Now, I have no standing to tell Tor Books how it should run its business or interact with its customers. But I do find the difference between the two rival schools of thought on the matter to be pretty astonishing when you compare and contrast them. One of our customers recently sent us this note
An unsolicited endorsement….
Recently I took advantage of a “buy vol 1 and get vol 2 free” offer from Castalia House on a Friday. Saturday I opened my email to see two links to the books.
I clicked vol 1 and it downloaded, I clicked vol 2 and got the message “you have reached your download limit”..
I sent an email asking for the link to be reset, I expected to hear a reply on Monday.
But instead (on a Saturday), I received an email apologizing and asking me about the format I needed. I replied and within a few minutes received an email with vol 2 attached. (on a Saturday!)
That is the definition of good customer service.
I fear, however, that we completely failed to call him a neo-nazi or an unrepentant racist homophobe at any point in the process. Now, every company has different ideas about how to best interact with their customers, and I expect there is probably something to be said for hurling vituperative insults at people you would like to buy things from you. Precisely what that might be, I have no idea, but then, we’re relatively new to the publishing game. I know we have a lot to learn.
I guess I’m just a techno-caveman. I don’t understand these newfangled means of “marketing”, all this flashy “social media”, all these “tweets” and “follows” and “likes”.
Is it a sort of Soup Nazi spin? You know, “no books for you!” Does anyone know of any market research indicating precisely what insults tend to be most effective in improving brand loyalty?
And would “buy our bad-to-reprehensible books, racist neo-nazi homophobes!” be a good place to start?