Do Book Awards Beget Book Awards?
My gut answer is yes. I think it’s human nature to gravitate toward a book with a winning seal on the front cover versus a book without one. I wondered about this for a bit and then had the opportunity to do a little test. I do many speaking events at hospitals and healthcare associations about patient safety and advocacy from the patient or family’s perspective. I usually bring copies of my books for purchase.
Last month I brought two books with attractive covers and provocative titles; both were Amazon best sellers. I put book award stickers on several books of the same title (Book A) and no stickers on the other title (Book B) and arranged them on my sales table with the same visibility. After the event, as participants rushed to the table, I watched as most everyone picked up the books with the stickers. At the end of the day, the books with stickers on the covers sold nearly twice as well as those without stickers.
At my next event, with a similar audience, I did the same thing, only I switched the stickers to the other book so that (Book B) had the stickers and (Book A) did not. Again, after the event, the same thing happened. Most everyone picked up and purchased (Book B) whereas the last time, it was (Book A).
Now I know this was not a controlled study, and no humanized mice were involved. So who knows what extraneous variables may have changed the outcome? And I understand – due to confounding variables, we should never assume that a correlation between two variables implies causation.
But I think my little experiment was telling and worthy of thought.
So again, I go back to human nature. People always want the best or what they think others perceive to be the best. Look at Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Amazon reviews. People value other people’s opinions or experiences.
And can I extrapolate because the judges at book awards are also human? So when they are assigned a book to judge, does a sticker on the cover mean anything to them? Does it perhaps cause them to read with a more favorable eye?
Do book awards beget book awards? Do book awards beget buyers?
I would say yes.
If you have any stories about your book award experiences, please share them with me. pr@speakuptalkradio.com
PR
