Book Marketing Lessons From The Front Page

Does the news media reflect the world as is – or does it dictate and shape what it wants people to believe should be the news.  It would seem it's both once you sit through a new Broadway revival, Front Page.

This play stars some big names – Nathan Lane, John Goodman, and Roger Sterling to name a few.  It takes place in a bygone era where every town in America had competing newspapers, each putting out multiple editions daily, and when the newspaper was powerful in driving the discussion of the day – before T.V. or the Internet even existed.  That would’ve been the time period I would have thrived best in.

The play is a comedy and in between the laughter, you realize just how the media is influenced and corrupted by those it covers and how those it covers are manipulated by and influenced by media coverage.  It seems they each blackmail one another for greater career gains or financial payoffs.  The media may appear to search for the truth, but it also writes a truth that it believes will sell papers and get ad revenue up.  The politicians that it covers will do whatever it takes to cover their dirty tracks and seek to use the media to their advantage whenever possible.

Maybe not much has changed since the early 20^th century.

One of the interesting side stories to the play was the character of journalist-turning-ad man, played by Mad Men’s Roger Sterling.  He plans to leave the low-paying newspaper business for a high-paying advertising job.  But he gets sucked into pursuing one final scoop that could change his career trajectory.  This story line shows the heart and drive of a writer and journalist, but it easily shows how the same skills can be applied not to uncover and share a truth but in the case of advertising, to promote an alternate truth and to persuade others to act in contradiction to other facts.

Book marketers are like the news media in certain respects.  Each seeks to put forth a version of the truth that’s bought by the public.  Each uses words to manipulate the mindset and emotional framework of others.  Both look to get others to believe in their message, as if each has cornered the market on truth.

Book promoters need to think like the media – and to appeal to their values, views, needs, and desires.  Feed them stories they agree with.  Show them why something deserves their attention.  Report the facts in a way that tells a story they can believe in and support.  Ad men, marketers, and promoters are very much like the journalist who wants to write about the world and reshape it in the process.

The Front Page could make headlines on Broadway.  It also can reveal valuable insights into how things become news.

Please Click On The Best Out Of 2,100 Posts

2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-book-marketing-book-publicity.html

2015 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

2014 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-marketing-author-publicity-toolkit.html

Book Marketing & Book PR Toolkit: 2013

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-marketing-book-publicity-tool-kit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

Marketing The Perfect Novel

What is the perfect book?  Is such a book something we can create?  Let’s explore.

Let me say off the top that I’m not necessarily talking about a book that’s perfectly written, but rather, perfectly packaged.  Besides, perfection is in the eyes of the beholder.  Every classic book has its critics and detractors.  You can’t please everyone all of the time.  But can we create the perfect book to be marketed in a way that is guaranteed to bring in millions and millions in sales?

There are many factors that go into book sales.  Most of the all-time best-sellers, in terms of number of books sold, come in the form of fiction.  Books on better parenting, sex, health, and wealth can do very well but it’s the novel that, in the long-run, outsells all.

Let’s explore perfect novels today.

With novels, you never know what’s gonna take off.  Once a book breaks through it brings on many copycats.  After the massive success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, how many titles have had “girl” in them, with all of them about women in danger?  Once a gold standard is derived, you have copycats, traditional writers, and hungry upstarts looking to challenge the status quo.  Which one are you?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and it’s true, even in the digital book era – that a cover image is what draws so many readers to a book.  People like to pick up the shiny, new coin or flashy piece of jewelry.

The title is very, very important too.  If it’s more than five words, you’ve lost your reader.  Novels must have catchy, snappy phrases for titles.

Length alone doesn’t force people into a buy position, but there are some schools of thought here.  A longer novel provides meat and perceived value to some consumers.  But, if it’s too long, some may feel overwhelmed at the prospect of reading 760 pages.  A 540-page or 460-page or a 380-page book may feel just right.  Though people enjoy a quick read, especially for non-fiction, the 180-page novel may not give you a path to perfection.

The cover needs testimonials, an alluring tease, and just the right font and colors to invite you in.  The right book cover copy can seduce even a hardened savage.

