Marketing – Page 5 – John D Reinhart

Gorilla Marketing, Phase Two

You just gotta love a sequel, huh? What better way to follow up a mega blockbuster hit than with another blockbuster? Boom, looka that, folks, something even better!

Well, in the spirit of gorilla marketing, I’ll go you one better than a sequel.

Howzabout this; Chapter 2 of DROPPINGTON PLACE? Oh, yeah, uh-huh, fist-bumps all ‘round.

Wha-aa-aat? Sonny Jim, you’re just plain givin’ away the whole dignity-danged store!

No I aint, Pa. I swear it. It’s a new market thing program about monkeys. All the cool folks ‘r doing it.

In today’s hurly-burly, gotta-make-a-buck world, you have to stand out of the crowd. You have to be the one. The one. You. If you don’t, the world will run right over you.

Think about this Internet. Right this instant, you can look up, like, a gazillion books for free. Books on just about anything, and fiction, and graphic novels, and whatever you want.

When you put your hard-earned words into that maelstrom, unless you just happen to be a Hemingway, or a Rowling, or a King, or another author more current whose name I should know but don’t because I’m actually an uncultured boob, you get lost in that rush of online pieces, just another salmon in the dash upstream.

So, you have to stand out. You have to be different. You have to be the one sought out by your readers.

Enter the gorilla wearing a tie.

GO: “I say, old bean, why not publish your work in a blog first, eh?”

JR: “But, jeepers, Mr. Rilla…”

GO: “Go, please.”

JR: “Oh, okay. Goodbye.”

GO: “No, don’t leave, you ninny. Simply call me Go. No need to be formal.”

JR: “Oh. Anyway, Go, nobody reads my blog.”

GO: “Surely someone does.”

JR: “Well, I guess there are quite a few…”

GO: “There you are. Publish your book, one chapter at a time, to your readers. They’ll read it, talk amongst themselves, and before long, why, they’ll be clamoring to… “

JR: “To buy my books?”

GO: “No, to have you hanged. I’ve read your stuff. You should be ashamed.”

So, in the spirit of Go Rilla, the marketing monkey…

GO: “Ape, if you please. Great ape, in fact.”

DROPPINGTON PLACE, Chapter 2, is now released on my Droppington Place blog, here. You can also follow the link at the bottom of this page to the Droppington Place site.

Enjoy!

Marketing Ploy: Chapter Added

Okay, no lies here. Only the straight up truth. Something inside says to publish the chapters of this book, one miserable week at at time, until the book is laid completely before you. So, submitted for your approval, MARIGOLD’S END, Chapter 3. You’ll find it over there, on the left, under the title MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel. See how it works?

So, why publish chapters of the book. Once you’ve read it, you’re not likely to buy, like, a dozen copies. Maybe you could – they make great Christmas presents and passable doorstops – but no one is holding their breath.

No, it’s something more fundamental than marketing. What is the WWW if not the marketplace of the world. What is the Internet, and the ability to publish whatever, whenever, if not a way to float ideas, to share thoughts, to trade our works of art with one another?

In Shakespeare’s time, he published his own work through a publisher, hoping that it would sell. But more than just hoping for a little quick cash, a little Elizabethan jingle-in-the-jeans, he had to write, had to publish, had to share his words.

You’re a writer, you understand. You do the blog thing as a way to express yourself.

More, this is marketing. While I want you to read this book, and DROPPINGTON PLACE, my next book, I really want to impress in your mind that my books are good and entertaining and worth the paltry shekels one shells out for them. I’m not marketing these books, but their children.

Which, according to gorilla marketing, means I’m not marketing at all, but publicizing. You, John or Jane Q. Public – isn’t it weird that John and Jane have the same middle initial? It must be Quincy – are not being marketed, but are reading a fine piece of publicity. No pictures, please.

So, go on over and click on MARIGOLD’S END, the Novel, and breeze through Chapter 3. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Oh, and enjoy the publicity. No pictures, please.

