I Wrote an Amazon Bestseller in a Week
I wrote a book last week. I’ve never written a book before but so what? They’re just words on a computer screen right? I’ve written stuff before –- emails and lists of things to get at the hardware store so I have experience. Anybody can do it.
It all started when my friend Bert said, “You know Bud, you should write a book about your crazy family. ” I thought about it a minute. It was a totally unique idea. So I wrote it. The words just flowed out of me like diarrhea.
It took me a pretty long time –- three hours -- to think up a catchy title. I finally came up with, "My Crazy Family," How could you not sell a million books with a grabber like that?
I slapped together a cover –- my niece Sarah Jane (she’s so cute) helped with the finger-painting –- and uploaded it on Amazon as a Kindle and a paperback. Heck, the uploading was harder than writing the book!
The next thing I did was change my Facebook profile. It used to say, “Works at Plumber.” Now it says, “Works at Author.”
Then I had to do some marketing. My first idea was total genius -- I got all the members of my crazy family and a bunch of my friends to write customer reviews on Amazon. In a few hours, I had twenty reviews and a 5-star rating!
Next, I pasted the Amazon link on Facebook, which is also a really clever idea that ‘s probably never been done.
I heard that Amazon has a freebie program where you give the book away for free to create what they call “buzz.” I knew this would work. How often have I stood in line outside of Walmart to get a free set of beer coasters or an umbrella hat?
I ended up selling 8000 books for free. Now I had a following!
I thought about trying to get reviews from hoity-toity places like the "New York Times" – (it’s pretty simple – you just send them a copy of your book with a nice letter) -- but the Post Office was going to charge me $9.95 for Priority Mail so I didn’t bother.
The book sold pretty well (getting my friends and relatives to buy it was another brilliant marketing scheme –- has anybody tried that before?)
About a week after publishing the book, my son caught our dog Bowzer tearing out the pages and eating them (everybody’s a critic, right?) . It was the cutest thing! My son got the whole thing on videotape and made a YouTube out of it and pasted it on Facebook. The damn thing went –- what do you call it? -- virile in two days.
The next day, I sold 150,000 copies but poor old Bowzer was constipated for a week.
A few days later, I got a call from a guy named Marty from Hollywood. Said he loved my book and wanted to make a TV sitcom out of it. He asked me if I have an agent and I told him I did. (Mickey Bergan has been my insurance agent for twenty years.)
But I told Marty I didn’t want to sell. I figured I could shoot a TV series myself. How hard could it be? Most TV sucks. All I have to do is shoot an episode and send it to a TV network and they’ll pay me tons of money. My family is pretty excited about starring in a TV series.
I plan to use the video on my son’s Smartphone. We start shooting next week.
John Blumemthal's next novel THE STRANGE COURTSHIP OF ABIGAIL BIRD will be published by Regal House in October 2019.
It all started when my friend Bert said, “You know Bud, you should write a book about your crazy family. ” I thought about it a minute. It was a totally unique idea. So I wrote it. The words just flowed out of me like diarrhea.
It took me a pretty long time –- three hours -- to think up a catchy title. I finally came up with, "My Crazy Family," How could you not sell a million books with a grabber like that?
I slapped together a cover –- my niece Sarah Jane (she’s so cute) helped with the finger-painting –- and uploaded it on Amazon as a Kindle and a paperback. Heck, the uploading was harder than writing the book!
The next thing I did was change my Facebook profile. It used to say, “Works at Plumber.” Now it says, “Works at Author.”
Then I had to do some marketing. My first idea was total genius -- I got all the members of my crazy family and a bunch of my friends to write customer reviews on Amazon. In a few hours, I had twenty reviews and a 5-star rating!
Next, I pasted the Amazon link on Facebook, which is also a really clever idea that ‘s probably never been done.
I heard that Amazon has a freebie program where you give the book away for free to create what they call “buzz.” I knew this would work. How often have I stood in line outside of Walmart to get a free set of beer coasters or an umbrella hat?
I ended up selling 8000 books for free. Now I had a following!
I thought about trying to get reviews from hoity-toity places like the "New York Times" – (it’s pretty simple – you just send them a copy of your book with a nice letter) -- but the Post Office was going to charge me $9.95 for Priority Mail so I didn’t bother.
The book sold pretty well (getting my friends and relatives to buy it was another brilliant marketing scheme –- has anybody tried that before?)
About a week after publishing the book, my son caught our dog Bowzer tearing out the pages and eating them (everybody’s a critic, right?) . It was the cutest thing! My son got the whole thing on videotape and made a YouTube out of it and pasted it on Facebook. The damn thing went –- what do you call it? -- virile in two days.
The next day, I sold 150,000 copies but poor old Bowzer was constipated for a week.
A few days later, I got a call from a guy named Marty from Hollywood. Said he loved my book and wanted to make a TV sitcom out of it. He asked me if I have an agent and I told him I did. (Mickey Bergan has been my insurance agent for twenty years.)
But I told Marty I didn’t want to sell. I figured I could shoot a TV series myself. How hard could it be? Most TV sucks. All I have to do is shoot an episode and send it to a TV network and they’ll pay me tons of money. My family is pretty excited about starring in a TV series.
I plan to use the video on my son’s Smartphone. We start shooting next week.
John Blumemthal's next novel THE STRANGE COURTSHIP OF ABIGAIL BIRD will be published by Regal House in October 2019.
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Wonderful stuff, John. Thanks for sharing.