Pricing a book just right is a little like trying to put your house up for sale.  Though the number of zeroes before the decimal point varies between the two, you don’t want to overprice it and turn people off, but you don’t want it undervalued and leave money on the table while making consumers wonder:  “Why so cheap?”

The perfect book requires the perfect launch, which requires the perfect pre-launch buzz.  This all begins with a well-crafted marketing plan.  Timing in the book marketing world is quite important.

The time to sell your book is not the day and subsequent weeks and months after a book first goes on sale.  Oh, no.  The moment to sell the book is before it’s officially available, months before, in the pre-sale run-up phase.  

You know how the political primary season ends up giving us the final candidates for election day?  Well, that primary season dictates election day and your primary season starts about six months prior to the day your book is officially launched.

Though many people self-publish books – and I support the practice 110% - the road to perfection typically runs through a traditional publisher, usually ones of the Big 5, which have been responsible for some 80% of all best-sellers in recent years. So, just odds-wise, if possible, seek perfection with a major publisher.

But regardless of the publisher, to launch the perfect book you need some hype.  What’s going to get people excited?  Many people buy on recommendations, perceptions, and appeals to their needs or desires.

People buy based on all kinds of theories and standards.

Just by telling someone a book is a best-seller makes them want it more.  Letting them know their favorite writer endorsed the book makes it more appealing.  Having a respected media outlet talk about the book in a positive way induces one to buy it.  If someone tells you not to buy it for political or social reasons – you rebel and want to buy it.

Can you get others to talk about your book way before it’s published – and then use their quotes and comments in your favor?

Can you create a controversy about your book before it comes out?  Do you have a natural enemy, based on the book’s content or who you are? If so, play that up.  Getting people to publicly love or hate you helps sell books.

Sometimes luck brings us the perfect book.  Something happens in the world or news cycle that suddenly has us craving a certain kind of story or allows us to see things totally differently than before.

The perfect book will do any number of things, including;

·         Discuss a taboo.

·         Promote or destroy a myth.

·         Tap into our emotions, from fear and hate to love and hope.

·         Lead us to see the world differently.

·         Entertain us in a unique fashion.

·         Seem to say what we think.

·         Speak to what we’ve experienced in our lives.

·         Give us direction to navigate through tough times.

·         Allow us to completely escape reality.

·         Helping us to feel a fantasy is so real.

·         Put ourselves in the shoes of others -- at no cost to us.

·         See into a viewpoint we never fully understood.

·         Appreciate life and guide us through challenges.

The perfect book doesn’t exist, but we find perfect passages, sentences, even words  We can fall in love with a book and measure all others by it , but then we realize no one book can give use everything that we need.  The perfect book is the one that people think they want or need and will extend themselves to buy it. You need to sell perfection, not necessarily create it.

Novelists need to extend their creativity off the book page and onto the book marketing arena.  Think Mad Men more so than Shakespeare. The marketing, promoting, advertising, and packaging of a book will always go ahead and write the best possible book.  Only your marketing can make it perfect.

Please Click On The Best Out Of 2,100 Posts

2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-book-marketing-book-publicity.html

2015 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

2014 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-marketing-author-publicity-toolkit.html

Book Marketing & Book PR Toolkit: 2013

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-marketing-book-publicity-tool-kit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

Here’s How To Help Your Book Publicist Promote You

If you are working with a book promoter, whether it is one you hired or that comes from your publisher, you want to maximize how you work with them. The first thing you should do is speak with him or her so they can understand your goals, needs, and expectations -- and to share with this person what you are all about.  

Below is a questionnaire that I send all of my author clients so that they can provide me with what I need to frame a good conversation with them. You may want to use this as a model for what you should be providing your publicist. And if the publicist doesn’t ask you for these things, run the other way, because he or she can’t promote someone they don’t know well and haven’t invested their time in.