BN Marketing Promise Kept

I’d say this promise is kept by popular demand, but you, dear reader, and I both know that that’s not true, for there is only you and me in this cruel-hearted world. Please place your beer here – _____ – for crying into, later. For we have work to do now.

First and foremost: below you will find the outline for my book, DROPPINGTON PLACE, precisely as promised in yesterday’s post on Bare Naked Marketing. An important part of marketing, of course, is delivering on your promises. Some of those promises are implied. If you shell out several dollars for a Yugo, that the car has a steering wheel is implied, along with seats and a suitably tame headliner. But a promise like “I will share this with you,” well, that’s a promise with no ifs, ands or butterumpusses about it.

If you were a playwright, you’d know this formula:

Act I: we meet the protagonist and his circumstances. All is well until, just at the end, something dreadful shatters his peaceful existence.

Act II: things gets worse and worse, more and more dire, nastier and nastier, until, at the very end of the act, the idea emerges that will save all.

Act III: we act on the idea, vanquish the dreadfulness, and resolve the manifold puzzles presented during the day. If it’s a musical, the audience walks out humming the overture.

In DROPPINGTON PLACE, we don’t have quite that much structure. You’ll find the outline over there, on the left of this site, under the strikingly original title DROPPINGTON PLACE: Outline.

So, there it is, you and I are sealed at the word processor. I share this with you in the hopes of giving you a window into my creative process.

I trust, of course, that we won’t see you running down the street with my outline in hand bellowing “Eureka! I know what to write!” That would bring bad juju, wouldn’t it?

Your ideas are always welcome – simply comment on this blog.

Stay tuned, dear reader. There are chapters, both of this book and MARIGOLD’S END, to follow.

Remember: no running.

Bare Naked Marketing

Please disregard the provocative headline… nobody here is taking off their clothes. Probably.

So, whatever does one mean by bare naked marketing? Unlike guerilla marketing, which takes advantage of life’s nooks and crannies to broadcast one’s message, and unlike gorilla marketing, which is naked by default… seriously, how many gorillas look good in yoga pants… bare naked marketing is a new concept, proposed by yours truly.

BNM… the rule for technical writers goes like this: bare naked marketing (BNM), but that’s tedious… is organic marketing. As nobody reads this blog, I’ve decided to expose myself – all right, just my artistic soul – on my current project, DROPPINGTON PLACE.

We’ve already discussed designing the story, and I may have posted a chapter. We have therefore already explored part of my new marketing ploy… I mean, plan.

BNM: starting tomorrow, you will get to see the writing process that goes into this book. The outline will be posted here, along with changes as they occur. Chapters, as they are finished, will be here, too.

Why BNM? You’re a writer, right? Well, so am I. Does it not make sense to share our thoughts and processes? I mean, it’s not like some great big secret? Should it be? I think not!

So, starting tomorrow, visit here for the much ballyhooed Bare Naked MARKETING. Clothing on your part is entirely optional.

Writing at Disneyland

There’s something sort of crazy about being, well, sort of crazy. At the top of the list is that you don’t have to explain anything – well, I’m just sort of crazy like that. You get lots of clever adjectives, like quirky, and different. And, because you’re just sort of crazy like that, you know, quirky and different, you find yourself with lots of free time on your hands. Let’s not invite her – you, know, she’s quirky and different.

This big and mighty world tries really hard to convince you that being busy is doing something. You can be busy all day long at Disneyland, but, what have you accomplished beyond exhausting yourself and dropping two hundred bucks to a guy in a mouse costume? Nothing, Jack. For all that busyness, you accomplished nothing.

So it is with we quirky, different writers, dontcha think? This endeavor right here, this very one you are reading, which hopefully brings a smile to your erstwhile lips and perhaps gives you something over which to mull when you are not busy being busy, may very well be busyness for the sake of busyness.

It occurred to me while thinking about marketing…I mean, promoting…my book, my mind spinning feverishly like a rabid squirrel in a hamster wheel, that there is nothing to do about marketing…I mean, promoting…my book until my adorable editor is done with it. For the record, she did say she thought this was the best so far, but had scarcely started chapter two. Sigh.

