Aki Järvinen is writing a book (not for Packt) called Games for Social Networks: The Design and Business of Networked Play. Despite what I consider to be a boring title and dusty description, and the fact that it's from a publisher I've never heard of before, I'm fascinated by it and am planning to buy myself a copy once it's out. The book already has 182 fans on Facebook, so I'm not alone. And yet, the book is far from being released and has had little direct promotion.

Q: How has Aki managed to pull this off? How can you?
A: By using Posterous and Twitter as his/your research notebook.

As he researches his topic online, he makes notes on his Posterous blog. All his posts have the same format -- and they use Posterous's easy "Share on Posterous" bookmarklet:

1. A title that sums up the point he's noting down. The pithier and more direct this is, the more likely it is to get clicks and retweets.
2. A short quote from the source article. Often the source articles are long, but he pulls out the few sentences that to him make the key point. He's creating value by giving away less than the source.
3. A link to the source. The bookmarklet does this for you.
4. His own comment. Sometimes this is just a summary of the article, other times it's his own opinion on what's being said. This lifts the blog beyond just being a bunch of links -- it shows that he knows his topic, and can write about it well.

Every post he makes is autoposted to his Twitter account and the book's page on Facebook and various other places. Just about every post is retweeted at least once. Many are retweeted 10 times or more. As viral marketing for himself, his blog is much more successful than mine. And this is work he'd be doing anyway as he researched his book (or just did his job).

If you're writing a book, and the writing involves at least some online research and reading, why aren't you doing this? Check out games4networks.posterous.com and ask yourself, "could I do this?"

Of course, if you're thinking of writing a book then you should talk to Packt about publishing it! Email me on davidb@packtpub.com.

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