How to catch virality?

[Nik]

Yeah, virality is a dream of every author, app developer, youtuber and all relatively anonymous dudes working for a breakthrough.
Once a book, video, app becomes an 'item', its literary/other virtues, cover, reviews, don't really matter anymore, as 'fashion' not always comply with quality criteria.
I remember my friend's wife, who coauthored a book for new parents, tried to have it given as a present by an embassy for a royal couple once they had a child. Din't work out, but I thought the idea was quite original.

In my own context, another friend said that the best thing that could promote my series, would be being either killed (or at the very least attempted to) by an oligarch or maybe have one of the books found at the scene of exploding boobytrapped car of some billionaire.
Not that desperate to crave for any of these, but his line of thought sounded cruel, but true -:)

More original ideas maybe?

[J.N.]

If your book is thick (enough) and somebody is carrying it when a major newsworthy shootout happens... and that stray bullet that would have killed or maimed the carrier strikes the book, and the book therefore saves the dude's life... then that lucky dude will hold your book up on every country's TV news and you get the best bang-for-your-buck publicity of all time. Bonus coverage if he shows it on-camera with the bullet still lodged in it! Mega bonus if the bullet accentuates the cover somehow.

[Nik]

Don't know how true it is, but a friend told me that when developing an app, a social network or a dating site, you often need to prove 'virality' potential to investors, so you buy/lure/whatever 'seed' users in some representative location, say - Boston, and see whether seed users bring new ones in satisfactory rate to prove or disprove a potential.

Would you predict Harry Potter go viral? Angry Birds? Can virality be predictable?

[Scout]

I recently read that a video can become viral when certain groups use robots to spread it for their own purposes. What do you think?

[Nik]

Wouldn't be surprised. And maybe with the books too. Assuming rank depends on sheer amount of purchases, maybe someone who can finance purchases of say 200 books from unique ip addresses may be able to rise high enough to attract attention from real readers and in scores too?

[Scout]

Seems possible.