Without a product, what is there to promote?…coming soon from John Reinhart, the author who is, well, uh, is kinda waiting in limbo while his editor wraps up his glorious…wait, where ya going?

BUT, there is a sequel to MARIGOLD’S END, tentatively titled PELICAN’S WAY… there’s sort of a theme here, see, where the Marigold is a ship in the first novel that gets blown up…oh, poop, I spoiled the ending…double poop, because NOW I spoiled the ending by telling you that Phineas blows it up at the end of the book…oh, triple poop! So, see, Pelican is a ship in the next book that gets…well, you’ll have to read that one.

Anyway, the rabid squirrel brains rattled out a good synopsis of that book on Tuesday. And I must say, it’s a ripping good synopsis, as synopses go. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the quirky, different sort of crazy writer that I am, I sort of cracked out a terrific synopsis for my other series of books, called DROPPINGTON PLACE. For a preview of Droppington, scroll to the bottom of this page and you’ll see that I have a blog for that, too. Oh, I’ve thought of everything.

So, while my lovely editor does everything other than edit my book, my NEW plan is to work on DROPPINGTON PLACE. And thus my hands will be busy.

But, is busyness productivity? If the words crackle and dance from your fingertips, but never get published, is that accomplishing anything?

Maybe that’s why my crazy, quirky, different friends are so fond of Disneyland.

Marketing is a Misnomer

Earth to dummy, come in, dummy. Earth to dummy, come in, dummy…

Marketing your book…and, you’re not the dummy, by the way, it’s me…anyway, marketing your book isn’t marketing it at all. Marketing is just a term, a word, meant to scare the living pants off of the weak and timid squirrelly-minded folks not blessed with an iron resolve. I used to have an iron doorstop, but it rusted and ruined my carpet. Just like the word marketing can ruin your efforts to sell your book.

You are not a marketer. You, my friend, are a writer. And, even though there are some pretty good marketing writers, and you might be one, you are a novelist first and foremost, and through and through.

But, gee, Mr. Wizard, if I don’t market my book, however am I to sell enough copies to retire in Provence and grow grapes. Well, Skippy, I’m glad you asked.

We are not marketers, you and I. We are publicists. Publicist. Has a much more noble ring, don’t it? We are not marketing our work, pandering to the common masses as if we were hawking corn flakes. Marketing is a highly specialized field, filled with buzzwords and jargon and MBAs. Not newbie nimrods like you and me. Well, me.

All seriousness aside, isn’t your goal to sell your book to people who want to read it? You didn’t do all that work just to sell a dust jacket, did you? To be on the close-out aisle at Barnes and Noble?

No, no, no. That’s the province of the marketer.

You, you write your WordPress blog, you have your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+. You are spreading the word through your social media, which is good.

But, you are preaching to one hundredth of one percent of your future readers. If I sold a book to every reader of this blog the total would come to three…four if I buy one, but, really, I’ve already read it.

Your book is not its own entity. Your book is you…that must become your mantra. I am my book. My book is me.

Although it’s filled with beautiful imagery and breathtaking passages, it all comes to naught if no one knows about it. About you.

So, begone knock-kneed marketing fool, and be welcome, sophisticated publicist…

Okay, so, like, what now?

Well, what does a publicist do? Publicists bring their clients an opportunity to talk, to build interest in the book. A publicist sails the seas of opportunity, thinking in new and different ways about how to get you noticed. The notice turns into a chance to talk, which turns into public curiosity about your book, which turns into sales, which turns into grape arbors in your front yard. See how easy it is?

So, that is the task for you and me – I include myself because you shouldn’t have to do this on your own: we will become publicists, but not for our books. For ourselves. You and I will get the world interested in us…so interested that they will clamor to buy our novels. And that clamor, my friend, might just bring you your own estate-bottled chardonnay.

The Internet as Closed Door

Marketing and publishing your book in this new, connected age is rather like convincing yourself that you’re a genius – no one will dispute it because no one is really listening. No one really cares.

