Things Take Time

     I'm not selling a whole lot of books right now, so it is easy to think not much is happening.  At the same time there is progress.  I tried distributing fliers again, this time in my neighborhood of Riverdale, New York, and found it to be a rewarding experience.  I went out with a big sign, early afternoon on a week day and the people who came by were quite receptive.  I think the flyer's provide a good introduction to the book and the Riverdalians who took one read it as they were walking away.  I'm not sure that always happens on the Internet.  A few people came by a second time for a chat. Once it got personal.  An older woman told me her grand daughter had taken her own life. The woman took a fliers and asked me why I didn't have any copies on hand to sell.  Another young African-American woman came by twice and explained that she worked in the mental health field.  As she was walking away the second time she said,
     "I'm looking forward to reading it."
A young man took a card for the web site and said he wanted to read an excerpt.  That web site is http://www.cuttingthroughtheknot.com.  An old retired New York City Police Detective was looking for a ghost writer to write his biography.  He stopped to tell me some stories.  All of this happened in an hour and a half.
     It takes some hutzpa to position yourself alone on a street corner.  At the same time I left feeling that my book has a role to play.  These people seemed genuinely interested in a humorous and direct look at the subject of mental illness.  I also felt like going public with this story is actually a good deed that has the power to make others feel less ashamed.  It is possible to feel that the gesture is too small and insignificant to really matter.  How can an hour and a half on a street corner really measure up in the mighty world of book publishing?  But, I suppose, you have to start somewhere, and in my case putting a friendly human face along with the book seems to be a plus.
     On other fronts, I left a couple of phone messages for the managing editor at the Cornell Daily Sun, and e-mailed him copies of my two reviews.  Here I must be patient.  Managing editors and newspapers have their own schedules and priorities.  One nice thing is that the second edition of the novel, Cutting Through the Knot, is now available as a Kindle edition on Amazon.com.  I publicized this fact on Facebook.  There may be additional marketing possible around the advent of a Kindle edition.  The price on Kindle is a mere five dollars.  This may actually be a bit high, by Kindle standards, but that is where I set it.
     The bottom line is that there an awful lot of self-published books out there.  It is not at all easy to get noticed.  I'd like to reach the people who have concerns about mental illness and tell them there is a positive story here.  How to do that remains a challenge.

Distributing Flyers

     Tried an approach yesterday I haven't seen written up any where else.  I took a couple of hundred yellow fliers with a description of the novel, that would be Cutting Through the Knot (Second Edition), boarded the 1 train and rode it down to Battery Park in lower Manhattan.  I proceeded to a strategically chosen spot on a plaza with a full view of the Statue of Liberty, a suitable emblem for the book, which is in part about freedom, and prepared to go to work.  I was standing with my back against a low wall right next to the line that leads into the loading area for the ferry ride over to Lady Liberty.  Every one pretty much had to walk by me, if they wanted to get on the boat.  A surprisingly high percentage took the flyer.
     There were advantages to this position.  For one thing the tourists would be standing still at least for a couple of minutes after they picked up the publicity, with nothing else to do.  For another thing these individuals were out of their normal routine.  They had already decided to go some place different and to see something new, so they might be open to new ideas as well.  The disadvantage was that some of them may not read English in the first place.  There was one other advantage, I got to look out at the water in the harbor as I was handing out the fliers.  I didn't try and make a big impression.  I just stood there and kind of nonchalantly handed out the pieces of paper, with an occasional,
     "Thank you," or "Have a good day."
The flyer itself said the rest, a quote from my one real review, a picture of the cover and a few paragraphs of description. At the bottom of the page it said the novel was for sale on Amazon.com. I could see the tourists reading it in line.  None of them wound up on the ground.
     I guess I can see why this approach isn't written up in the literature.  It did feel a bit arbitrary, handing out a couple of hundred of fliers to this seemingly arbitrarily chosen group of prospects, but when you consider that at the moment I'm dead in the water, I feel good about it.  I have to start somewhere.  Sure on line reviews might be better, but at this point even a couple of new sales would be satisfying, because a couple can lead to a couple more.  I think I feel good about it for another reason. The flyer speaks about laughing at mental illness, about looking at it head on. Putting that message in two hundred people's hands, however arbitrarily chosen, felt to me like a good deed.  Later yesterday afternoon I went into my local Staples and ordered a two foot by three foot backed laminated sign, so that next time I can do it better.

Marketing Strategy

     My marketing strategy is based on a model employed by my father in starting what became a thriving Internet business.  He began with one client, The Washington Post, and not a whole lot more, but it turned out that was all he needed.  He went to his other prospective clients and said,
     "Hey, I've got The Washington Post."
     And they all said,
     "The Washington Post, they're pretty important.  This must be a good business.  Maybe we should get in on this too."
     From this he began.  As he took on other influential clients he displayed them to companies in similar fields.  The same thing continued to happen.  Some fifteen years later, the business is going strong and bringing in a steady income.  I'm sure this says something fundamental about human nature.  I couldn't say what it is.  I just know it worked.
     So that is what I would like to do.  I'm compiling a long list of the arts editors at an assorted collection of universities and colleges.  I'm taking down the managing editors as well, all with their e-mail addresses.  If I get that review in the Cornell Daily Sun, I plan on writing to them all and doing just what my father did.  I'll say, though not in these exact words,
     "Look, The Cornell Daily Sun reviewed my novel.  They know a thing or two.  Don't you think you should do the same thing."
    I also plan on sending it to the community newspaper in Ithaca, the Ithaca Times, and to the Cornell radio station, WVBR.  If I can land either of those two, I'll proceed to other radio station and community papers in small cities with universities in them.
     All of this depends on my getting that review in the Cornell paper.  This is true.  But I think I am going to get it.  Also, I can't think of any other way to proceed.  There are so many thousands of self-published books out there, and so many thousands of authors trying to publicize them, it is enough to drive a man to despair.  But I do not despair.  I'm building my list of papers and editors, and if I get the review I'll be ready to roll.  If I didn't truly believe in my product, as my father did in his, all of this would be a waste of time.  Here again I can say positively that I do believe in it.  Cutting Through the Knot (Second Edition) has something to say.  Learning to laugh at yourself lies at the root of recovery from many forms of mental illness.  This to me is worth blogging over and worth making the effort necessary to publicize a self-published novel over.  Humor cuts through the knot, of obsessive rumination, anger, despised self-image, inordinate amounts of fear, and the whole complex of distorted emotions associated with severe obsessive compulsive disorder.  That is a lot of what the book is about.  And I think it says it well.