Dear Reader,I was completely heart broken the other day. The author decided she needed to delete the blogs she had created. They were genius and I had not yet made copies of them. How was I ever going to be able to share them with you? Luckily, after some digging, I found a link to a copy someone else had made. Yeah, it's so good *multiple* strangers took notice. I haven't been here in a long time, but, oh boy, what a post we have today...
The author's plan in self-publishing was to sell so many copies on Lulu that Simon & Schuster would take notice and decide they must buy the rights. Like the author's home phone would ring one day and on the other end someone would say, "This is Mr. Schuster. My good friend Oprah just lent me her copy of your novel. We MUST publish it. How does a bagillion dollars sound?"
Lulu promised world-wide sales (that is how the Information Super Highway works—globally), but this wasn't moving enough copies of the book. In fact, there were no sales whatsoever over the summer. I tried to explain to the author that she needed to create her own fan base. She needed to promote herself. The cheapest way to do that would be to go online and find chat rooms and message boards and befriend people and make some sales. I mean, the topics of her book are divorce and caring for elderly parents. How many forums must there be for those two groups?
She didn't understand, though. First she "played the email game" and then she hijacked her son's Tumblr account. Then she went back to whining to relatives in person.
As it turns out, all this started days before she was supposed to become a grandmother. For those on the up and up, yeah, I was about to give birth for the first time any day and these are the emails she sent me ABOUT HER BOOK SALES...
-- 9/5/09
HiI wanted to tell you how I've been trying to sell my book. What I've been doing is sending out e-mails to addresses I make up on my own. At first I was just attaching words from the Thesaurus to one of five e-mail companies. I created over 5,0000 of these messages. I didn't sell any books.
(I know what you're thinking: It's obvious she spent many years working in legitimate marketing departments.)
I decided to change my plan. Now I'm sending the e-mails to addresses that begin with a woman/girl's name. I figure that might mean I'll reach a real female audience.
I have no idea where my first e-mails went. I began to wonder, since the addresses were all so strange. I mean I was sending to places like "artisticgirl@yahoo.com." Who can say where that e-mail went?
I actually got responses to four of my first e-mails. Two women sent back an automatic response inviting me to join their sex club. One woman wrote back and asked me to take her off my list. The fourth one was the strangest. Someone wrote back to me and sent me this message:
没有您的信息,我的生活将乏味；没有您的支持,我的生命缺乏灿烂。谢谢您!
联系电话
Of course, I don't know Chinese, so I have no idea what this message says. I assume she also asked me to take her off my list.
So, I've been having fun. I'm hoping the women's names will get me some buyers. I don't know how else I can sell this book.
Talk to you soon,
[author]
You can imagine my response here. Something about WHY ARE YOU SPAMMING PEOPLE?
-- 9/6/09
Hi
I have a special web site set up for my e-mail game. It's not my [real] account.
Why would the site stop working?
One thing I didn't tell you about my e-mail adventure is that when I sent those messages to 5,0000 people or so, I used a subject line that said, "Oprah Winfrey refused to help me." Then in the letter, I explained that Oprah wouldn't read my book. When I decided to start with the woman's names instead of thesaurus words, I changed the subject line. I thought the people who like Oprah might be offended by my subject line. I also thought a lot of people might think that note was a scam. My new subject line is "Message about love and marriage." Do you think that's any better? Do you have any suggestions for a subject line?
I hope you're feeling great.
love,
[author]
Did Oprah have any idea how many unsolicited, unpublished manuscripts she and Harpo would receive after she created a book club? The author knows Oprah isn't a publisher, but she decided to send Oprah and her producers separate copies of the manuscript. Only the producers responded with a form letter stating that they do not look at such material. Needless to say, the author took this personally.
-- 9/8/09
Hi
I've come up with a new idea. First though I think I should say I think you're right. When people see a note from a stranger, they probably just delete it. My subject line may do no good at all.
My new idea is to add an excerpt from my novel to my letter. A guy who came to our writing group and tried to tell us how to land an agent suggested an excerpt is a great way to sell a book. It lets people get an idea of what kind of story you're writing.
