Tag Archives: marketing

Dangerous: More Books!

Yesterday I released a new book, Dangerous: A Go-to Guide for Church Communication. It’s a collaborative effort published by one of my clients in cooperation with another awesome organization, Creative Missions. I got to work with some great contributors and some great co-editors. You can read more about the basics of the book over at Church Marketing Sucks.

I’ve done enough last-minute marketing about the book. Rather than do that here, I’d rather just talk honestly about it. Four quick lessons from this project:

1. I didn’t want to do it.
When the idea was first pitched we had about three and a half weeks to pull it off. Honestly, I’d had the same idea months earlier but I kept it to myself. Why? I don’t know. It seemed like something we could do eventually. I knew it would come down to a rushed project and I dreaded that. I think deep down I wanted someone else to come up with the driving vision and make it happen. Let someone else take the responsibility. That’s about what happened. (Confession: I’m not a leader.)

Now that’s it’s over, I’m glad we did it. We’ll see what the results are, but I think it was a smart move. It’s well-timed to be a good resource.

2. Fast is good.
This project happened fast. Like, 20 days fast. That’s a little crazy. But sometimes I think we need that. Too often we over-think ideas and turn them into these big huge things that can’t stand up on their own and collapse under all our expectations. Sometimes it works better to shut up and crank something out.

3. Help is good.
We had a lot of great people helping on this project. We had a team of three people giving editorial direction. We had more than a dozen contributors. We had someone do the layout. Someone else did the design. Someone else got the ebook working (long story). Collaboration is an amazing thing. Sometimes I wish we had more. (Marketing plan? Oh yeah, I guess we could use one of those.)

4. Scared.
I’ve published several books now. I’ve got a once-a-year streak going that’s kind of fun. You think I’d be used to this by now. But to be honest, I’m scared. I’m a little panicked about how people are going to respond to this book. Are they going to hate it? Did I forget something? How many horrible, ridiculous typos are there? Did I make some huge mistake and I should be embarrassed to call myself an editor? Will they be mad because it’s too short? Will they be annoyed that the content is available elsewhere? Will it be worth all the effort? So many doubts. So many fears.

I think that’s part of being a writer. I think that’s part of being creative and putting yourself out there. It’s scary.

Political Communication that Works

On election day, amid the frenzy of last minute plugs and flurry of civic-minded joy, I came across a simple little website that I just love. Before linking I want to qualify this for two reasons: 1) It’s full of the f-word, which might put some people off. So fair warning. 2) It’s all pro Obama, which might put some more people off. More fair warning.

But in spite of both of those things, I think the site is really cool. I share it regardless of politics and profanity because I think it’s an interesting idea. I actually waited until after the election to let the partisan nature wear off a bit. It’s still there, but it feels easier to look past today than it would have been on election day.

The site is called What The F*ck Has Obama Done So Far? and it’s just a slide show of one-sentence accomplishments. Each accomplishment has a source link and then a button to see the next accomplishment. It’s an ingenious little way to tell a story of simple achievements. Instead of drowning people in paragraphs of text on every issue, it’s just one little snippet of factual text.

Now I realize some folks will likely take issue with each bit of “factual” text, because that’s what we do, nit-picking every statement as spin and adding our own counter-spin. But I think the basic idea does what it needs to. Some sort of way to engage those nit-pickers and add a little more explanation or context might be helpful (but that might also ruin the simplicity of the whole thing). It’s not a perfect idea, but it’s a lot more effective than any political website I’ve ever seen.

Bottom line: I love the idea of taking something as complex and off-putting as politics and phrasing it in simple one-liners of actual accomplishment that anyone can understand. That’s powerful communication.

Crazy Week

In the Rocking ChairThis has been a pretty crazy week.

  • On Monday I announced that we’re planning to adopt again. This is still new and we’re figuring it out as we go, but it’s pretty exciting.
  • On Tuesday I announced my new book, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters.
  • The marketing machine went to work to spread the word far and wide about the book. It’s exhausting. And thrilling. And kind of scary. I did my first interview about the book on Wednesday night. On Thursday the first review came out (wow, what a rave!). I spent Friday night doing an e-mail interview. I need to do another one today. All in preparation for the pre-order, which starts on Tuesday (meaning the craziness continues next week). Whew.
  • I also opted to redesign my entire web site this week in order to better accommodate the info about the book. I’m still working out the kinks.
  • Milo is being baptized on Sunday in what’s shaping up to be a multicultural Sunday. In addition to baptizing an Ethiopian, the archbishop of Rangoon, Burma is preaching the sermon at the 8:30 service, during the education hour a chaplain for Karen refugees in Thailand will be sharing as well as a missionary from Argentina, and later that afternoon there will be a baptism and confirmation of a number of Karen parishioners.
  • We’re hosting a little shindig for Milo which means we need to clean the house. Bigtime. Plus Milo’s God parents are coming in to town from the east coast and staying with us. We should maybe clear off the bed in the guest room for them.

I didn’t plan any of this to happen at the same time. I just is. And it’s kind of cool that it’s working out that way.

Self-Publishing Ain’t Easy

Yesterday I announced my new book, Addition by Adoption, and started the promotional juggernaut to get the word out about it. I’m self-publishing it, so I’m on my own. And I’ve learned you can’t just sit back and wait for your book to sell. I need all the help I can get.