Your Contact Information

• Name:
• Address:
• Home No:
• Cell No:
• Work No:
• Fax:
• Website:
• e-mail address:
• Assistant’s name/contact info (if applicable)

Your PR History

• Are you working with any other marketers or publicists? If so, whom?
• Did you ever seek publicity in the past?
• If so, what did you promote? When did you promote it?
• Can you share with us clips of articles or video clips of interviews?
• Please provide us with a list of news media you’ve done in the past?
• Can you kindly forward to us any pitch letters or press kits that were used to promote you?

Marketing Your Message

• What are the essential (three to five), key points you want to make clear about your book?
• If you were given an opportunity to guest-post about 4 different topics that relate to your book, area of expertise, experiences, or what is in the news these days, what would those topics be?
• What essentially is unique, new or different or better about you and your book than your competitors?
• What are the targeted demographics of the market or audience you want to hit?
• What type of marketing strategy do you have planned?
• Are there any honorary dates/anniversaries/holidays that tie-in to what you’re promoting?
• What are your news media goals? What do you hope to accomplish?

If We’re Promoting A Book, Please Provide Us With

• Endorsements or testimonials
• Sample Chapters and Table of Contents -- or the galley/manuscript
• Tell us who the competition/comparable titles are
• A copy of your book proposal
• The catalog copy or “tip sheet copy” your publisher may have created
• The name of your literary agent and contact info – if you used one
• The name of the publicity contact at your publisher or distributor – if you have one
• A list of names of other books you have published

Your Background

• Please send us your resume/cv/bio. What is your current job/position?
• Group Affiliations -- are there any organizations, associations, clubs, etc., through which we can publicize your book?
• Please provide a list of your top 10-15 best-known or respected clients if you are a consultant, executive, leader, or business owner.
• How often do you travel? To what cities? Any plans in the next three to six months to travel? If so, to where? What do you plan on doing on your trips?

Industry Related

• Tell us which newsletters or publications you subscribe to or read that are related to your industry or area of expertise.
• Tell us which Web sites you like to visit that are related your industry or area of expertise.
• Do you have a newsletter? If so, please send us a sample. To whom do you send it out – to how many people? How often is it sent? Describe what type of reader receives it.
• Do you conduct seminars, workshops or speeches? If so, what’s your schedule like for the next six months. Where have you spoken in the past year? (Please list the names of the events/organizations).

Connections

• Do you have any influential friends or contacts in your industry or area of expertise? If so, please identify by name and organization.
• Do you have any news media connections? If so, please name them.
• Who or what type of organization would you like to network with or partner with?
• Please share the names of any famous relatives, ancestors or friends.
• Are you listed anywhere – i.e.: reference listings (e.g., "Who’s Who", "Twentieth Century Authors")?
• What social media sites are you registered with – what are your handles or addresses for each - -how many connections or followers do you have on each, including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest – or others?

Please Click On The Best Out Of 2,100 Posts

2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-book-marketing-book-publicity.html

2015 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

2014 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-marketing-author-publicity-toolkit.html

Book Marketing & Book PR Toolkit: 2013

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-marketing-book-publicity-tool-kit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

Choose The Right Words To Promote Your Book

Words.

I’ve always been fascinated with the power one word has over another.  Great writing, to some degree, comes down to word selection.

For instance, I can simply state a fact:  “I am tired.” Or I can express it differently, with depth and description: “I was so tired that even if my wife offered to please me beyond my wildest fantasies I would have to decline.”  Or, I can just substitute one word for another:  “I am exhausted.”  Or I can insert a single word: “I am so tired.”

Words are available to everyone. The dictionary clearly shows us our options, readily accessible to all with equal access.  But the vast majority of people, including writers, fail to creatively, powerfully, or successfully apply the free building blocks to their craft.

Think about it. Not everyone is born into money or even into a loving family, safe environment, or learning-friendly home.  But we are all given the keys to the safe filled with unimaginable treasures:  words.  Nothing serves a barrier to any of us to write and select the right words, placed in the proper order to force readers to marvel and react positively.

Maybe it’s not as simple as I make it sound, or maybe it is. Just open the dictionary and learn a new word. Then another. Learn five every day and you increased your vocabulary by over 1800 words.  Don’t just remember them, use them.  Insert them into your conversations, correspondence, and books.

