Diminishing Returns, Propaganda and the Infinite Abyss

America Hates Me: A Response Andre the Giant’s Bra Sunglasses

Diminishing Returns, Propaganda and the Infinite Abyss

As I may have mentioned, and will continue to do so until every one of you swines and ten of your friends has bought a copy, I’ve got a new book out. I’ve also been over how shameful and wretched the selling part is when you’ve got a product to get out to the world, and told you how I struggle to shift copies to American audiences because they hate me; so now what?

Well, I’m now in that awful stretch that comes a couple of weeks after that thing you did first becomes available, where the people who know you — your pre-existing audience — have already snapped theirs up, moving you from the exhilarating “Woo, people are buying this! It’s working, it’s finally working!” period to the soul-destroying open space stretching infinitely on into the future, where the only remaining sales are going to come from new readers. Historically, this is the part where I always quit, as I never really got how to do it. I’m a writer, not a salesman — a writer with a promotional budget of zero — and day by day I find myself sliding out into that infinite abyss with the words “Fuck it then, forget it” on the tip of my tongue. But much as I’m near enough completely out of ideas once again, I can’t give up, not this time. As I mentioned before, this is currently my only source of income, so if it doesn’t work — it has to work. It has to. So, I keep trudging on.

At this point, even my pre-existing audience are (probably quite rightly) glazing over with each tweet or new mention; the law of diminishing returns turning what, three weeks ago, was exciting and retweet-worthy, into white noise that sails straight over their poor, brow-beaten heads, like the thousandth cry of “Wolf!” from some prick in a Greek fable. One way of freshening things up has been the creation of posters. That whole minimalist movie poster thing has been a bit of an online fad for a couple of years, and it’s a nice fit if you’ve got a good eye, but the actual drawing skills of an infant. I’ve done these for previous titles, but the ‘overheard conversations’ gimmick lends itself to a lot of poster-worthy dialogue, so The Beach Diaries makes for good material. Now join me, and wheel-click this link into a new tab, as we wander the gallery.

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“Chimp”

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“Friends again?”

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