Wow, Julie, you put some work into this! Great research. Amazon’s print-on-demand does seem to mean that the same basic book could be tailored to 75 different audiences, with different covers, and even contents, for different demographics responding to varying advertisements.
About those advertisements, you write that
“I clicked through the ad. There, I found a landing page just for Instagram users that told a very similar story to the viral Facebook post. The story uses what seem to be real people's names, real statistics, and real scientific research. It seems verifiable (but isn't, really). It's the perfect mix of what I, as a writer, would use to persuade: personal story, shocking data and dilemma, the quest for a solution, and the solution presented as a call to action (buy this book).”
Well!
In the 1999 worldview guide How Now Shall We Live, a collaboration between Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey, with help from Harold Fickett, we learn that
“[R]eligions and philosophies are not the only ones offering redemption. any belief system in the marketplace of ideas…anything that has the power to grab people's hearts and win their allegiance does so because it taps into their deepest longings. and those longings are, ultimately, religious…
“According to sociologist James Twitchell, in his book AdcultUSA, many of America's early advertisers were Christians, often sons of clergymen. As they developed the art of modern advertising, they simply translated their understanding of spiritual need into the commercial arena. The spiritual sequence of sin-guilt-redemption became the psychological sequence of problem-anxiety-resolution. That’s why the typical television commercial is, in Twitchell's words, 'a morality play for our time'. We see a man or woman in distress. He has a headache; she has a cold. a second figure appears on the screen promising relief, testifying to the power of the product being advertised. The seeker tries the product and, hallelujah, the problem is solved. Life is blissful. From on high, the disembodied voice of an announcer presses home the advantages of the product. 'The powerful allure of religion and advertising is the same, Twitchell concludes. both reassure us that 'we will be rescued…”
I hate marketing. I find it so destructive. Tear down a person with fear, guilt, shame, etc., and then stick them with the sell and get their money. Feels ungodly at the very least.
I've noticed it's getting less and less pleasant to order on Amazon these days. It used to be so simple and easy to find what you want, or at least what's good enough and at the best price. Now there are whole categories, like hard disk drives, where I don't even go to Amazon to look, because there's so much garbage.
While I won't stop buying from them, guess I'll at least have to add books to the list of categories that require extra caution. This, indeed, is rather ironic!!
I'm in the process of writing a number of books, finally, after many years of working on research, and am discovering that Amazon's supposedly turnkey self-publishing is actually a bit more complicated. And with all the AI slop coming out now, I do wonder whether they will remain the obvious place to look first for a book in the future.
Anyway, thanks for putting what, as Dan noted, must have been a considerable amount of work into this. As someone about to venture back into the children's book market for my grandkids, there sure seems a lot more to watch out for, this time around.
The AI slop is off the charts on Amazon. And Amazon is just as bad as internet search for putting sponsored products at the top. Many of those products don't really relate to your search. It's very difficult to find what you're looking for on Amazon anymore, which has made me start looking elsewhere. I guess that's a silver lining.
Wow, Julie, you put some work into this! Great research. Amazon’s print-on-demand does seem to mean that the same basic book could be tailored to 75 different audiences, with different covers, and even contents, for different demographics responding to varying advertisements.
About those advertisements, you write that
“I clicked through the ad. There, I found a landing page just for Instagram users that told a very similar story to the viral Facebook post. The story uses what seem to be real people's names, real statistics, and real scientific research. It seems verifiable (but isn't, really). It's the perfect mix of what I, as a writer, would use to persuade: personal story, shocking data and dilemma, the quest for a solution, and the solution presented as a call to action (buy this book).”
Well!
In the 1999 worldview guide How Now Shall We Live, a collaboration between Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey, with help from Harold Fickett, we learn that
“[R]eligions and philosophies are not the only ones offering redemption. any belief system in the marketplace of ideas…anything that has the power to grab people's hearts and win their allegiance does so because it taps into their deepest longings. and those longings are, ultimately, religious…
“According to sociologist James Twitchell, in his book AdcultUSA, many of America's early advertisers were Christians, often sons of clergymen. As they developed the art of modern advertising, they simply translated their understanding of spiritual need into the commercial arena. The spiritual sequence of sin-guilt-redemption became the psychological sequence of problem-anxiety-resolution. That’s why the typical television commercial is, in Twitchell's words, 'a morality play for our time'. We see a man or woman in distress. He has a headache; she has a cold. a second figure appears on the screen promising relief, testifying to the power of the product being advertised. The seeker tries the product and, hallelujah, the problem is solved. Life is blissful. From on high, the disembodied voice of an announcer presses home the advantages of the product. 'The powerful allure of religion and advertising is the same, Twitchell concludes. both reassure us that 'we will be rescued…”
🤔
Wow, that history is both enlightening and depressing!! And I will never see TV ads the same, now that you have pointed out their technique. 😬
The authors go on in this vein in some length, providing more detail, offering examples
I hate marketing. I find it so destructive. Tear down a person with fear, guilt, shame, etc., and then stick them with the sell and get their money. Feels ungodly at the very least.
Did you used to visit a blog I wrote for? CRN.info? I think that's what it was called. I seem to remember you for some reason.
That sounds familiar. I've been blogging for 25 years so you may have run into me.
I've noticed it's getting less and less pleasant to order on Amazon these days. It used to be so simple and easy to find what you want, or at least what's good enough and at the best price. Now there are whole categories, like hard disk drives, where I don't even go to Amazon to look, because there's so much garbage.
While I won't stop buying from them, guess I'll at least have to add books to the list of categories that require extra caution. This, indeed, is rather ironic!!
I'm in the process of writing a number of books, finally, after many years of working on research, and am discovering that Amazon's supposedly turnkey self-publishing is actually a bit more complicated. And with all the AI slop coming out now, I do wonder whether they will remain the obvious place to look first for a book in the future.
Anyway, thanks for putting what, as Dan noted, must have been a considerable amount of work into this. As someone about to venture back into the children's book market for my grandkids, there sure seems a lot more to watch out for, this time around.
The AI slop is off the charts on Amazon. And Amazon is just as bad as internet search for putting sponsored products at the top. Many of those products don't really relate to your search. It's very difficult to find what you're looking for on Amazon anymore, which has made me start looking elsewhere. I guess that's a silver lining.
Yeah, Chris L and Joe M and Phil and Christian P and a few others.
Brings back memories. Not all of them good.
God was kind and blessed me with a terrible memory. I can't really remember too much of it.
Tabula rasa.