One of our esteemed colleagues opined recently to the effect that selling my book using the POD (print-on-demand) model would suit me, given my preternaturally effluvial egregious talent for self-advertisement and the chthonicity of my extensively ramified contacts book.
The receipt of this message quite cheered up my day (hat tip, Dr J. L. R. of London) and set me thinking of ways in which I could use such attributes to sell my book most efficiently.
I think the strategy of choice must be viral marketing – however, I note that the wikipedia entry on the subject reports
- It is claimed that a customer tells an average of three people about a product or service he/she likes, and eleven people about a product or service which he/she did not like. Viral marketing is based on this natural human behavior.
In which case, one way to spread the word is for you, having bought my book (a snip at £6.99 + p&p, or just £1.99 as a download) to conceive a violent dislike for it, and find that you are gripped with an urge to sneeze tell everyone you meet, even random passers-by, that By The Sea by Henry Gee is the most revolting, feculent, pustulent excrescence of a grimoire that it’s been your misfortune to read, for all that it contains a great deal of sex, violence, dwarfs, violent sex, and violent sex with dwarfs, some of which, you are ashamed to say, you found horribly, even blasphemously appealing, even if the part about dwarfs is, actually, untrue, and the result of a viral marketing campaign set up by my enemas enemies in a pathetic attempt to discredit me (so, to Drs I. B. of Memphis and R. P. G. of Sydney, the cheque is in the post).
So, there it is. Buy my book. You like. You have sexy time.
As of today (17 September) I have sold seven copies. Five actual copies and two downloads. Thought you might be interested, that’s all. I’ll go now.
Hi,
even if this a small number for statistics, soon you will be able to make a graphic of the country diffusion of your book:
shipped (UK, US, Australia?)
1 download (Italy)
I appreciated the link to the Tolkien society web page and the Mallorn journal.
Hi Poltronieri – are you the Mystery Downloader? If so, many thanks!
If that’s the case, the breakdown by country is
UK: 3 (2 books, 1 download)
USA: 1 (book)
Canada: 1 (book)
Finland: 1 (book)
Italy: 1 (download)
I can also break it down by species:
Homo sapiens (5)
Felis catus (2)
Can you cross-tabulate by country, species, and book/download? I think you’ll demonstrate that cats don’t like to use computers. Well, not for reading. They do seem to find them suitable as pillows.
I can confirm that both the cats bought the hard copy, and that photographic evidence suggests that at least one of them uses it as a pillow. The USP of hard copy in the feline market is that the pages can be shreeded for use as cat litter after reading. Or even before reading. Just as long as they buy it, I don’t care.