On being alert

I posted the sequel (see the post below: Seth's Blog: The first sequel to Knock Knock) and in three hours sold more copies of my ebook than I had in any single day over the last two weeks.

Obviously, this was an experiment, not a clever tool to sell more ebooks. The fact is that human beings, even human beings who are smart and focused and paying attenion, need (and want) to be reminded of stuff.

I could spend part of every single post hawking my new book (Amazon.com: Books: All Marketers Are Liars) and no doubt I'd lose readers. I'd also be bored.  But, surprisingly enough, I'd sell more books, books to people who were glad to be reminded.

The challenge this new medium faces is that no one has figured out the standard that feels right. On TV it's 11 minutes of commercials an hour. On some highways, it's a billboard every 50 feet. Without an FCC and with 20,000,000 people experimenting, I wonder if we'll ever figure it out.

[interesting statistical aside: I sold more than half of the total sales of my ebook in the five hours after the original post. There's no other medium in history where that sort of effect is true.] And yes, it's all an experiment. No animals are injured in the production of my ebooks, but all profits go to charity.