Some in the author services sector don’t care for it when we point out that such outfits pop up like mushrooms, but—case in point—here’s one called BuzzTrace [since discontinued], set to make its formal launch on the final day of London Book Fair, March 16.
Like a combination of Hootsuite and Klout, the BuzzTrace technology assigns a “BuzzScore” to an author’s social networking that reflects the effectiveness of a writer’s platform. Aside from providing the score, BuzzTrace will serve as yet another dashboard authors can use to schedule and manage their social media activity.
Advance information says that subscribing authors will get daily instructions on how to improve their score and, in theory, improve discoverability by readers. Other tools include a metadata and hashtag generator, instant notifications of mentions of your book titles, and full-book scans to help you watch for pirated editions of your work—that last feature being called “a little extra protection,” which makes us think there may be a separate fee.
Author Scott La Counte, who writes as Scott Douglas, is behind the effort, which was named PiracyTrace when it went through the 1440 accelerator program for publishing startups, which Ingram Content created and then closed after a single year. (Ingram cordially declined our invitation to talk about the short life of the 1440 accelerator program, which was named for the year Gutenberg is said to have perfected his printing press.)
Bottom line: As we say with all new arrivals on the author services scene, keep your eyes open. The pivot from piracy hunting to social-network monitoring is a fairly big one in the short life of a developing startup. And we had to inquire to find out the prices this Anaheim-based outfit expects to charge: $10 per month or $100 yearly after a 30-day free trial. You can sign up for information at BuzzTrace’s site, and we hope that the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) Watchdog Desk and Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss have a look when this new effort goes live.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
