FAQ #8: What Other Books Are Similar to Yours?

I have yet to come across any books that outline general marketing lessons learned from Google so I believe my book stands alone for this niche topic.

However, there are a number of books that successfully cover Google, marketing, and related themes. Below is the response I included in my book proposal when McGraw-Hill asked me for the following:

List 3-4 competing books (preferably books which have been bestsellers or have been highly visible/influential in your content area) and positively distinguish your book. How is your book outstanding and unique, from both an editorial and a marketing perspective? If there are no direct competitors, cite the books that come closest.

1. What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

This book spells out new rules for operating in a Google world. My book will focus solely on marketing lessons rather than general business insights. And my book will be less about Google and more about companies that are applying lessons learned from Google. Also, by interspersing tweets and encouraging ongoing dialogue via Twitter, my book will be less static, more dynamic, and appeal to people that don’t have the attention span to read long-form text.

2. The Search by John Battelle

This book is about the history of Google and importance of search. My book is less about search and more about principles of search that can be applied to all marketing tactics. But I will draw from what John did most successfully which was intertwine interviews with top Google brass and other industry pundits to weave the story together and make it more compelling.

3. Small is the New Big by Seth Godin

While this book is not about Google or search, it is about marketing. And it’s written in a style I’ll emulate in terms of quick, punchy copy and thought-provoking, often contrarian, sound-bytes. Further, the “Small is the New Big” point-of-view speaks to the changing paradigm in marketing that I’ll be highlighting in my book. The main difference is that I’ll demonstrate the new world order by focusing specifically on lessons learned from Google referencing the occasional tweet as opposed to Seth’s lessons culled from a wide (dare I say, wandering) swath of insights and experiences hashed out in blog posts.

Note: I realize what I wrote is a bit brash but please keep in mind that I wrote this to sell McGraw-Hill on making me an offer. I can only hope that my readers will consider my book to be in the same ballpark as those written by Jarvis, Battelle, and Godin.

‘Nother Note: this post is part of a series. For more, see the full list of FAQs.