The Power of Podcasting: Bantam Dell Director of Internet Marketing Ken Wohlrob on how offering free content helped "Faefever" debut at No. 3 on The New York Times Best-seller List.

In preparation for the release of "Faefever," the third installment of Karen Marie Moning's “Fever” paranormal thriller series, Bantam Dell decided to utilized a varied set of promotional tools. Regular installments of a free podcast containing the full audio of "Darkfever," the original book in the series; a mass-market paperback release of "Bloodfever," the second entry in the series; and online excerpts of the first few chapters from the new title all helped push “Faefever” onto The New York Times Best-seller List.

Ken Wohlrob, Bantam Dell Publishing Group’s director of Internet marketing, talked to Book Business Extra about the promotional strategy that he helped put together behind the successful release.

Book Business Extra: How did you develop the digital promotion strategy for “Faefever”?
Ken Wohlrob: … It was a bunch of different ideas that collided into one idea. Podcasting a full book's not new. I’d be an idiot to claim we were the first to do it. …The [question] was, “What’s the best book for this?" … The first in a series was the best bet. It was a good way to introduce the characters to those who may not have known the characters. [Karen] thought it was a great way to reach out to new fans.

Since we were doing the first book in the series, we didn’t see it having any negative impact on the new book coming out. We had the new mass-market [paperback of “Bloodfever”] coming out at the end of August, followed a few weeks later by the hardcover [of “Faefever”]. Starting in the beginning of August, we started podcasting “Darkfever,” which led into the mass-market [release of “Bloodfever”]. … We thought, "Let’s use this to snowball into the new hardcover [release]."

It was interesting—at least for me and a lot of people here—in that it was an established author like Karen. But this was a new series for her, and it's crowded territory today. "Twilight" and "True Blood" are ruling paranormal. How do we make a name for her and find new fans? This could distinguish her and give her name recognition. Let’s drive those fans to this author and give them some content.