Guest post by Joe Bovino, author of Field Guide to Chicks of the United States
It was now or never. My business partner and I had decided to throw a festive party at a swanky hotel bar in West Hollywood, CA to celebrate the launch of my first book, Field Guide to Chicks of the United States, and my 50th birthday. I’d toiled on the book for four years since quitting my day job as a lawyer in 2008 and still wasn’t sure how the book would be received by people who didn’t know me, but it was time to find out.
We invited everyone we knew. Admission to the party required buying a copy of the paperback version of my book on Amazon.com at the party. We had several people stationed at the door with laptops ready to help guests do it.
After guests bought a copy of the book, they could enjoy free hors d’oeuvres, free drinks, and great company in a cool location full of beautiful people for several hours. We also encouraged our guests to read the book at the party – we placed stacks of them on tables everywhere – and, if they loved it, post a review on Amazon before the party was over. Many did just that.
Why did we require guests to buy the book on Amazon.com rather than simply pay $20 in advance or at the door? We wanted to make the book an Amazon #1 bestseller that day. Amazon determines which books are bestsellers each day based on the total number of books sold during a 24-hour period. So, even if people RSVP’d to say that they couldn’t attend the party because they were busy or didn’t live in Los Angeles, we encouraged them not to buy the book before the day of the party and explained why.
When the party finally ended, we’d sold a lot of books in a short period of time, and I had a 50th birthday that I’ll never forget. Besides having a great time with friends and generating enough sales revenue to offset our costs of holding the party, we learned that my book had reached #1 on Amazon’s Movers and Shakers list, which measured the relative increase in sales activity of all books that day. It was quite an achievement.
Throwing an Amazon book launch party was the smartest and most effective marketing move that we ever made. It succeeded on every level except one: My book didn’t become an Amazon #1 bestseller that day. Not because we didn’t sell enough books.
Unbeknownst to me, the consultant we hired to manage the Amazon launch process failed to ensure that my book was properly categorized on the website before the party started. In fact, she didn’t list my book in any category whatsoever. So, rather than competing for #1 bestseller status only against books in a specific genre (e.g., dating, humor, cultural anthropology) — which my book would have done easily — it had to compete for #1 bestseller status against every single book on Amazon that day. Even my #1 Mover and Shaker couldn’t pull that off.
I was crushed by the foul-up, but something good came of it. Years later, after I’d launched or re-launched all three of my books to #1 bestseller status on Amazon, I started a business to help others do the same thing by, among other things, making sure their books are properly categorized on Amazon.
How can you identify the right woman to date, love or marry when the United States includes such an increasingly wide and confusing diversity of them? Joe Bovino’s #1 bestseller Field Guide to Chicks of the United States combines the accuracy and precision of a bird guide with beautiful illustrations of American and hyphenated-American women, outlandish observational humor, and keen cultural insights on every page. It’s the ultimate chick-spotting companion.
With its user-friendly trait charts, promiscuity ratings, range maps, and detailed descriptions of distinctive physical characteristics, behavioral tendencies, chick magnets, mating habits, and more, this thoroughly well-researched guide is all you need to successfully locate, identify, and date women from 90 distinct American subcultures (or species), including the following:
SILI-CLONE (Orange County, CA): Cross between Malibu Barbie and Jenna Jameson.
49ER (San Francisco, CA): The 49er (a “4” who thinks she’s a “9”), also known as the Mission Hipster chick, combines styles in search of a uniquely hip, bohemian or artsy look.
COONASS (Cajun): Fearless, outdoorsy tomboy who can gut a fish with her bare hands.
BUMBSHELL (Brazilian American): Ask this happy-go-lucky chick about her best feature and chances are she’ll turn around and show you her big, cheeky bum bum.
PACKAGE DEAL (Single Mom): She makes it crystal-clear that she’s a package deal, and the package includes some other guy’s spawn.
If you’re easily offended, this book isn’t for you. But, if you like to laugh, this “funny because it’s true” guide will give you hours of entertainment and serve as a handy visual reference tool.
The sooner you get your copy of the first Field Guide to Chicks of the United States, the sooner you can become a chick-spotting expert, play the American field like a pro, and make more informed decisions about the right chick for you.
Play the Field. Choose Wisely. Get the Guide.
About John Kremer
John Kremer is author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, the Relationships Matter Marketing program, and many other books and reports on book marketing, Internet marketing, social media, and book publicity. -- John Kremer on Book Marketing.
