Motivated by Casey Hester on the Texas Flip and Move TV show, who to
sweeten the pie for bidders (he needed a certain amount for his flip house to
break even) offered a free house moving.
Okay, I thought, when it comes time to sell my
book how can I be different?
What could I offer as an incentive?
See I need a little help from my friends.
My book won’t come out for probably another
year, but I’m thinking about it. Bookstores
have gone kaput. Golly, I just saw this morning that Toys R (backward) Us has gone
bankrupt. That was toy heaven when my kids were little.
Have people stopped buying toys, electronics,
books?
Nope.
They are buying online.
So, how do
you stand out online?
Well, you can move a house if you have enough strong backs.
I’m not a salesperson. I don’t believe in
talking a person into buying something they don’t want. I don’t believe in
seeing everyone you meet as a potential customer. I hate being in that little
room at a car dealership, left alone with my husband to “Talk about it.”
Didn’t I go there to buy a car? So, give me a
good price, be nice to me, and I’ll buy it.
Of course, I might be “Just looking,” or
checking out their cars so I can buy the same model at that cheap joint down
the street. So I guess they must hook me.
But I don’t like that. Just give me what I want and I’ll buy it.
I think that if you want something like
insurance, something everyone needs, but doesn’t want to buy, that you are
there as a facilitator, to be of help, to make the painful process easier, not
to strong arm the customer.
How can you be of service and not be pushy?
Am I off track?
A book is somewhat different. A person must want to read it. And they must know enough
about it to make it a “must read.”
That’s where the reader comes in.
A book is
something you write because it speaks to you, but then a book without a reader
is like a seed planted on pure obsidian.
That’s where the reader comes in.
Well, I have a year to think about it—a lot can
happen in a year.
Any
suggestions?
And then Seth Godin’s blog popped up with
this:
#Your fast car—Seth Godin
Right
there, in your driveway, is a really fast car. And here are the keys. Now, go
drive it.
(Want the car.)
Right
there, in your hand, is a Chicago Pneumatics 0651 hammer. You can drive a nail
through just about anything with it, again and again if you choose. Time to use
it.
(Don’t want the
hammer.)
And
here's a keyboard, connected to the entire world. Here's a publishing platform
you can use to interact with just about anyone, just about anytime, for free. You wanted a level playing
field, one where you have just as good a shot as anyone else? Here it is.
Do the work.
(Want to learn
this.)
P.S. Still doing my photo a day. www.travelwithjoyce.com