Now, don’t get all huffy and think ol’ Johnny’s getting crabby and bitter. I’ve always been crabby. And bitter? That’s just the flavor to the stew!

But the answer to your publishing and marketing puzzles cannot be found on the WWW. Go ahead, Google “Answers to my marketing puzzles” and you’ll see what I mean. Not there. Never has been.

No one is going to give you the answer. No one is listening.

It’s because you’re asking too darned big of a question. The answer to marketing your book cannot be found on the I’net because you haven’t asked a valid question. It’s like Googling “how to make food.” It can’t be answered.

So you, my writer friend, have to do the hard work of figuring out how you want to market your writing – are you going to publish it yourself, or shoot for the agent/publisher combo? Are you going to purchase advertising or use social media?

Even as you ask yourself these questions, plans start to form in the mind. Plans, plots, machinations. Maybe you’ll do this, with a twist of that..Ah HAH! They’ll never see it coming!

For me, the hardest part is the waiting. My beautiful editor may have read the first couple of pages, but that’s it. Gosh, I sent the corrected version on Christmas Eve…what gives? Could she possibly have anything better to do?

In the mean time, I’ve been foolishly posing my marketing questions to Google, and have reached the conclusion that folks online mostly want to sell me stuff. Perhaps the WWW stands for the Worldwide Wearing down of the Wallet, although I suppose that would be the WWDW, which sounds like we should be carrying guns and calling each other “bro

“.

The point is that, while the Internet is a fantastic resource, it’s not the answer. If you check out a book on marketing from the library, your product is still not marketed. The book doesn’t care about you, either.

At the end of the day, you and I must do our homework, make our tough marketing decisions, get off our protruding duffs, and do something other than hope the Internet will tell us what to do. I’m talking you, mister, or perhaps just to me. Rats. I hate it when that happens!

Until those decisions are made, I’m sorry, but the Internet is closed.

Change Your Marketing Mind

The world changed while we were sleeping. It used to be kind of a pain in the bum to hand-write stuff. I mean, you have to get the paper, to get the pens, and most often you had to get the erasable pen because none of us is that good of a writer. But then came typewriters and hey that was pretty cool.

Word processors, those phantoms of the future, made it so easy to create good literature. And then, along came speech – to – text.

I was going to write this post and complain about how difficult it was to use the tiny keyboard on my cell phone. But then I discovered this speech-to-text dealio. Now I am speaking slowly, and clearly, but allowing my inner whatever that is to flow through my lips rather than through my fingers. queen.

The word queen is what my speech – to – text engine things is the word whee, so there is a lot of work to do yet. But, imagine the possibilities for those of us who are too lazy to type the little finger things on our cell phones.

Speech – to – text is supposed to be for those people who have trouble typing. Well, if you are like me, typing is too much trouble. So, I suppose speech – to – text is for you and me. Cool.

How does this relate to marketing? Think about it: you can just open your mouth and create great stuff! Or, if you are like me, you can open your mouth see mediocre stuff, and then go back and type it in correctly.

While we slept, the world changed. This new world is much more friendly to everyone. Even those of us too lazy to type out our marketing messages. Cool!

Elevator-Speech Dustcover Marketing

Don’t you hate those people who sum up their lives in, like, fifteen seconds? What do I do? Well, after I graduated with my MBA from Dogsnorton University, I became the sales manager for Incredible Products, the premier manufacturer of sodium-hydroxide based whisk-broom filaments with offices here and in seventeen other countries. Perhaps you should look into purchasing sodium-hyrdoxide whisk-broom fliaments. Your first thought: don’t these elevator doors ever open?

On the one hand, it’s nice to know what that person is all about. On the other, an elevator pitch invariably leaves you standing there saying “uh, well, huh, how about that?”

Sadly, this must become you. Wait, don’t go! …well, go if you must. But hurry back.

The fellow making his elevator speech to you is showing you a sign, paving your road, mentoring you, yes, you. Instead of muttering “you’re ticking me off, Phil,” you should take a mental note. Use a pencil if you have to.

