The Great Reveal

by Michelle Gagnon

Lately, there's been a lot of "reveals" in Young Adult fiction. One of my favorites was what they did for bestselling author Cassandra Clare's next release, CLOCKWORK PRINCESS. They let fans control the cover reveal; initially the cover was hidden behind a "veil" that only tweeting readers could remove.
And it was a huge success. Within two hours, over 30,000 tweets resulted in a full display of the cover. But it didn't end there: #ClockworkPrincess trended worldwide that day, and the tweet tally rapidly approached and passed the 150,000 mark.
Which was astonishing, and definitely eye-opening for a lot of publishers. There's always a question as to how social networks can be used to promote a book, and this was a clear success story.


My publisher has decided to try to do something similar with my YA debut DON'T TURN AROUND. Starting today, clicking on this link will reveal book chapters on Facebook: the more "Likes" the page gets, the more of the book will be "unlocked." By the end, if all goes as planned, the first five chapters of the book will have been made available (which is a fairly significant chunk of it!) I think it's a cool idea, and an interesting way to get people engaged with the story early.

We'll also be debuting the book trailer on Entertainment Weekly's "Books" page in a few weeks - I haven't seen it yet myself, and am excited to check it out!


So what do you all think? Is this too gimmicky for you, or do you like the idea of fan participation being part of a reveal?