Book marketing – anecdotes v. real stats…

As an ex-scientist, it’s always amusing for me to see other authors and book marketing gurus push various marketing techniques on the basis of anecdotal evidence. The only source I’ve ever found who comes near to using real stats is Mark Coker of Smashwords. Mind you, I’m not plugging Smashwords here—there are alternatives nowadays, maybe even better ones. Smashwords offers no advertising options, for example, paid or free, leaving that for the online retailers it distributes to. Maybe that’s...