Why say that you wear a mere shirt when it can be the thing that stands between you and animals in a jungle. Your orange T-shirt that may have cost all of five dollars is the thinnest barrier between revealing your naked chest and just blending into civilization.  See words differently, and see how they go from beyond serving a function to creating images and solidifying ideas.  Words don’t have to reflect the past or reality – they can help us conjure a future, birth new ideas, or give form to mere feelings or conceptualizations.

Words can be powerful.  We can’t use legal language when discussing love and matters of the heart.  We shouldn’t let words get expressed insincerely or lazily.  Words mean not just what they’ve been prescribed to mean but they have texture, color, taste, and a way of describing what is and conjuring what could be.

We manipulate words to meet our needs when we write for a marketing purpose, including the construction of press releases, catalog copy, jacket copy, and other materials that are used to sell others on ourselves and books.

We have so many words to play with, including slang, curse words, words borrowed from other languages, genre- or industry-specific jargon, new words that get created from our tech-centric world and global relations, and made-up words.  The dictionary reflects new entries because our culture crafts new terms and employs them with enough regularity, that they become as real and permanent as a word that’s been with us for centuries.

The order of words, their absence, and their choice all conspire to make a piece of writing great or terrible, useful or purposeless.  In a world of changing values and tastes, words will always mean something even if our communications increasingly are compromised by social mediaspeak, emojis, and video reliance.

The way to improve your writing begins with words and the build-up of a good vocabulary. Words are like fashion – you don’t want to wear what everyone else is wearing but you can’t always be a trend-setter.  Find the words that dress you best and help you paint the best possible picture.

Please Click On The Best Out Of 2,100 Posts

2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-book-marketing-book-publicity.html

2015 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

2014 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-marketing-author-publicity-toolkit.html

Book Marketing & Book PR Toolkit: 2013

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-marketing-book-publicity-tool-kit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

Do You Have Time To Write?

What would life be like if you could actually write full-time, with no financial obligations or burdens? I know it sounds like a dream, but let’s go there for a moment.  The process may help you to become a better, even more prolific writer.

Most writers complain they have too many distractions.  Life is busy in general, especially when you tend to your health, kids, parents, chores, and day-to-day needs.  Throw in some kind of personal drama and the occasional crisis and you feel challenged to find enough time -- or quality time -- to pen your book.  Then you have the obligations of social media, branding, and platform building.  You have the distractions of mass entertainment and a computer that you carry in your pocket.  We haven’t even discussed money and a job yet.

Oh yes, the old career thing.  One has to pay the bills – and debts.  If you want nice things, to travel, or keep up with your health insurance premium, you better be working one, if not multiple jobs.  You may even whore out your talent and use your writing skills to freelance, maybe conduct research into boring topics and compile reports or articles on stuff you never gave thought to.

So, aside from cutting back on much-needed sleep, when do you find time to write?  Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could write on your own terms and have a wide-open schedule, without the drain of a job?

You can write around the pitfalls, demands, and stress of life, but it’s tricky.  It requires dedication, discipline, and drive. If you are truly talented, your writing will get done and you will break through.  No matter how much time is available to you, use it wisely.

Here are some tricks:

·         Get up earlier than you normally would – by 30 to 60 minutes.  Use that quiet time to write.

·         If you are not a morning person, stay up later to write.

·         Substitute non-essential activities to write.  Do you need to watch a re-run of a mediocre T.V. show?  Do you really have to go shopping again?

·         When you’re not writing, think like a writer.  Take notes on things you want to research or read.  Jot down ideas that can be pursued when time is available.

·         Use your lunch hour to write.

·         Reduce other activities by 10%.  For instance, instead of going to every soccer game for your kid, skip one every so often.

·         Call in sick -- or even use vacation days -- and write away.

·         Have a fake emergency, leave work two hours early, and get to your writing.

·         Change how you commute.  Can you take a train or bus instead of drive? Use that time to nap -- so you can write later -- or use it to write.

·         Always think about your writing when exercising, standing on a line, or running an errand.  Don’t just think how you want to write and can’t. Actually think of the content you plan on writing.

