Webinar

At 6 a.m. I attended a free online webinar about marketing Amazon books. Learned a few things I didn't know. Felt more like a Martian than ever. In the entire affair, there was not a single mention or passing reference to the quality of the material being marketed. Apparently it doesn't matter.

But I tried a suggested trick to get reviews this morning. Amazon has a Hall of Fame Reviewers list. This itself is interesting. More interesting, there are 10,000 people on the list. My, my. A class of citizens I didn't know about: the professional amateur reviewer. Most review products, not books, but I went through the top 50 and found 6 possible reviewers for Overdrive and so emailed them. Not really expecting much but we'll see.

I can see how one could get lost in the quagmire of the marketplace. There is something fundamentally corrupt -- maybe that's too strong ... maybe "sad" is a better word -- about all the energy being put into these strategies and none to improving the quality of the product. More and more, the culture's engine runs on the fuel of hype and bullshit. It's worse today than in the past because the tools, thanks to computers, are so much more sophisticated. No one used to have time to do all the grunt work required for the projections etc that are commonplace today, because computer generated.

Well, my charge is to keep my head on straight and not let the shit I'm wading in get too high ha ha. I also have a perverse fascination about all this. No wonder Mad Men was such a good series. Advertising is right up there with professional sports as the most corrupting influences in the culture.