More Really Bad Book Marketing Advice *or* How to Rock A #KindleDeal

So, all right, let's face facts.  Even if you publish traditionally (which I do) with a Big Five publisher (which I do...or is it Big Four, or Three, or the Grand Monolith at this point?), you still have to help your book along marketing and publicity-wise.  Even if you have a lovely and helpful support team at said publisher (which I do).  Even if anything, folks, you still do!

My avowed goal being to offer such bad writing advice that I'm the last writer left standing, I'm here to extend this terrible guidance into the fun realm of Marketing Your Book.  Because I am absolutely convinced that it's possible to market your book into an early grave, and I'm here to tell you how.

Here is the case study, for which I graciously volunteer myself, the Princess of Bad Marketing.

Anyway, my publisher was nice enough to turn Afterparty into a #kindledeal, slashing the price of the Kindle to $1.99 until August 3rd to coincide with an AuthorBuzz Kindle promo.  This was pretty damned amazing! 

And after driving the nice people at AuthorBuzz so crazy I was confident they were on the verge of paying me to go away -- highly recommended; you can invest the pay-off in colorful book-related swag -- I decided to set out on my own. 

1.) Do a Headtalker.  Headtalker is a way to crowd source without having the anxiety of having to harrass a full hundred of your friends to help out or you get nothing.  On Headtalker you can go with, say, three (okay, maybe not three, but some very small number) of people to harass and when that small number signs up, you go live!  On the date of your choice!  It's like magic, and the especially wonderful thing about the small number is that this means you've only harassed and annoyed a small number of your friends so you can hit up the friends you haven't lost next time you have a sudden, insatiable urge to go viral.  (1st Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Friends)

2.) "Boost" (which is a polite word for forking over money to FaceBook) a Facebook post that sends all you fans straight to Amazon.  Then Boost it again.  And again.  And again.  Remember there is no such thing as too much exposure...if you want to lose fans.  (2nd Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Fans)

3.) Spam the shit out of Twitter. You heard me: go for it!  You know all that other really terrible twitter advice out there about how every tweet has to have a hook and a call to action and bombastic self-praise about how people have to buy your book?  Follow it.  Constantly.  Imaginary market research shows that the optimal time period between such tweets in 39 seconds.  Do it! (3rd Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Twitter Folowers)

4.) If you have guest posts on subjects totally unrelated to marketing your book (not that all posts everywhere shouldn't be related to marketing your book in some way or the other), be sure that your #kindledeal is subtly -- or perhaps less than subtly -- thrown in.  So you're supposed to be talking about QuietYA?  Think of it this way:  QuietYA is about books.  Your Kindle thing is about books.  The connection is obvious, right?  (4th Law of Bad Marketing:  Piss off Otherwise Super-Helpful Book Bloggers)

5.) Monetize your blog in the service of Really Bad Promotion.  That's right, come on, don't you secretly admire all those blogs that sell maps to star houses and medical marijuana club memberships in the margins for untold thousands?  Who but the most effete of literary purists doesn't?  This is the moment to use your powers of persuasion to get every single follower to immediately purchase copies of your book for her 400 best friends.  (And if she doesn't have 400 best friends, get her to network.  No excuses, please!)  Be firm.  What do you have to lose?  (5th Law of Bad Marketing: Lose Blog Followers)

There!  In five easy steps, you've practically destroyed all possible good will you ever laid claim to!  Now run out and buy my book for your 400 best friends!  You can thank me later.

Really Bad Writing Advice : The Return of Dear Clueless One

All right, so it's 2013 and I'm limping around in a livid green walking cast yet no workable instructions as to how to take a freaking shower without getting it wet.  

I am not in a good mood.  

What better time to send unsuspecting writers into paroxysms of failure, in the continuing hope that soon I will be the only writer left standing?  (Or limping, as it were.)  So there you have it!  The Clueless One has returned, graciously responding to one of the many, many heartfelt queries stuffing her emailbox.  

Dear Clueless One,

I have written the first several pages of a novel of extraordinary depth, universal appeal, and potential for a fifteen-part animated movie series that I’m pretty sure Sir Laurence Olivier will return from the dead to narrate.  It is a fun-filled tragedy of life and death, with an insouciant haiku about animal husbandry at the opening of each chapter.  

Obviously, I need no advice about my novel.  The thing is, just after I whip off the next 497 pages next week, I plan to sell one to two hundred thousand copies myself before one of the Big However-Many-Are-Left publishers offers me bazillion dollars, which I will turn down because, seriously, I’m a lone wolf genius who chuckles in the face of conventionality and the soul-numbing horror of the editorial process.

So here is the question: To sell my one or two hundred thousand copies, I plan to be invited to talk shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, Al Jazeera, NPR, and a gardening podcast produced by my Aunt Edith and viewed by between 14 and 76 people per week, mostly in Boca Raton. 

Also, I will expect everyone I know to send copies to at least 10 friends along with a chain letter filled with terrifying yet not entirely illegal threats to their health and welfare if they don’t do the same.

What do you think, Clueless One?  Is this a plan, or is this a plan?

Signed,

Rare Literary Dynamo, Yet Not Too Hoity Toity To Eschew Unprecedented Commercial Success

Dear RLDYNTHTTEU,

Yes.