Or, screw it, just shut down your financial world and quit to write.  Be prepared to quickly tally a debt.  You can work part-time and build half the debt.  In any case, if you make that choice, just do it, and feel good about it.  I don’t have that courage, but you might.  Nothing wrong with it.  Try it for three months.  See how productive you are and ride your success into more books.

Maybe the tension and tease of having to squeeze our passion -- writing -- in every day is what drives us and make us better writers. Let’s face it, we can’t write all day, every day.  Our minds go numb, our hands tired, and we lack worldly distractions that inspire and inform our writings.  Perhaps the busier our lives, the better it is for our writing.

Please Click On The Best Out Of 2,100 Posts

2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-book-marketing-book-publicity.html

2015 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

2014 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-marketing-author-publicity-toolkit.html

Book Marketing & Book PR Toolkit: 2013

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-marketing-book-publicity-tool-kit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

The Theatrical Demise Of Culture

When I was a young boy there was a movie theater two blocks away from my sixth-floor apartment in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood.  It was called The Elm Theater.  It closed when I was around five, becoming a bank.  Though it’s changed hands several more times, the space has remained a bank.  It went from a community center of culture to a cold place where business transactions unfold.  The single-screen theater, like many of its kind of that time, began to close or get remodeled to feature two or even three screens.  The 1980s then ushered in the multiplex, large movie theaters of six, seven, eight screens.  In the 90s, they got supersized into the double-digits.

Every time, I step foot in the bank, if I happen to run an errand with my mom, who still lives by the bank there, I look up to see the high ceilings and fondly recall its movie theater roots.

I was fortunate to see one movie in that old theater.  Since those days have passed, I can count many childhood theaters closing up, from The Avenue J. Theater and the Kingsway, to Kings Plaza and The Ocean.  The one that’s still around is the one I thought should’ve closed 40 years ago:  The Kent.

The number of movie theaters has gone steadily down over the years.  We’re left with theaters holding a dozen or more screens, but each not much bigger than a large living room.  If movie ticket prices didn’t go up every year – or if they couldn’t sell a small bag of popcorn for $6 -- revenue would be way, way down.  The number of admissions has plunged over many decades.

A year or two ago, a theater in the town near me,  The Mamaroneck Theater, in Westchester, closed.  It was an old theater with three or five screens that surely used to be a single-movie theater.  Now, a theater just a mile from me, The Larchmont Theater, showed its last movie on September 25^th.  It will close for, a while but might re-open under a bid from locals seeking to save it.  We’ll see. Even if it reopens, it will surely be remodeled and reconfigured.  The last movie I saw there was a Woody Allen film this summer.  

The Mamamaroneck Theater was the site of where I took both of my kids for their first movies – separately.  I took Ben to see Madagascar 2.  He was good for 30 minutes.  Then the popcorn ran out and he told me it was time to leave.  Olivia enjoyed Yogi the Bear several years ago but about an hour into it she told me she was done.  Those memories lay inside the dormant theater, forever locked away.

Like bookstore closings, I feel lousy when hearing a movie theater is shuttering.  Sure it’s part of the evolution of society and I understand that things don’t last forever, but when I find out that a cultural institution will no longer be – with nothing like it to replace it and fill the void -- I fight back tears.

Our world is moving from the outside to the inside, from physical buildings to digital devices.  I don’t give a crap what others say.  That’s not progress.  It is true that the online world can add immensely to our lives, but not when it consumes us and sacrifices the human contact that bookstores and theaters provide.

The dominoes are falling.  As one store or theater goes under it becomes acceptable, even encouraged, for others to close their doors.  Society starts to expect not to go to such places and begins to change its habits as if all stores and theaters were already gone.  It’s happening with a lot of things and industries.

On the night I’m writing this I am going to see a play, in a Broadway theater, Page One, a comedic revival.  Will live theater survive, since you can’t duplicate such an experience at home or on a device?  I hope so.  We need all of the cultural arts we can support.  May the curtain always rise, and never come down.

