Much of the talk around Groupon recently has centered on its impending IPO. Regardless of whether you think it’s a good or bad buy, or a good or bad idea; the reality is that daily deal emails have entered into millions of everyday lives.

Groupon

Groupon might not be the most obvious place to think about marketing and sales for the publishing industry. However, the sheer scale that they have and the access that they can provide to new readers should not be discounted. For the uninitiated, Groupon is a group buying site, where users get serious discounts of 50% or more on everything from meals to nights at the bowling alley.

The CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh recently sold a bunch of his books on Groupon – selling over 1500 books in three days. While Groupon might be a bit of a disaster for smaller businesses – some of whom have to cancel their deals due to the volume they sell – it can be an incredible way of clearing inventory or driving interest. So if you have a new release coming out from an established author – there are worse places to turn than Groupon to sell off remaindered copies of their older books. There’s also nothing stopping you from selling ebooks rather than actual stock if you want to avoid any additional costs for fulfillment.

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Eamonn Carey is a digital media entrepreneur and consultant who lives in London. He’s worked on digital, social and mobile strategies and applications with companies like 3, O2, Diageo and many others. If you want to know more about Eamonn’s work, or if you’re interested in talking to him about consultancy or ideas, feel free to contact him at his website. He also has an idea for a book if anyone is interested. But then, who doesn’t.