So, I spent some time yesterday and today sending a few complimentary copies of the book to reviewers and adjusting the Amazon Ads to concentrate on the \u201ctargets\u201d that have produced sales.\u00a0 So far it looks like the ads that work best are where Amazon selects viewers that have done a search for another product that is either \u201csimilar\u201d to my book or \u201ccomplementary\u201d to it and place my ad somewhere on that search result page.\u00a0 How Amazon gauges similarity and complementarity is of course the black box.<\/p>\n
These targets that they decide on work better than matching my book to searches that contain keywords that my book has been matched with like \u201ctechno-thriller\u201d or \u201cvigilante justice\u201d or \u201csuspense thriller.\u201d\u00a0 These also work but at a lower rate.\u00a0 So, what seems to be the case is that Amazon seems to know what they\u2019re doing better than anybody else.\u00a0 And I guess that makes sense.\u00a0 The algorithm is the wizard behind the curtain but apparently, he\u2019s not some medicine show tramp whose balloon was blown off course.\u00a0 He\u2019s the real deal.<\/p>\n
So now that I\u2019m running the marketing show I\u2019m excited again and waiting for that magic moment when the algorithm decides that I\u2019m ready for prime time and blankets the Amazon universe with free advertisements for my magnum opus.\u00a0 And every time you open up an email from Amazon, my book will stare back at you in all its black and white splendor.\u00a0 And once the ten millionth copy is sold, President Trump will invite me to the Oval Office and present me with the Trump\/Kennedy Center Medal for the Most Beautiful Literature.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll autograph a copy of the book for him.\u00a0 It\u2019ll read, \u201cTo DJT, from one native New Yorker, to another.\u00a0 You, kooky nut, you.\u00a0 Don\u2019t ever change.\u00a0 Jake Barter\u201d<\/p>\n
But I digress (or hallucinate).\u00a0 Of late I\u2019ve read just how much AI novel writing has become sort of a catastrophe.\u00a0 Apparently, there is a sizable segment of the book reading audience that is perfectly satisfied with AI slop.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t think this is shocking.\u00a0 Think of what now passes for entertainment on broadcast television.\u00a0 It\u2019s already down to the level of mindless machine output.\u00a0 I guess the question will be whether there will be a reaction to this, with a flight to quality occurring.\u00a0 Even leaving my own personal writing out of this, I\u2019d hate to think that literature will completely disappear from the face of the Earth in favor of subhuman cargo-cult knock-offs.<\/p>\n
Well, I guess there can be all kinds of entertainment products out there.\u00a0 After all, a big part of marketing is identifying a niche that isn\u2019t being serviced optimally.\u00a0 But it does make me wonder what that niche is for me.\u00a0 Disgruntled right-wing old guys?\u00a0 Well, why not.\u00a0 Talk about a despised minority.\u00a0 We\u2019re positively reviled by everyone out there.\u00a0 But I am hoping for a larger audience.\u00a0 I have a small test audience of women who won the Goodreads giveaway.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping for some feedback from them pretty soon.\u00a0 I\u2019ll compare them to the few women that have already read the book in my circle of friends.\u00a0 It might be interesting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, I spent some time yesterday and today sending a few complimentary copies of the book to reviewers and adjusting the Amazon Ads to concentrate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,5,3366,2510,1289,818,1263,237,4,242],"tags":[1290,265,4484],"class_list":["post-36206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-literature","category-fiction-by-me","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-my-fiction","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-american-archipelago-book-1-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\n