Recently I have poured out my heart to you regarding my overall marketing scheme for my blog. Briefly speaking my marketing goal is now to be ineffective, quixotic and odd, which, right off the top, are not your standard marketing goals, mostly because it is hard to work money into any of those approaches. I am also keen to be subversive and mercurial in my marketing- all lofty goals indeed, but admittedly slightly different than the sorts of things in marketing books. This is okay because I have found I don't much like marketing books.
Rather that getting all philosophical and political and bitter with this I will unveil my current marketing endeavor which I think expresses some of my new exciting goals. I am doing this because I am a real man of action! My current marketing endeavor is....
Books!
Ha! No. Not regular books like they sell in bookstores or online or whatever. I'm not falling for that whole publishers' scam thing. You know the one, where you query and send out a manuscript and some publisher accepts your book for publication. And then they edit it, and they market it and send you on book tours. You get a few stellar reviews and, bam, suddenly you're on the New York Times bestseller list and checks start rolling slowly in. You come in second for The National Book Award, but you win the Pulitzer. The book's options are bought. It's about this time you quit your job clerking and finish your second book, also a huge bestseller. You buy land and build a really nice house on the beach in North Carolina or something. They make a movie of your first book that wins several Academy Awards. Your third and fourth books aren't huge, huge hits, but cement your reputation and have some passionate devotees. There are a couple more movies, a few more books, and a sort of graceful long half-retirement as a national figure and great man of letters, or at least pretty good person of letters. As you get very old you might pop off an irascible essay every once in awhile on especially important current events that reminds everyone how great you are. And then, finally, after your long career and happy life, you die in your beloved North Carolina or whatever home. There is a surge in your book sales but you can't appreciate it because you're dead. Your publisher rakes in money, but you face oblivion. And if your books are remembered for a hundred years they are forgotten in a thousand. And if by some fluke, your books aren't forgotten in a thousand years, well, who cares? You are dead.
Nope, I wasn't born yesterday. Not falling for that one. I like living, thank you very much!
So, these books I am talking about I have already been working on. The first set is of ten. These have hand painted covers, are retrofitted into old books missing pages or being discarded, and are, loosely, a book version of this blog. The title of them is From Out Past Where the Dewey Decimal System Ends (except for one copy I forgot to put the word "system" in). Eight of these books will be released into the wild. They will be placed in "Little Free Libraries" throughout my city in order to experience magical kismet in accidental meetings with readers on the hoof, or maybe they will be ignored or rained on or whatever. It's out of my hands at that point. Two of these books don't venture off to the wee, front lawn libraries. They are instead prizes for my blog! One was already won in sort of an "Easter egg" hidden contest (it required close blog interaction). The other prize book is yet to be awarded, but I will announce the parameters of that contest soon. This one won't be a hidden contest, it'll be a bit more clear, so stay tuned. Hopefully by tomorrow or the next day I will manage to post some pictures of what these bespoke books are so you can see whether you want to haunt my blog every second in breathless anticipation or whether you're now free to turn off your computer for good and perhaps sell it for seed money to begin making the 28 foot, seaworthy sailing vessel out of hand planed wood that you always dreamed of making. I think either path you take would be good. Follow your heart.
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