-- 9/17/09
Hi
Thanks for sending the baby pictures. I hope you'll keep them coming. He looks adorable. What a cutey! I like the one where he's scrunching up his nose.
I'm writing to tell you my woes with the e-mail business. I signed up on Tumblr like you suggested. I don't think it will do me any good. Even though several people signed up to follow me after I signed up to follow a couple hundred, only one wrote to me to say he was interested in my book. So I don't think I will make many sales through Tumblr.
Having no help from Tumblr made me decide to go back to my own e-mail address business. I sent myself a note with the excerpt you saw to see if Yahoo dumped it into my spam folder. When I checked my spam folder because it didn't show up in my ordinary mailbox, I was astounded. I discovered that Yahoo has been sending a ton of "mail failure" letters to my spam box. I have received thousands of rejections in the spam box. So this means thousands of my e-mails never went to the destinations I typed.
I figure I may be lucky if 20 of the 300 e-mails I send out with each round make it to a real person. Nevertheless, I plan to keep trying the name game with the e-mails. That's because when I went to my Lulu site, it said I had over a thousand hits on my book site. Those people must have come from the e-mails I'm sending out.
I don't know if I've sold any books. I don't want to look for another month or so.
I am having all kinds of problems with Yahoo. It gets upset with me for sending out so many e-mails. It sends me a message that forces me to type in a code before it will tell me if it sent my e-mails. This slows things down in a big way.
Sometimes Yahoo does other things, too. It's very temperamental. Today it refused to accept the code when I typed it in. It kept giving me the same error message over and over again, while it demanded I type in a new code. Obviously, I couldn't send out any e-mails this afternoon.
I've decided to stay away from Yahoo and the e-mail game for the next 36 hours. I'm going to give Yahoo a chance to cool down and miss me.
Nothing else is new.
love,
[author]
This is getting good, right?
-- 10/2/09
Hi
I am totally bummed out. When I went to check my book on Lulu, it said I had over a thousand hits. I figured that meant over a thousand people looked at my book. I was expecting a lot of them to buy it.
Today I went to check my revenue. I haven't sold any books since a couple family members bought them last month. I have only sold a total of 4 books.
This is bad news. It appears I am not selling any copies by sending out my e-mails each day. I was sure I was selling something more. I'm so bummed.
Nothing else new.
love,
[author]
Hello everyone,
I am a writer. As a writer, I just published my first book on the Lulu publishing site. The title of my book is [title of my book in all caps].
Now I’m a writer who is trying to figure out how to sell my book. I’m afraid Lulu won’t be much help with this. They say they market it worldwide, but I’m not sure how they do that. Readers can download a copy this writer made at Lulu for only $5. If you want to have me e-mail you the first chapter, you can reach me at [email address]@yahoo.com
I am a writer who can give you the synopsis of the book here:
In this first novel, [author] tells a tender, sensitive tale about a dysfunctional family facing a variety of problems. The biggest problem involves the main characters, sisters Angela and Bev. They are taking care of their elderly, bedridden mother. Angela wants Mama moved to a nursing center. Bev wants her to stay at home where she can care for Mama and pursue a passion for positive thinking. The sisters fight about this problem all the time. Set in the posh town of La Greer Park, Angela works as a wedding coordinator. She has problems with her own marriage, since she suspects her husband has cheated and this is what makes her move in with Mama and Bev. Add to this relationships with teenaged children that don’t always please Angela. It’s a novel that will be relished by anyone taking care of an elderly parent, as well as anyone facing divorce. It’s a timely novel with many twists and turns that force a person to think long and hard about the value of marriage and family. This story is told with a unique voice that will be remembered well after the final page is reached. It’s a story that will teach a valuable lesson about love and what we all need to know to be successful at it.
I can also give you an excerpt here:
When Brandy and Trevor appeared for their next regularly scheduled appointment with Angela, no one said a thing about the way their last visit to Angela’s office had ended. Instead, Angela greeted them with a more cheerful reminder that their big day happened to be less than two weeks away.
