Musings on Book Marketing

Happy holidays, my friends!

The Christmas season brings out the child in many of us.  It is a good time to bring up my new book, I Won't Grow Up!: The Comic Man-Child in Film from 1901 to the Present.

It is my objective to spread awareness of the book in an interesting and entertaining way.  I hope you check out my blog throughout the week for daily updates.

Marketing is a tricky business.  As confident as I am that I Won't Grow Up! will please readers, I know very well that it is not enough to simply write a good book.  I must sell the book.  A reader must be sufficiently motivated to spend hard-earned cash on the latest tome before an author can marvel the reader with his rigorous research and deep insights.  That can be a problem if the author lacks the unique range of skills that define a tip-top salesman.  I know that, if I could translate my many regular blog visitors into book buyers, this book would quickly become a big success.  But what is the best way to do that?  Zig Ziglar, salesman extraordinaire, believed a great deal in positive thinking.  He once said, "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."  It would be wise of me to take Mr. Ziglar’s advice if I want to give this book the marketing push that it deserves.  So, it is with a positive attitude that I hereby invite you to purchase my book.

Let me start off today by emphasizing the quality of the book.  In assembling the book, I used only the purest and most natural ingredients of film research and film analysis.  I have left out unnecessary fillers, binders, toxics, preservatives, and common allergens that drastically affect product quality - and may affect YOU.  What I most want you to know is that the book is free of academic jargon.  It was always my objective in assembling this study to provide the reader with lucid text.  The topics are not buried beneath thick layers of baffling theory and opaque prose.  Do not break out your academic glossary.  The following words will not appear in the book: presentism, intradiegetic, chrononym, dromomatics, multivalent, valorizing.

Is there anything else that I wanted to tell you?  Oh, yes, you should also know that the book was not tested on animals.  For decades, mice have been forced to read books so that scientists can test for harmful effects.

The hazel dormouse was found to suffer skin lesions after reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  Droopy ears and ocular discharge were side effects that mice suffered from reading Twilight.  It is truly a shame.

Okay, maybe it's not a good idea to sell a book like you would sell a brand of shampoo or a new type of tomato sauce.  So, tomorrow, we will look more at the content of the book.  Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you remembered to hug a small furry animal today.