How Not To Sell Your Book II

I got this spam email today:
 

Dear fellow MWA members and members of the forensic society,
    I have written a murder mystery series beginning with Death, Then
Murder
and Murder Under Fire starring C.J. Thompson and Lauren
Lamplier.  I have also written a nonfiction book letting everyone know that God
sends messages to us through His angels in human form to make us aware of His
plans for us.  This one is titled INCOMING Listening For God’s Messages, A
Handbook For Life
  and is a must read for young adults.  The reader will
find a miraculous change in their perspective towards others once realizing that
everyone may potentially be carrying a message from God.Take a look at www.amazon.com .

 
Enjoy and thanks,
Fred C. Wootan

Okay, Fred. Here’s the thing. This email is a marketing miss-fire on every level. Let’s dissect it line-by-line and explore why. My comments are in italics.

7025224128a0db5f5ec05010_aa240_l   I have written a murder mystery series beginning with Death, Then
Murder
and Murder Under Fire starring C.J. Thompson and Lauren
Lamplier. Good for you, Fred. But the
fact you have written (and apparently self-published) a book isn’t
reason enough for someone to buy it. You have to pitch it to us, man! What makes it interesting? What’s
the hook? It’s not that it "stars" CJ Thompson and Lauren Lamplier…because no one knows who the hell they are. Their names are meaningless. Are they cops? Insurance investigators? Lesbian nurses? Transvestite paratroopers? Come on, Fred, show us some salesmanship!
  I have also written a nonfiction book letting everyone know that God
sends messages to us through His angels in human form to make us aware of His
plans for us. This one is titled INCOMING Listening For God’s Messages, A
Handbook For Life
  and is a must read for young adults.  The reader will
find a miraculous change in their perspective towards others once realizing that
everyone may potentially be carrying a message from God. That sentence is a rambling mess, Fred.  Not a good advertisement for the book or the writer. So which book is it you’re trying to sell us, the mystery thing or the Angels thing? Or is it both? Either way, neither sales-pitch is very strong. Take a look at www.amazon.com. Even if we wanted to ‘take a look’, and you haven’t given us much of a reason, you don’t even link to your books, just to the Amazon home page. You’re making us do all the work, Fred. Not good. You want to make it easy for your customers to get to the product, you don’t want them to have to hunt for it…because they won’t. And you totally forgot to mention that you also wrote THE SUCCESSFUL INSURANCE AGENCY which, if you ask me, is the real must-read for young adults.

12 thoughts on “How Not To Sell Your Book II”

  1. Wow. That sounds like one of those e-mails you should automaticly forward on to Query Letters I Love. Now if only C.J. Thompson and Lauren Lamplier were PIs who had angels whispering in their ear (or a couple of schizophrenics directed by the voices in their heads), that would be weird enough to pick up.

    Reply
  2. Now these are the kind of emails worthy of public dissection. I get these from playwright scribes from time to time, sometimes screenwriters, etc, wanting me to read or attend a reading of their newest work. The problem is that the email slash press release, such as the one above, is usually so badly written I don’t want to imagine what the work will be like.
    I find it interesting that his book about God sending us messages through angels to let us know his plans for us is a non-fiction book.

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  3. Another faith-based approach to self-publishing. Well, it saves having to learn anything about the endeavor, and when it fails, as they always do, no one in the reading public will know.

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  4. I think the strongest argument against buying his books is that he is, by all appearances, completely insane.
    Or maybe that would make the books quite interesting. Hard to say.

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  5. I cut’n’pasted Fred’s e-mail into the
    The Gender Genie
    and the results are not exactly conclusive:
    Words: 113
    (NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)
    Female Score: 85
    Male Score: 82
    The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

    Reply
  6. What’s worse than spam? Spam that lies about its true purpose. This guy doesn’t want you to buy his mystery novels. His ultimate goal isn’t even for you to buy his angel book. He wants you to believe in his god/imaginary friend/voice in his head, and he wants you to believe it HIS way. The books he’s written are just the bait on the end of the hook. I’m an aetheist, but this guy makes me feel embarrassed for Christians.

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  7. I’m an agnostic because both ends of the teeter-totter require unattainable knowledge, and I’m a biological scientist so my view is clear as to the history and mechanics of life, but geez I agree with Bob; I’m embarassed for them. Some are in Congress. I just blogged about a Utah rep deriding evolution in USA Today. It’s flat-earth scary.

    Reply

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