This person is showing you how to market your book. He’s not exactly granting you permission to be annoying and mono-focused, but he is giving you a great example of how to sell. His elevator speech is guiding you in creating your dustcover speech.

When you buy a book, you don’t just read the front cover. You flip it over and read the paragraph on the back of the dustcover to see if the book has more than just a cool picture to recommend it. That guy’s elevator speech is his dustcover paragraph.

Here are two dustcover paragraphs on my book, MARIGOLD’S END:

The deep blue sea has haunted and hunted twelve-year-old bookbinder’s apprentice Phineas Caswell ever since it took away his best friend and his father. Now, shanghaied aboard his uncle’s ship, the Kathryn B along with his new-found friends Louise and Taylor, he must face pirates, storms, and the secret of nations as he learns the meaning of trust and the value of responsibility.

…and…

Everything happens to twelve-year-old bookbinder’s apprentice Phineas Caswell: his father and best friend are taken by the sea, he’s beset by bullies, and he’s dragged off to sea by his uncle. But, after learning the ways of sailors, after battling ruthless pirates, facing storms, and even determining the fate of nations, he realizes that life is not what happens to you, but what you make it.

So. Which book would you buy? – I’m sorry, “neither” is not a valid option. I’m still trying to decide which of these best describes not just the story, but the style of the book. Like the elevator speech, how you say what you say says what you need to say, too. Well, I say!

The second book sounds like more fun, but the first book might teach you more. I haven’t figured out which one I like yet – your input would be appreciated before you leave the elevator.

So, go out there and practice your dustcover speech. Who knows? Someday you might be on an elevator, and someone might ask what you do. You turn to them and say “Everything happens to twelve-year-old bookbinder’s apprentice Phineas…”

Don’t these doors ever open?

Gorilla Marketing Phase I: In Process

At eighty miles an hour, hauling bananas down the freeway, the steering wheel of your new Yugo pops off the column and into your lap. Turns out the factory hadn’t quite gotten around to tightening the steering-wheel bolt. First, it’s a miracle your Yugo can go that fast, but, most important, you rather expect the thing to be complete when you find it in the showroom.

So, bringing the book to market.

Instead of guerrilla marketing, which takes advantage of evolving market circumstances and opportunities to quickly and effectively advertise a product, I’m using a technique called gorilla marketing, which takes advantage of overall laziness and general inaction with a grudging commitment to minimal effort. The gorilla marketing maxim: how much can you get done without doing anything.

Gorilla marketing is certainly affordable, both financially and time-wise, although it may not be as effective as that guerrilla thing in getting a book to market.

But, guerrilla or gorilla, you gotta do one thing: finish the darned book. Finish. It. Cross all of the T’s, dot the I’s, and get it done beyond done. Spell check it. Grammar check it. Re-re-re-read it once more.

I am happy to have an utterly brilliant editor very close by. My wife has a master’s degree in Russian literature, is an avid reader, and, most important, a mother of three terrific kids.

In the best gorilla marketing tradition, I didn’t even bother to print the thing out, but simply emailed a copy of MARIGOLD’S END to her. I just hear the boop as it arrived on her cell phone. That’s really close to doing nothing about marketing my book.

Jackity-crackers, kids, we’re working now. Although she is perhaps the slowest dignity-danged editor on the planet, she’s really good at it. And the price is unbeatable!

She will clean my clock on just about every sentence in this thing, and will make me rewrite the stuff that just doesn’t make sense to her, and we’ll have approximately 27 arguments over why Phineas says this and not that.

But, at the end of it, the MARIGOLD’S END that comes out will be the cat’s underwear.

So before I sent it to my editor, and in order to bring the number of soon-to-be-coming snarky comments to a bare minimum, I had to spell- and grammar-check it one more time. Found a couple of things I’d missed – who knew? The grammar-checker challenged my sentence structures – fie on thee, grammar-checker! Anyway, it’s done, and the missus has already said she regrets taking on the task. Cool!

Now, how to fix the steering wheel in my Yugo…