Top Menu

Tag Archives Marketing

Back in November I wrote a blog post about standardizing your name for search engines. One of the most common responses I received from this post was from authors with unique pen names who cited their unique names as a reason to exempt them from the post’s advice. Basically, their ideas went that a writer with an uncommon name—we’ll use Maximus Pandroistien for this example—should not be worried about being outranked by other websites in a search results page because the likelihood of a similar name existing is nil. While this logic is true, it is narrow-minded. And please, pass along my condolences to Mr. Maxie Pandy and his presumably horrible childhood. But here’s the important bit: potential readers who already know your name are not your target demographic. After all, they already know about you. You want to reach those who may be interested in your style of work…

An Abebooks bookseller is trying to get a quarter of a million dollars for a collection of signed Barack Obama books. To put this into perspective, a signed copy of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first book goes for 20K. L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought goes for $8.07 (but to be fair, this converts to 1 Bajillion Quagnars). This begs a few questions: 1) what’s the point of a signed book, 2) what makes a signed book more desirable than an unsigned book, and 3) what’s so great about this particular signature? I am a signed book nerd, and even I don’t know the answer to the first question. So, instead of waxing eloquent I’ll instead jump to question two. The short answer: an implied communion with the author. While the internet has changed this relationship considerably, there is still a sense of proximity with a signed book…

Close