Beastie and The Psychic Fairy Queen.
Posted by celticman on Tue, 05 Mar 2024
I’d an online meeting yesterday with The Psychic Fairy Queen, Jan Murphy. We share the same publishers. I suppose in a world in which there are synchronicities, Spellbound would publish The Psychic Fairy Queen. I’m just the smelly mate that tagged alone by coincidence, even though there is no such thing as coincidences. If by coincidence you’re reading this then you’ve probably read my book Beastie.
That’s a gently nudge. Yes, I’ve read a little about nudge theory too. I’d read The Psychic Fairy Queen when it was first published on 19th December 2024. My book Beastie hit the shelves almost a month later (and if you've forgotten to leave a review, I won't mention nudging anymore and will show up at your doorstep).
Jan and I or Jack and Jan, which has a nice ring to it, were talking about marketing. Before we got down to book business, I did what everybody else does—and I apologised, because I just had to do it, like a kid asking for a sweetie—I asked her to read me. Tell me something fabulous. Enlighten me with something that I didn't even know. Tell me something that would have Jesus turning to God the Father and saying, ‘I didnae know that either. Where’s the Holy Ghost when we need him and I’ll ask him?’
She did tell me something fabulous. Something that will change your life. But I can only share it if you offer up—in my writer friend Sooz’s language, proof of purchase and an a Amazon review.
Jan had the same symbol, sacred geometry that is on the cover of her book, hanging on her wall behind her head. I could describe it, but it would be easier if you haven’t already bought her book to do so.
We both faced the same problem. A common problem for booksellers, worldwide. The Weathergirls got it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aZJBLAu1E
For the Weathergirls the street was the place to go. Instead of men, it’s raining books. Every five seconds a book is published by Amazon. In Scandinavian countries such as Norway, every second person has published at least one book. Those unpublished are regarded as illiterate or worse, English or American. This was before COVID, when they had more time and even more books were published, and just after the election of the moron’s moron Trump, for the first and last time, so Scandinavian attitudes may have hardened since then.
Jan did chastise me a bit for not fully believing that my book would get taken up into the ether and land the coveted Number one, New York Times’ Bestseller List. In her world, if you don’t believe, you don’t get. In my world, our parallel worlds, you don’t get, and you get kicked for not getting. But I’m always happy to split the difference. I’ll kick anybody to sell another book.
What Jan has done is pay for advertising on Amazon for her book. Algorithms rule the world. That is one way in which she can get bounce on her local sales (which have been good). What it means is paying homage, economic rent, to the handful of richest men in the world.
I, of course, would do the same. It would allow me to tell the story of how Jeff Bezos once followed me on Twitter. How I’d both Hillary and Bill Clinton in my feed. Before I was found out as a charlatan and not even a billionaire. Of course, I was unTwittered (that was before it was the mighty falling and failing into X).
Jan had tens of thousands of likes and hits on her book in India. India is the most populous region in the world. A Hindu culture. She might well be onto something here. But neither of us were sure how that translated into sales.
I’m pretty unfussed about the graph on my Amazon page when it jerks up and down like the Dow Jones Index, which, in general terms, means I’ve sold a book, or perhaps two. I’m looking for trends. When it starts plummeting usually, it’s the death star.
I know also that Tik Tok (which is for those much younger than Jan or me) can still nudge book sales in the way Twitter used to. I joined Tik Tok yesterday and watched all the videos and listened to the bumf, so I know how #BookTok works. I’ll start posting and mess about and see if it influences sales.
I’ll get back to Jan and ask her how Amazon is working for her book. If it works for her, I’ll jump in and start giving one of the richest men in the world economic rent. Nothing comes from nothing, Shakespeare, King Lear and all those crazy Trumpian right-wingers keep reminding us.
If #BookTok works for me, I’ll show her how to do it. Invite her to jump right in. We’re collaborators on a small planet that keeps spinning and will continue doing so, even when we step off it. I’ve got another couple of novel-sized stories I should be working on. One I should be starting. Marketing is such a joyless trudge. We’re not looking for recognition, just movement in the right direction. We’ve split the world in half. She gets Amazon. I get the Chinese whispers of TikTok. We’ve brought two worlds together. Game on. Read on.
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