symbol in his signature. This is an example of 'book branding'--- a concept I admittedly don't fully understand.

I thought the Bestseller Labs article was very helpful, since I am already beginning to think about how I'm going to promote my novel-in-progress when things get so far. I couldn't afford expensive gestures like having a special thumb-drive created, but I could perhaps come up with something symbolic that I could use for 'book branding'.

I encourage you to follow the link above and read the article. What do you think of it? Would the methods Howey uses be effective in awaking your interest in his books? If you are an author, are you considering using ideas inspired by Howey's book promotion for your own work?

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