Over the past ten years or so, book publisher have become ever more inventive in the way they market books. They’ve pushed their wares on branded YouTube pages, created compelling viral campaigns, and they’ve gamed Amazon book rankings with Kamikaze-style outreach.
Now, Mother New York is upping the game again by offering a self-destructing version of James Patterson’s new book, “Private Vegas,” for the low, low price of $294,038. The over-the-top drama of the stunt perfectly aligns with both Patterson’s literary style and his readers’ penchant for action.
In a YouTube video, viewers are told that one lucky winner (well, winner is not the right term since parting with $294,038 decidedly makes one a buyer) will receive the experience of a lifetime.
The person who does decide to cough up $294,038 for Patterson’s new book will, according to the video and an ingeniously named promotional website, receive a first class flight to an undisclosed location, two nights stay in a luxury hotel, lots of champagne, 14K gold-plated binoculars in a leather case engraved with Patterson’s initials, a five-course dinner with Patterson, the entire Alex Cross book series autographed by Patterson and, of course, an exclusive front row seat to the actual destruction of the book by a bomb squad.
Creating a marketing stunt that requires a person to actually pay for the experience, let alone nearly $300,000, is a bit out of the ordinary; but, when Mother New York Managing Director Susan Holden posed that concern to Patterson, she was told he wouldn’t be surprised if one of his billionaire friends scooped up the book.
And, there’s more to the stunt than the one exploding book. Over the course of five days, another 1,000 people will be offered the book for free in digital form and allowed 24 hours to read it before it digitally self destructs. Each page will also disappear after it is read.
Today at noon, a separate promotional website will offer codes in batches which can be used to unlock and download the book. On that site, readers can track the location and progress of other readers and steal reading time from others, as well.
Patterson, himself, is promoting the stunt on his Facebook page:
Post by James Patterson.
And, he’s been teasing the stunt on Facebook since January 14:
Post by James Patterson.
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