Please Click On The Best Out Of 2,100 Posts

2016 Book Marketing & Book Publicity Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/2016-book-marketing-book-publicity.html

2015 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-book-marketing-pr-toolkit.html

2014 Book Marketing & PR Toolkit

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/book-marketing-author-publicity-toolkit.html

Book Marketing & Book PR Toolkit: 2013

http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/book-marketing-book-publicity-tool-kit.html

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.

The Customer Experience At Staples & Most Places Sucks

“Do you have a rewards card?” asked the young lady at the Staples cash register.

I searched for a card and then gave up.  I blurted out a telephone number.  At least she didn’t make me type it into the keypad or give a passcode that I would not have remembered.

“I have a coupon,” I told her. I showed her on my phone two coupons.  She scanned them.  Luckily they weren’t outdated and there were no stipulations against their dual usage -- otherwise I’d have to lobby to figure out how to get them to count both towards this purchase.

I also didn’t have any returns but my son brought in three used cartridges.  They give you a credit of $2 each for them.

“Did you take off $6 for the returned cartridges?”  I asked.   She explained that she didn’t, but that I’d be emailed a coupon or some points to my rewards card in a few weeks.  That’ll probably be the one thing my spam filter holds onto or that I accidentally delete while going through my multi-daily phone gymnastics of deleting clusters of offers and marketing emails.

“Can you price-check this?” my son chirped up.

He already downloaded some price-checking app to my phone where you can scan a barcode and find it cheaper somewhere else online.  But like most cool things, it wasn’t perfect and showed things that didn’t qualify.  If we find an item cheaper elsewhere, from one of their designated competitors, we save the difference plus another 10% of that difference.

We thought we found something for less than half of Staples’ listed price but it turned out it was a refurbished version of the item.  We eventually bought a slightly different item and found that online for ten dollars less.

She needed to call her manager over to verify this.

I kid you not, this is how I spent 30 minutes to buy an ink cartridge.  It’s not the exception but the norm.  The transaction time on a purchase these days takes a lot longer than it used to.  It’s torture.

When I went to pay, I inserted my card because swiping is no longer accepted. The stupid chip thing adds two minutes to every transaction.  In this case, something didn’t take and the purchase failed to register.  Poof, another two minutes out of my life so the store can prevent credit card fraud.  The truth is, it prevents nothing.

There’s no chip to insert when I do an online purchase is there? If I stole a credit card, whether I swipe it or insert a card, it still works, right?  When I call to order something with a credit card, I can’t give them a chip, now can I?  If people steal my identity and order up credit cards with chips in them, does it matter?  No.

Maybe stores should worry about stupid and lazy employees teaming up with savvy but frustrated customers.

A few days prior to my marathon ink purchase I went to buy two items for my kids at Staples.  We price-checked one item and saved half the price.  On another item, we made up a price and they didn’t question it or demand proof.  What retailed for $18.99 came up via our lie for $1.76.  Yes, the clerk didn’t question how we got over 90% off.  He just wanted to go home.  And I felt owed for all of the crap they put me through just to process a transaction.

I explained to my kids that what I did wasn’t right and is not to be duplicated.  I wanted to point out that this is what happens when employees aren’t trained right or lose pride in their work.  But it’s also what happens when consumers tire of the rewards-coupons-price check-chip dance that makes shopping a dull and tortured experience.

At the end of every transaction, the experience of shopping continues beyond that purchase.

Sometimes stores invite you to come back with new coupons printed on your receipt.  Others encourage you to go online to fill out a survey about your experience, lured by a free something or future discount.

I don’t know what to make up of the shopping life.  I can’t be bothered to research coupons or rushed to buy by a certain date.  If I use technology to track things down, it’s not perfect and it’s time-consuming.  If I try to skip going to a store, I miss out on seeing and touching and trying things out. If I order online, I have to track what packages are coming, make sure I don’t get the wrong or damaged item, and then be bothered making returns and following up with credits to statements on credit cards that I could stop using.

Just writing about this drains me.  I know it’s a first-world problem and I should just shut up.  But this is my life.  I’m not rich enough to just pay others to deal with this bullshit and not poor enough that I don’t get to buy things, and as a result not have to deal with this.

The phrase, shop till you drop, to me, takes on a whole new meaning now.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.