Wall Street Journal reviews Confessions
Really great, high profile review here – check it out
Mr. Berkun’s book is packed with tips on how to reduce anxiety and how to speak in public with greater effectiveness. They range from common sense – arrive early, make sure you have back-up copies of your speech, practice – to more advanced tips on what to do when 10 people show up to hear you in a 1,200-person room (cluster the 10 immediately), how to cut off rambling questions and how to fall silent after making a key point, to give the audience a chance to soak it in.
Do you have any way of measuring the impact of this review on book sales?
I always wondered how influential reviews in WSJ and NYT were…
I only have a handful of data points to work from and they’re all favorable. Amazon.com is the easiest metric since rankings are updated hourly.
The NYT mentioned Myths of Innovation and that day amazon.com sales spiked dramatically. Same went for this WSJ review.
High profile reviews on slashdot or lifehacker have had similiar effects for my books.
On the other side, appearing on NPR, CNBC and MSNBC had no measurable direct effect on amazon.com sales.
There are of course lots of details that matter: book reviews focus 100% on the book, whereas other media appearances usually don’t.