Shameless Self-promotion
(January 2, 2011. Southwest Florida)
The year 2011 is upon us. Fortunately, I jump-started the New Year's resolution thing and got A Single Deadly Truth up on Amazon in the final days of 2010. But now comes another question of truth: will the book find an audience?
In the coming months, I will be trying to help this process along by promoting the book. I am determined to resist the temptation of becoming a shameless book pimp. My goal is to balance my interest in creating visibility while not going overboard (unless I'm still not selling books in which case I'll go turbo-shameless).
Book tours don't work so well with e-books, and an ad in the New York Times Book Review is beyond budget, so I'm going to focus on creative alternatives. I've spent a goodly amount of years in the cable TV business and I've been entrepreneurial, so I'm working up some innovative approaches that might generate some sales. Here are some of the items on my to-do list as I finalize my marketing plan:
1) Investigate product placement opportunities on the local government access cable channels. Municipal budgets are tight, aren't they? If I toss them a few bucks, maybe I can slide some A Single Deadly Truth coffee mugs in front of a few on-camera local officials.
2) Speaking of government access, you might see me testifying at more town meetings once my Steve Decatur t-shirts come in. Zoning board meetings, budget reviews, school committee meetings – I'm there.
3) And as far as free advertising – one winter project is converting our boat's mainsail into an enormous book promotion. I figure two hundred colored Sharpie markers should do it.
4) Along the same lines, my nephew is an Idaho-based smokejumper and he claims he can land on a twenty-foot target. If I get him out this way in the spring, I'm going to use some more Sharpie markers to make a colorful book ad on his chute. Imagine him dropping into Fenway Park on opening day. Between the stadium audience, game coverage, and nightly news I should sell at least a few books, don't you think?
5) And if we're talking water and tee-shirts, how about sponsoring a Steve Decatur wet t-shirt contest down in Florida during Spring Break? Oops, maybe I got carried away on that one.
I am sure many more neat ideas will come to mind. In any event, I will make every effort to curb my desire to hawk my book in poor taste. And if my target audience gets overwhelmed by all of this, maybe they can catch a break by taking an escapist time-out by spending some time on the waters of Buzzards Bay and Rhode Island Sound with Steve Decatur, maybe even catch him in the tale of…..
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