One of the most important books I’ve read in the last decade.
Fred Smith, president, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Fred Smith, president, Competitive Enterprise Institute
That’s what we’re up to here.
Sure, we’re doing traditional media interviews and eventually will distribute in brick-and-mortar bookstores, but the whole idea of publishing “The Chaos Scenario” is to employ the very social-media principles espoused in “The Chaos Scenario” to create, promote, distribute (and in the online-only 13th chapter analyzing our success or failure) finish the book.
That’s what Team Chaos is all about, our elite list of vendors all bringing their online expertise to bear or various aspects of the project, in order to one day be able to distill and replicate the successful techniques forever into the future. Among them: Edelman Digital.
The first shot fired a day ago was a Twitter volley intiiated by president Rick Murray, who tweeted as follows:
“rickmurray: Just bought 32 copies of Bob Garfield’s (@bobosphere) The Chaos Scenario. If you want one for free, RT this and tell me why. #chaos
The idea: everyone who is interested in a free copy of a $20 book (or $11 directly from this site) simply has to retweet…introducing the book to the aggregated followers of the re-tweeters, and perhaps their followers as well, and so on. Engineered word-of-mouth, in other words. (See Chapter 4, “Talk is Cheap”).
Well, 24 hours later, as far as I can determine, there have been two retweets. Count ‘em. Two.
Suddenly I am haunted by a sentence written to me six months ago, by a digital marketer whose agency had spent months devising a supposed viral-marketing campaign, only to bellyflop in a big (and fairly expensive) way. Here is what she wrote:
“Now I am elbow deep in reporting, stats, insights, analytics, trying desperately to objectively explain why this thing was such a fucking train wreck.”
Our project, of course, is still in its infancy. I look forward, two months from now, to laughing at my early anxiety. Because, after all, should we fail, I’ve not only written an unsuccessful book. I’ve written a wrong book.
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Jason Buberel has made a Comment
Any plans for an audio edition to be released on Audible.com? For better or worse, that is how I do all my reading these days. Heard you no NPR today and just thought I’d ask.
-jason
admin has made a Comment
Jason,
The only thing better than Bob’s writing is, of course, Bob’s writing read by Bob. So, yes, we plan to produce an audio book.
We have had our hands full getting the Kindle and paperback editions into the market and also making plans for 30 Days of Chaos. If we can ever get those things on auto pilot, then we will turn our attention to the audio book. Stay tuned. Gs
geo8rge has made a Comment
I think I’ll read this one in the book store. Can you tell B&N to put it near where the magazines are sold? Thanks.
Brandon T. Bisceglia has made a Comment
Even if your book is unsuccessful, you needn’t conclude that it’s wrong. True, there will be plenty of examples like the one you mention in your post, where progressive business models miss the target. But you can’t lose sight of the forest just because you find some dead trees within.
So much of the individual experience is timing and luck - as much as savvy and effort.
admin has made a Comment
First we have to tell B&N to put it in their stores at all. We are in conversations with them and have sent a review copy to their business book buyer. If they decide to stock it we will, of course, report it here. GS
john parikhal has made a Comment
Bob,
You are a brilliant thinker and writer. I’ve followed you in Ad Age for (dare I say it?) decades. And, Twitter might not be the best place to showcase you.
The problem with Twitter is that it’s all headlines - often with Tweeters trying to show off how clever they are rather than focus on substance.
Lots of ad and media folks are scared to death by the changes that have already hit. They want you tell them it will be OK (most bestsellers have a happy ending). You say it won’t.
So, focus on the fact your book has ’solutions’ and even more people will read it. Tweet with a ’solution’ a day for a week and tie back to Amazon (where it was sold out last time I looked).
Tell the WSJ and Ad Age that you are ‘tweeting’ solutions. You never know what will get picked up.
Good luck and I hope you sell a million books - because you are SO right with this one.