Book Promo Idea: "Abduct" Yourself and Let Your Captors Promote Your Work

josephwise · Feb 13, 2014

Saw this over at Reddit today and got a kick out of it. Kind of wish I'd thought of this, though I'm not really the self-pub type.

This author's site suggests he is a dangerous man who needs to be placed in quarantine and that his writings contain "hazardous text" so reader beware. A kind of ARG tied to it too I think.

http://anotherpennydreadful.com

He had his "captors" write his book blurb and author bio on Amazon too.

I'll be curious to see if it all pays off for him. At the very least it seems like a fun way to get a little bit of attention.

Anyway, back to lurking for me...

Old Hack · Feb 13, 2014

It sounds in really poor taste to me. I don't think abduction is something to be joked about.

Good luck to him, but this isn't the way I'd choose to promote anything that had my name on it.

josephwise · Feb 13, 2014

I can definitely see where you're coming from. I thought it had enough of an ironic tone that it didn't strike me that way, but we're all different.

I guess it probably depends on the audience for the book...you'd have to know your readers pretty well to stride in that direction with any confidence.

Me, I like it.

Marian Perera · Feb 16, 2014

I guess the next promo idea will be, "I've died, and am promoting my book from the afterlife."

veinglory · Feb 16, 2014

It does not read as 'abduction' to me. Just a 'found zombie survivor manuscript' trope of which there have been a few. For example one author made the entire book look like it was hand written in a grimy school exercise book.

RickieRi · Feb 17, 2014

I am going to have to agree with Old Hack.

I am not against the concept, but I don't like this implementation here.

I liked how others have done similar things. Rick Riordan tried something like this in his series The Kane Chronicles, which was a more tasteful implementation. (no abductions)

ECathers · Feb 24, 2014

This reminded me of a story I saw on the news a few months ago. A company who does graphic advertising wraps for cars wrapped his tailgate with the life-sized photo of a woman bound and gagged. It looked like she was actually in the back of the pickup.

Well done graphics but...it resulted in a BUCKETLOAD of 911 calls. It did get him a lot of news coverage/free advertising. But IMO in very bad taste and dangerous to others who had to wait on hold to 911.

Book Promo Idea: "Abduct" Yourself and Let Your Captors Promote Your Work

josephwise

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

josephwise

Marian Perera

starting over

veinglory

volitare nequeo

RickieRi

ECathers

Amuck! Amuck! Amuck!