Already there is a “Zuckerberg effect.”
“The End of Power,” the first book picked by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg just days ago for his virtual book club, is seeing its sales soar, reported the New York Times.
Over the past few days, the 2013 book by Moises Naim has already sold more than 4,500 e-books, about what it sold in that format prior to Zuckerberg’s announcement, the Times reported.
In total, prior to the announcement, the book sold about 20,000 copies. Now with 10,000 more copies ordered, the book is now No. 8 on Amazon’s best-seller list when I last checked.
As I wrote earlier this week, Zuckerberg potentially could wield considerable influence on the book world much like Oprah Winfrey, whose book club promoted on her daily TV show generated widespread excitement about reading and boosted sales. The “Oprah effect” was akin to winning the literary lottery.
But Winfrey picked just a couple books a year. Zuckerberg is keeping a graduate seminar pace with a new book every other week.
With 31 million followers on Facebook, Zuckerberg club is an experiment of sorts of whether Facebook as a platform and Zuckerberg as a celebrity will have the same draw as a popular TV personality like Winfrey.
Above: Photo from Mercury News archives.
