OK, I was snookered into thinking Amazon was running an ad about the book. They weren’t. They were just showing me the potential audience for the book when they published those 124,865 LIKES. I found that out today when I chatted with a customer service rep while trying to create a duplicate ad for FB.  So tonight I have paid for an ad for six days. It will reach 4,000 to 11,000 targeted original generation Trek fans in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand per day for the price I’m paying ($5.00/day).  If the ad results in two sales, it will pay for itself and I’ll up the ante and run it longer to more fans.  If it doesn’t, I’ll know not to waste money on Facebook ads!  It’s worth $30.00 to find out if Facebook really does target audiences as well as it claims to…

 

 

I’m a little depressed and a little relieved.  Depressed that I didn’t know the “spec ad” wasn’t live (when I clicked on it, it went to the Amazon sales page, so I figured it was live!); had I known, I could have run a real ad earlier; relieved to know that 124,864 people didn’t see the ad, LIKE it, and then no one bought!   So I’m back at square one, just getting the word out about the book to people who don’t already know about me and my long association with #DeForestKelley. I also put an ad about the book on craigslist today and included the link to the recent Fringe Radio interview.  I will see how that goes.  If it sells a few copies, I will see if I can recruit some De fans across the country to place the ad in their craigslist regional “bucket”.  (craigslist won’t allow me to do it anywhere but locally, or I would do it myself.)

 

 

That’s the extent of my marketing today.  If you know of anyone who has a radio podcast or show or a blog that might be interested in interviewing me about the book, please tell them  about me and give them my email address: krisATwordwhisperer.NET.  Getting in via a referral is a lot easier than cold-calling stations and folks and asking if they’re interested…

 

 

John Kirk with 1701.com is going to be reviewing my book in a few days. He says he’ll send me a link when it’s live. He says he really enjoyed it and that I was lucky to get to know the Kelleys as well as I did.  He says the last part was hard to get through because he went through something similar with his mom and with his daughter (his daughter survived, thank God!) so he felt he was right there in the room with De and me during the last 70 pages.  I hope he also mentions how much FUN the rest of the book is to read, too.  Dwelling on the last 70 pages could be a real downer unless he also mentions the many years of fun stuff that preceded the last few months…

 

 

I created a questionnaire for 723 Building Business this afternoon at Bill Suepke’s request.  They’re trying to find out why fewer and fewer people are attending so he asked me to come up with a response card of some kind to ferret out the information they need to course correct and make the group work better for everybody.  Developing it took about an hour.  I shared it with Lisa; she said it was great, added a question or two, and I sent it on.  (She belongs to the group, too.).

 

 

Other than that, I have been pretty unproductive today.  I had to chase down a double payment at Upchuck (Upwork) and try to get the second payment returned to the client. No go–they had already released the entire amount, even though I gave them a heads up six days ago that the fellow had accidentally paid me twice that day–so now I have to wait until it gets to my bank account so I can refund it to him.  GRRRR!

 

 

 

The more I work with Upchuck, the less I like it. They’re useless as tits on a boar when it comes to customer service. As long as they get their percentages, they’re happy no matter how unhappy their providers and our clients are… It’s pitiful–just another reason I look for work there only when I’m already depressed and feeling masochistic and like hurting myself!  (OK, that’s hyperbole, but there’s a wee piece of truth to it. I sure don’t go there when I’m cheerful, because doing so would knock the cheer right out of me!)

 

 

Upchuck sucks.