Help Wanted ad

Yesterday, as I breezed past the local Border's on my way to the post office, I cringed when I caught a glimpse of Jose Canseco's trashy baseball 'roid tell-all, Juiced, displayed prominently in the window. Lately, I've been researching book marketing and, let me tell you, it's a pretty depressing subject -- especially if you're a first-time, non-celeb author like myself. When you consider that the major bookstores are giving limited prime display space to dribble like Juiced, you can begin to see why it's an uphill, almost always losing, battle for authors in my position. The playing field is not only not level, it's barely playable. The grass is overgrown and the dirt is as hard as rock.

Initially I thought I could do all of the promotional work on my own. This included putting together a press kit, arranging for book reviews and interviews, lining up book signings, etc. But after a couple of weeks of researching the topic, I now realize that my initial belief was naive. I was trying to push a boulder 10 times my size.

Clearly I was going to need some help in this endeavor. This realization put me in the market for an affordable book publicist. Finding a book publicist, I found, is not all that difficult. Finding an affordable one...that's another matter. Publicity, apparently, does not come cheap. Still, I'm hopeful that I'll find that elusive affordable book publisher somewhere out there.

Asking for help is never easy. We all prefer, I think, to do things on our own -- at least that seems to be true with the male species. But sometimes even men realize that they have to ask for help. This realization might come to them after they've been driving around in circles for hours, but eventually they pull the car over to a service station and ask for directions.

While I was looking up at that massive boulder that was blocking my way, and realizing that I might not be able to afford the cost it would take to move it, I began thinking of ways that it could be moved that wouldn't empty my wallet. That led me to composing the Help Wanted ad below. When I initially wrote it, I did so thinking that I wouldn't send it out until my book was released. I still plan to do that, but I figure the readers of this blog are my most loyal supporters so I'm recruiting them first. If I round up enough volunteers, maybe, just maybe, we can, together, dislodge that boulder.

Help Wanted

Sales agents needed to make new emerging author Randy Richardson’s spellbinding debut novel Lost in the Ivy jump from obscurity to BEST SELLER. No experience necessary. Five simple things you can do –

1. Buy the book. No, scratch that, buy many copies of the book. They make for great gifts or kindling.
2. Buy from Amazon.com. Boost the book’s Amazon sales ranking, a key indicator of how well a book is selling.
3. Write an Amazon book review. Note that you don’t have to buy the book from Amazon to write a review of it on Amazon’s website. Anyone who can write can do it.
4. Tell your friends, family and coworkers about the book. Word of mouth is the best way to generate hype. Besides, they’ll be impressed that you know a real, live published author.
5. Get “lost” in the book. Take it with you on vacation. Enjoy it. Then leave it behind at the hotel for someone else to read. Spread the joy.

If you’re an author and your name isn’t Stephen King, John Grisham or Dan Brown, the odds are better that you’ll be struck by lightning than see your name beside your book on the New York Times Best Seller list. But if you can’t shoot for the stars, why shoot at all?

Even the three esteemed authors named above had to have been no-name authors at one time. They surely couldn’t have gotten to the status they’re at now without a great deal of help from others.

That’s why I now ask for your help. I can’t pay you for your services. But there are rewards that come with the job. You get to read a nice little story that allows you a brief escape from the scramble of everyday life. You also get the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve done all you can do to help out a promising, not-so-young author whom you, hopefully, think is deserving of greater recognition than he currently has gotten. And, if lightning does actually strike on that promising, not-so-young author, you’ll get the opportunity to say not only that you know a real, live published author, but that you know the author of the BEST-SELLER Lost in the Ivy.

Yours truly,

Randy Richardson

Author, Lost in the Ivy

Comments

[Dave C.]

I accept your job offer. I will be a dedicated "employee". I even have an Amazon account already so my job will be easier than I thought. I may be 42, balding, and have a gut, but I am sure I can do my share in helping "dislodge that boulder". (OK, I was balding 10 years ago--I guess I am now just bald).

[Randy Richardson]

I'll take all the bald boulder budgers I can get;) Welcome aboard!

Randy

[Marybeth]

Wow! A job that involves shopping and I don't even have to leave the house?! Sign me up!!!! I will be more than happy to help out on such a worthy cause.

[Marybeth]

Maybe I can go around to various libraries and throw copies of your book over the sides of cubicles onto unsuspecting people while they study?!!!

[donna]

Ok, how about this, as I make my sales trips up and down the california coast, I leave copies in all the gas station bathrooms, Jack-in-the-Box's, McDonalds, Burger Kings and of course Hotel rooms, that I happen to stop at. I know, I can replace all the Gideon Bibles with copies of Lost in The Ivy! I think that covers the West and Central states, hmmmm what to do for the East coast??