“We’re ready,” Brandy said.
“Speak for yourself,” said Trevor.
“Is the carriage all set?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Did they say who the driver will be?”
“I think the name they gave me was Marcia Somebody. Do you mind having a female driver?”
“She minds not having Jason show up at the church.”
“Stop it, Trevor.”
“Why? It’s true. Tell her about your bachelor party.”
“It wasn’t a bachelor party.”
“What would you call it?”
“I’m a girl. Remember? It’s called a bachelorette party.”
“Whatever. The point is I’ll have to get even now. Okay?”
“There’s nothing to get even for.”
“My ass.” He sat forward, braced his hands against the edge of Angela’s desk. “Did you happen to hear what Brandy and her little friends did at this party?”
Angela shook her head, almost too afraid to ask what might have happened. She’d actually seen two weddings bite the dust due to the shenanigans at such supposedly innocent gatherings.
It wasn’t easy explaining to two hundred wedding guests that you’d decided you couldn’t marry a man who enjoyed licking lime Jello off the flesh of a naked woman he’d known less than an hour. Not easy at all. Especially when those guests included your own great-grandparents and two aunts who were the oldest nuns in the city of Milwaukee.
“Brandy and the girls got royally soaked.”
“Like you’ve never been drunk,” Brandy said, as she examined the new paint job on her nails.
“Yeah. Brandy and all her little girlfriends went for a ride. Down Main Street.”
“I wasn’t driving though. We had a designated driver. And all she drank was one glass of wine.”
“They took off their shirts.”
Angela glanced at Brandy, saw her bite her lip to keep her evil little smile from spreading across her perfectly powdered puss.
According to Trevor’s miserable story, which he first heard from his cousin, who happened to be one of the bridesmaids who attended the gathering, taking their shirts off did not mean these girls were riding through town in their Victoria’s Secret’s finest. It meant they were fully exposed. Naked to the night air, arms spread wide, available for inspection.
“There she was, for everyone to see, with her nipples aimed like two happy astronauts—straight at the moon.”
Brandy roared with delight at that comment. “Two happy astronauts! That’s just so Trevor!”
Trevor continued. “And she’s sitting up in this big old convertible, yelling to one and all,‘I’m getting married. Take a look while you can!’”
“I was only kidding,” Brandy said. “Just having some fun. And it only lasted a couple moments, then we put our shirts back on.”
“Yeah. But you took yours off again real soon.”
“Not for very long.”
“Long enough to give Jason the wrong idea.”
Angela gasped. This seemed to get worse by the moment. She’d never heard of a bride inching the envelope quite so far.
“He looked, but he didn’t touch,” Brandy told Trevor.
Trevor sat back in his chair, fixed his eyes on Brandy. “I’ll get even. You wait.”
“I told you, there’s nothing to get even for.”
“My pals are bringing in a stripper straight from D.C. And you know about the women there. I hear she can do more with two little grapes and a pair of high heels to make a man happy than twenty women in string bikinis.”
“She’s allowed to strip, but nothing else,” said Brandy.
“We’ll see.”
“Those are my rules. No touching.”
“What you don’t know, I don’t need to tell. Those are my rules.”
Brandy leaned toward him, almost chin to chin. “No touching her, Trevor.”
“If I’m drunk, I can’t be held responsible.”
“No touching!” Brandy repeated, jabbing two fingers into his chest.
Trevor grabbed her hand, squeezed her fingers till they turned red. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
She yanked her hand free of his, got to her feet, smoothed down the wrinkled, white mini skirt that had become twisted about her thighs. “If you can’t promise no touching, we’re through.”
“Now, Brandy,” Angela tried to interject, but Brandy wasn’t listening.
“I can’t promise anything right now,” Trevor warned Brandy.
“Then consider us divorced.”
“We’re not even married!”
Brandy grabbed her purse from the floor, turned toward the office door.
I am a writer who hopes you like it and might want to buy a copy. I would appreciate any advice on how to sell it.
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