AMKent books

Hello, many of you will know me, I imagine all of you will, or if not my exact name at least some kind of deformed echo of it. Ok, so I will be honest, AS OF RIGHT NOW, I am not exactly the best-selling author. However, recently, I have been working feverishly on the advertising and promoting of my new book. This is something I had never done before, as I thought it almost taboo to promote and shill your art. I thought there was some kind of metaphorical phantom list of dos and don’ts, like an artist commandment slab, and ‘THOU SHALT NOT SHILL’ was almost definitely on it! After measly sales, ranging around 100 in total for three books, I realised that the whole reclusive author thing in the digital age is not going to work so well.

So, I made a video, it was awkward, it was clear I was not meant to be on camera, it was also clear I had made the right choice choosing words over acting. I then rewatched the video, my face moved in ways I did not realise, my hairline was even higher up my head then I had originally thought. Yes, this was a most unpleasurable experience, it was like something you would see on those cringe compilations on YouTube. Nevertheless, I had to post it, I had finished my third take, and my weird face was not becoming any less weird. After the initial push of recording myself, I became addicted, I made two hundred videos a day. Ok, so I did not make that many, but I did get used to it. I could even watch myself back for almost the entire duration of the video. Things were looking good, so I decided to gamble on myself and place an advert promotion on Twitter and Instagram. I then made a TikTok, yes, that is where the younglings (Obi-Wan PTSD) are congregated these days. Like any good man with a receding hairline and a moustache, I needed to go where the young people are.

What have I learned so far, well, advertising can sometimes make you go viral. One video I made of myself got around 150k views in two days, another looks to be nearing similar numbers. I only paid 20 quid for one, so I got a lot of bang for my book. What else have I learned, well, be prepared to be meme’d. Yes, I have had memes made out of me, some funny, others incomprehensible, and sometimes its just an old person insulting me. Now, I have a moustache, so I am kind of asking for scrutiny on my physical appearance. Ok, what else? Well, adverts do not really work that well, I have gone viral (somewhat) twice, I barely sold 20 copies from that experience. Now, a 10/20 copy boost is nice, but when you are spending nearly 100 pounds on adverts, it is not really recovering anything. In face, begrudgingly, the best way to sell copies (other than writing something that’s good), is to build a community. This is the process I find myself in now, a civilisation is forming, the ‘Kentonians’ I shall call them! I will return to this article as I learn more, so others may see my wounded ego and take note of my mistakes, on a clipboard, a metaphorical one, yes.

You didn’t really think I was going to write an entire article about advertising without shilling my own work at the end did you?

http://mybook.to/VAS There, a universal amazon link to my book.

Now I shall leave you with a song to ponder upon when you are becoming frustrated that your masterpiece was skim read by your mom and used as a coffee coaster for everyone else.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please do put a penny in the old man’s hat
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha-penny will do
If you haven’t got a ha-penny than God bless you