So I have all these plans and ideas to spread the word. It all went into motion yesterday (well, actually Monday with my e-mail newsletter). Today I individually e-mailed more than 130 people trying to line up reviews, interviews, blog posts, Twitter/Facebook mentions—basically anything people are willing to do (if you didn’t get an e-mail and think you should, hit me up—I could always use more promo help). I’ll be contacting a lot more people in the days and weeks ahead (that’s fair warning to anyone who has ever known me). I also sent out nearly 20 digital review copies of the book today. Last week I stayed up until midnight trying to plan all this out.

It’s all a bit overwhelming. And kind of scary.

I’ve been planning this book for almost a year now. Now as I’m sending out copies and getting ready to make this happen we’ll see if it’s any good. We’ll find out if I’ve been wasting my time or if I actually have something interesting on my hands.

Because books aren’t easy. If I can sell a mere 100 copies I’ll be in the top 21% of books sold.

So here we go.

On the plus side, it’s amazing hearing back from people who are ready and willing to help. I’m so grateful for that. Some folks have just said ‘tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’ One person said not to send them a copy, they’d buy their own plus a few more to give away to their friends. Wow.

That kind of response makes it a little less scary.

The Reason Why People Think Marketing is Evil

I saw two commercials lately that were so over-the-top awful I couldn’t help but blog about them several days later (if I manage to come back to something days later to blog about, it must have dug into my brain). They’re not awful in a traditional poorly done sense, they’re awful in a oozing with horrid worldviews way.

Scotts Good Neighbor
The first commercial is for Scotts Turf Builder with Weed Control. I see it pretty much every time I watch NASCAR or hockey, which apparently means its targeted at sports-minded men, so let the stereotypes roll on. The commercial shows a young man talking about his inability to keep his lawn looking nice and how much he wants to please his neighbors with a green, weed-free lawn. He talks about the shame of having the worst lawn on the block and sending dandelion seeds throughout the neighborhood. Scotts comes to the rescue and the guy can hold his head high. His wife talks about how now the neighbors smile at them because their yard is so nice.

Now granted I’m pretty anti-lawn care. I’m the first to admit that I like dandelions and I don’t care how my yard looks. But is a weed-free yard really make a good neighbor? Last time I checked being a good neighbor was about helping each other out and not being the jackass on the block. It’s loaning a cup of sugar or shoveling a driveway or dog-sitting. You don’t need a perfect lawn to get your neighbors to smile at you. Try being nice.

Continue reading The Reason Why People Think Marketing is Evil

Curiosity is not Enough

Curiosity alone is not enough to get my attention. If you’re spreading the word about something, marketing anything or just telling your friends—curiosity is not enough.

Now I’ll concede that some level of curiosity is always necessary. But if you’re completely relying on curiosity, it’s going to fail.

Examples:

  • E-mails with vague, generic subject lines like “check this out” or “newsflash.” The sender is hoping curiosity will prompt people to open them. No, it won’t.
  • Twitter posts that link to articles and give vague explanations, like “This is so cool,” “I can’t believe this,” or “Interesting”. Tell me what’s so cool, interesting or unbelievable.
  • Direct mail that comes in plain, unmarked envelopes. They’re trying to trick you into opening it, appealing to curiosity. But instead I open it to make sure it’s not a bill and then recycle it. Immediately.

What’s most frightening about relying on curiosity is that it begins to border on deception. If your message itself isn’t enough to get my attention and you have to rely on curiosity, I can’t help but wonder if you’re trying to trick me.

It reminds me of Guy Kawasaki’s comment in defending his Alltop auto-tweets that each one is intentionally different so they’re harder to spot as auto-tweets. That’s deception, Guy. Lame.

If you’ve really got something worth sharing, don’t rely on curiosity to intrigue me. And don’t even think about deception. Just let the idea stand on its own. Otherwise it’s not worth sharing. Be specific, be up front and let the content speak for itself.

Why Doesn’t Anne Lamott Have a Web Site?

A couple weeks ago I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, doesn’t have a web site. She’s got a Wikipedia page, the speaking agency representing her has a page, Salon.com has a list of her columns—heck, there’s even my Anne Lamott Squidoo page. But Anne Lamott herself has no official web site.

How can a well-known author not have a web site in 2008?

Sadly, I asked that same question in 2005.

So here’s the deal, Anne: Drop me a line and I’ll build you a web site.

Continue reading Why Doesn’t Anne Lamott Have a Web Site?

Director of Marketing Insults Journalists

Heard a story on NPR today about St. Paul being in the spotlight for the Republican National Convention. The part of the story that stuck out to me was when Erin Dady, director of marketing for the City of St. Paul, made this assumption about the national media:

“I would guess a significant percentage of the 15,000 members of the media who are coming to town couldn’t even locate St. Paul on a map,” she says. “So, what better way to tell our story to the world than to have 15,000 members of the media here in town? It’s really priceless media attention.”

Maybe Dady has some research to back up that assumption (in which case, why not use the research instead of speculating?) or maybe she’s referring to the fact that national reporters seem unable to distinguish St. Paul and Minneapolis (though that has little to do with locating St. Paul on a map)—I don’t know. But however you spin it, it seems like a really dumb idea for the marketing director of St. Paul to insult the intelligence of 15,000 journalists who are about to descend on our city.