Marketing Fails

In case anyone didn't know my new book: SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS is free this week on Amazon. It is already #94 for free adventure ebook in Kindle store.



One thing that writers hate is Marketing, I'll share some Marketing tactics that didn't work for me.

SOCKPUPPETS:

I can see why this doesn't work. I grabbed a Sock and made a puppet out of it. I started talking to it about my book. I'm getting all excited telling the sock about my book when he interrupts me and tells me socks don't read.

I told him socks don't talk either.

He asked me how I was hearing him if he can't talk.

I didn't have a response, so I said he was an insane piece of cotton that was born in a sweatshop.

We got in a yelling match over who was more evil, the product of a sweatshop or the consumer who buys the product.

Finally my wife came in and broke up the argument. She put the sock in the sock drawer as time-out and made me write on my next novel as my time out.

LESSON LEARNED: If you are going to talk to a Sockpuppet about your book, make sure you find a friendly one.

ANNOYING E-MAIL CAMPAINS:

I thought about emailing everyone I know saying, “Buy my book”. As a former marketing guy I know the importance of testing these things first. So the first email I sent was to myself. I proudly hit send and went back to look at the copy of what I had written. Then I got an email interrupting me. It was from Darrell B. Nelson asking me to buy his latest book.

Annoyed at being interrupted I emailed him back saying to stop Spamming me.

Looking at the results of my first test, I found 100% of the people I sent emails to asked me to stop with the spam.

SENDING OUT A SALES FORCE:

I gathered my evil minions and told them to tell everyone about my book. I was just about to set them loose to spread the word, when I remembered that I should try a role playing exercise. I pretended to be the customer and listened to their pitch.

“Meow.”

Okay that's good, but doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. Let's try again:

“Purrrrr.”

Still not mentioning the product enough, but it was really cute.

Then they started needing ear rubs and petting. Before I knew it the afternoon was gone.

Looking at the numbers, sending out evil minions didn't really help with sales.

Those are some of the Marketing Ideas I tried, your results may vary.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

Review and Special Offer

I got a nice review of SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS over at “A Book and a Dish”  :

Surely, Darrell B. Nelson must have abducted Whitney Strieber, Carl Hiaasen, and Larry Flint together, force fed them lysergic laced pizza for days before recording their collaborative ramblings to produce his next offering: Showgirls and Aliens. Nelson's latest story is a hippie trip of swirling vortices. Who else could combine the black latex logic of 1983's TV series "V", the comical hysteria of aliens run amok found in the first MIB, and a stripper with a heart of gold? Now, add a bouncer with a paladin complex and an ancient bisexual reptilian alien overlord with an ovipositor the size of a Mack truck, and you begin to wonder if the brownie you are munching on tastes a little 'green.' Nelson's imagination streams off the page in multi-colored trailers only to be chased by the chrome gnats of horror from his sophomore effort in the "Vekman Series."

PS - Darrell, I found this amusing anecdote shoved on a shelf in a local Florida food co-op next to the homemade brownie mix and the patchouli spritzers.

To celebrate I'm giving away copies of the Vekman series. Starting at midnight tonight you can download SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS for free at Amazon

I'll also be giving away the first Vekman book AN EXTRA TOPPING OF HORROR at Smashwords:


Use the coupon code: RU22X

By giving these books away I have two sinister motives. First, like a drug dealer I give out free samples to (hopefully) get people hooked on my writing. Second, If you like one or both books I'd love it if you would leave a comment at either Amazon or Smashwords.

The less sinister motive, I get a kick out of brightening people's day if I can get a few people to chuckle for a few hours it's worth it.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE

My Source of Inspiration.

My Grandmother was a great role model and a source of inspiration to me.
She passed away recently, I hope to live up to her memory.

Patricia "Pat" Parker obituary.

By Darrell B. Nelson author of I KILLED THE MAN THAT WASN'T THERE