KML was out to support Leslie Gornstein’s recent book signing event at The Grove to promote The A List Playbook - How to Survive Any Crisis While Remaining Wealthy, Famous, and Most Importantly, Skinny.

For anyone who doesn’t know by now, Leslie is E! Online’s Answer B!tch, who answers fans questions and reveals some of Hollywood’s dirtiest little secrets.  Want to find out how Beyonce and Britney Spears stay at the top? Does Eva Longoria really use store bought hair color? Do stars really eat anything they want and remain thin? You can find out all about it in Leslie’s book.

While Leslie has mastered the art of developing on online presence via E! Online and her popular blog AListPlaybook.com, it’s interesting to note that she has also embraced print publication as another means to satisfy the appetite of fans hoping to get juicy secrets on their favorite celebs.  In recent months, we’ve also seen Perez Hilton expand from the blogosphere with his book Red Carpet Suicide.

So what does this tell us?

While the masses seem to be gathering their Hollywood dirt across thousands of gossip sites (the choices are becoming limitless), it’s important to remember people are also feeding their interests the old fashioned way- in print.  Which proves that people like choices about media - whether it’s online or traditional.  The key is to keep those media choices in mind with getting your content into your fans’ hands.  Which is exactly what Leslie did and it’s paying off.

Congrats again, Leslie!

I was reminded today by a new post by Leslie Gornstein, our favorite Answer B!tch, that people are making a name for themselves on Twitter. Some are celebrities, some pretend to be celebrities, some are figureheads and some are common folk (like most of us).

Whether you have a huge following, or just a handful, here are a few tips for establishing your Twitter authority and how said authority is determined:

• Follower Ratio: How many are following you over how many you are following. It’s ideal to have a 1 or higher but never a fraction of 1.
• ReTweets:   The number of times you are retweeted.  The more value you add in links or commentary the more likely people are to echo your tweets.
• Replies: The number of times you are replied to. The more people that reply to or respond to you the more influential you are.
• Clicks: The number of people that click on your links. Using a url shortening service like http://bit.ly/ allows you to track how many people are clicking on your link.

To find out more about the authority of Twitter profiles, and if those celebrity tweeps you follow are real or bogus, check out Leslie’s article on E! Online today (and thanks Leslie for the KML shout out).

E!'s Answer B!tch, Leslie Gornstein

The KARMA crew attended the book signing party for Leslie Gornstein, best known as the E! Answer B!tch on eonline.com. We helped her celebrate the launch of her new book, The A List Playbook, which got us super excited (as we tend to be obsessed with behind the scenes Hollywood gossip).

Over snacks, wine and great conversation with supporters of Leslie and her book, we asked ourselves: What is happening in the world of literary marketing? With all the hard work that goes into writing and publishing one’s work, how does an author connect with their target reading audience and promote their book? Is it supported by the publisher? Is it up to the author? What is the secret to book marketing?

The publishing market is more competitive than ever with 180,000 new titles released every year and over 2.5 million titles available on sites like Amazon.com and BN.com. It’s a little known fact that of all the books published each year, fewer than 1% sell more than 2,000 copies.

As we have had more conversations with authors on a quest to market a successful book, we began to realize that this is a real challenge, but even bigger opportunity to leverage social media to promote the book, showcase content, reach target fans and elevate the profile of the author. We think now is the time for word of mouth marketing - it’s engaging, it’s impactful, and it’s cost effective.

Leslie is well on her way to embracing social media and is a great example of not only showcasing the book and connecting with fans, but also extending the experience online through her blog www.alistplaybook.com.  So with that quick shoutout to the one and only Answer B!tch, we thank her for giving us the wisdom and insight (and especially thank her for the juicy gossip in her book). Thanks Leslie!