Bob Burg & John David Mann’s Go-Giver website and blog provide several case study lessons for authors interested in selling more books.

Here are three of the most important:

Simple, clear, and consistent

The layout of the website and blog is extremely simple and effective. At a glance you know where you are and what Bob Burg and John David Mann’s Go-Giver book is all about.

Notice the obvious typographic hierarchy in the top banner that draws your from the book title through the tagline and navigation, into the title of the latest post. The book’s subtitle, A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea, clearly explains what the book is about.

There is a strong sense of purpose to every text and graphic element on the site. The blog archives, for example, proves the authors’ dedication to consistency, as they have been posting meaningful for over two years.

Getting an early start

The Go-Giver’s authors clearly understand that a successful book launch begins well in advance of the publication date.

As you can see when you visit John David Mann’s New Year’s Eve “surprise” post of December 30, 2009, for example, when they began to build anticipation for the Go-Giver’s follow-up book, scheduled to be published on February 18th.

Notice that they don’t share the title in their New Year’s Eve Surprise post, but, instead, provide an incentive to visit the website for the new book (where you can download a sample) and proceed to the Amazon.com page where the book’s title is revealed.

By withholding the title until visitors follow the links, they’re engaging and teasing their followers into checking-out the title on their own!

The payoff – new books sell previous books

The payoff is that, 6 weeks in advance of the book’s publication, Go-Giver fans are placing pre-orders for the follow-up book. In fact, Amazon’s statistics show that 49% of the visitors to the page pre-order the new book!

The fact that 49% of visitors to the new book’s page pre-order the new book is a testament to the high-value reader experience delivered by The Go-Giver.

But, further analysis reveals an even more important statistic:

33% of visitors to the new page are purchasing the original Go-Giver book!

And, the story doesn’t end here: Amazon is currently offering a package consisting of the new book, The Go-Giver, plus Bob Burg’s original best-seller, Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts into Sales.

Conclusion

Obviously, as the above Go-Giver case study illustrates, success builds upon success. Other success factors include, of course, high-integrity and high-value messages and writing skills. There’s also the strength of the online marketing contributions made by Thom Scott, Managing Director of Burg-Scott Communications.

I find the above story as inspirational as I, and one of my sons, found the Go-Giver story, itself. The early success of the new book shows that just writing a book isn’t enough; great marketing is as important as great writing. The Go-Giver’s success also shows that the success of an author is based not only on their vision and writing ability, but also their ability to work with others and learn to trust and delegate.

What do you think? Do you know of any other equally-inspirational book marketing case studies? What’s your favorite example that comes to mind? Share you ideas as comments, below.