ATD: online marketing

[pynchonoid]

I'm open to the possibility it - the BD appearing then
disappearing -  was a mistake, but the leaks to
bloggers and online publications and the Amazon.com
campaign itself seem to indicate an organized online
promotion campaign rather than a series of haphazard
mistakes. But you never know. Maybe it got posted
early by mistake, but within the larger context of an
orchestrated online campaign.

Since you're in the industry I'll ask if you think it
likely that Pynchon himself would have personally been
the one to post the Book Description, and how likely
that somebody hacked into Amazon.com in an effort to
damage Pynchon's reputation, as jbor was suggesting,
earlier today was it. 

I'm guessing that the publisher will do what it can to
maxmize pre-publication word-of-mouth, a first
printing should be a couple hundred thousand (wasn't
M&D in the 200,000 range?) at least, they'll be taking
steps to get bang for their buck, I expect. That would
be s.o.p. for a big literary novel these days,
wouldn't it, not only the author tour (which
apparently won't be happening with Against the Day)
but also promoting to the blogs, the online
publications, as we see happening already.  Would
Penguin really choose not to spend to promote and
leave it up to the press to shape the book's reception
with no input from the publisher?

They'll need to sell to more than P-listers, there
aren't even a thousand of us, last time I knew the
number, the book will have to cross over to a larger
group of readers, in order not to lose money.

Thanks for your response to my message.




Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:41:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kevin Troy <kevin@[omitted]>
To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
Subject: Re: played the P-list like a violin

Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to
incompetence.

As one of those younger folks in publishing (alas, not
at Penguin), I'm 
convinced that Amazon posted it early by mistake. 
They post stuff 
early/incomplete all the time when they receive the
publisher's files. 
Hell, they've done weirder things with my .org's
books.

Web marketing and other "viral" techniques are usually
reserved for books 
that have a speciality/niche audience and therefore a
low publicity 
budget.  Penguin doesn't need to hire some hip
consultant to create buzz 
among P-listers -- Pynchon is guaranteed reviews in
the mainstream 
media, and said listers will notice that for free.







http://pynchonoid.org
"everything connects"

http://OnlineJournalist.org

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