Bad ad

I subscribe to the Bookbub newsletter, which delivers a daily list of bargain-priced ebooks covering any genres you highlight as your favorites. It’s a handy way to find the occasional bestseller for cheap, but better still for finding new authors with minimal financial risk. I’ve started reading several new authors, so can recommend at least checking it out.

This post is not about the Bookbub newsletter.

Rather, it’s about the coveted ad space that appears at the bottom of the newsletter. This is where authors can highlight their efforts and reach a potentially wide market.

Most of the ads are new, but I’ve seen a few repeats. This is about one of them. It is a bad ad.

Here it is:

Why is it a bad ad?

The image of a young woman with blood splattered on her face and finger is obviously meant to be provocative, but something about it just screams stock photo. Visually, I find it dull. I guess the story is about a murderer?

There’s no description of the story, not even a pithy little blurb or one of those mash-up quotes. “It’s Jaws meets the Stepford Wives!”

There’s no title. What is this story called? Beats me. You have to click the link (where does it go?) to find out. But why would I? If the author can’t be bothered to even include the title of their own novel, how much should I care about it?

The quotes feel a little too selective. “Evocative of Stephen King” sounds positive, but for all I know the rest of the quote could be, “but fails to match the horror master’s craftsmanship.”

Also, the author expects people to know what KU is. I do, because I’ve been a longtime Bookbub subscriber, have read up on self-publishing and am familiar with Kindle Unlimited. But what about someone who is new to Bookbub? I’ll concede this part may be aimed at a more specific segment of the Bookbub readership.

This ad has come up a few times and I have yet to click on it. I was tempted to for this post, but still couldn’t be bothered enough. It’s a mystery, but not one I care to solve.

It is a bad ad.

UPDATE: But it is also a ubiquitous ad, as it ran for the next week in the Book Bub newsletter. This prompted me to finally click the link and discover that I had actually checked out the book before, then forgotten about it. I don’t blame the book for this, just my addled mind.

It’s called The Demon King and the basic plot reads a lot like Stephen King’s IT, which is where they “evocative of King” quote likely comes from. It’s also the first book of three in something called “The Bloodletters Collection”, is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on amazon.ca, and costs $4.25 in Canada thanks to our lowly Canadian dollar. Each book appears to be longer than the previous, also evocative of King. The price is fine, but I ain’t committing to a trilogy from an author I’ve never read that spans over 2,000 print pages. But I’ll probably remember it now.

The things you draw

Apologies if you expected to see one of my drawings here. You’re probably better off, given how out of practice I am and also the fact that I was never really great at drawing to begin with.

Anyway, this image can be seen on the BenQ site in the monitor section. This diligent young man appears to be using a graphics tablet to…work on his MacBook Pro’s desktop wallpaper.

“If I enter the right hex code, this color will be perfect!”

Black Friday now starts on Wednesday

It should come as no surprise in a world where Christmas ads start showing up in October (or September) that Black Friday, officially the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday (this year that would be Friday, November 24) now starts on Wednesday or just whenever. Every sale right now (and ads for such are overflowing at the moment) is either a Black Friday Already Sale or a Pre-Black Friday Sale. It is now and shall continue to be Black Friday. Which actually sounds a little ominous when you think about it.

I mean, I like sales. I want to buy that new fry pan that promises to never ever let food stick to it for real, and I’m glad that I’ll have a chance to get it at a really good price. But is it worth the relentless barrage of ads and yet another lengthening of the time frame in which we need to endure the things? I even had an obnoxious banner ad show up in the WordPress dashboard of this blog for one of the plugins I had installed.

Had, because I’ve since uninstalled it and sent the company behind it a brief note explaining how I don’t care for obnoxious banner ads on my WordPress dashboard. Perhaps they didn’t know. Now they do!

Anyway, I should try to focus on the positive rather than just carp and be negative, so let me conclude by saying that I’m really looking forward to getting that magic fry pan. If they haven’t sold out of it before I can get to the store.

This is an improvement?

This ad is currently running on gay.com (yes, this neatly cuts off the cries of “Gay!” right from the outset):

before_after_ad

Normally a makeover is meant to be an improvement, if I’m remembering my definitions correctly. In the Before shot the guy could probably stand to get acquainted with a comb but other than that he looks like a pretty casual type, someone you’d go with to a Pearl Jam show then relax afterward at the pub with a couple of beers. The post-makeover guy looks like a total sissy nancyboy — and he still needs the comb. The only thing I can think to do with this schmuck is snap his bow tie to see if he starts crying. Blech. I think the marketing gurus need to spend a little more time on this campaign.