This is absolutely the most important thing you will view in the next two and a half minutes (assuming you watch the entire thing)

The concept of viral is something that fascinates and enthralls me. If you could figure out the formula, you could get people to do your advertising for your for minimal production costs every time you wanted to promote something.

The marketing minded part of me is amazed with how cost-effective it can be when done right. The writer in me is infatuated with what it says about human nature. The internet makes it real easy – especially with instant gratification tools like Twitter and Facebook. You see something cool, sick, funny, wrong, sad, happy, or any passionate emotion, and you can share it with everyone you know in a matter of seconds. From anywhere if you have the right electronics.

But it’s just a revamped version of the age-old gimmick of testimonials. Ever pay attention to the walls in one of those restaurants that has old-time ads all around? They’re littered with testimonials. People bought because their neighbors, friends, and favorite celebrities bought.

Viral is the same concept, but doesn’t just tie back to selling product any more. Thing is, with books you really hope it will. I figure there has to be a formula to it. Nothing simple or straightforward. It largely depends on demographic – your audience. A sexy blond in a red string bikini moving seductively around a bar mixing a drink is probably not the way to garner attention for your YA novel about the gay football player who hides his sexual orientation because he’s afraid it will destroy his chances of an athletic scholarship.

But there is one basic element that anything viral has to have – it needs to speak strongly to an emotion. It helps if its something people feel passionate about, but as long as it tugs a feeling to the surface that outshines other instances of that feeling that day, it’s got that key element.

So that’s all we have to do as writers, and we were doing that anyway, right? Make people feel something. Make it a more powerful feel than anything else they’ve felt that day. So intense that they want to tell everyone they meet about what they felt. It doesn’t hurt if you’ve got a killer cover to go with it. Or a trailer. Or just a blurb or a blog, or some pictures on a Facebook page.

Of course, you have to make sure the one or two thousand people see it first, to guarantee your changes of it getting shared and spread, but once you do that…viral book, right?

If only it was as simple in execution as it is in concept. What make you click a link from a friend, or follow a suggestion on a social networking site?