Tag: digital book

I am subscribed to receive Seth Godin’s blog posts via email.  For those not in the know, Seth is one of the most respected marketing gurus alive and kicking today.  He is the founder of Squidoo, a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, beautifully bald, and he gives out a plethora of free, useful marketing (and life) philosophy every day via his blog.

Seth seldom promotes himself or his products via his blog.  Occasionally, he will plug a new book he has written or provide a link to where tickets can be purchased to his latest training/speaking/learning/brainstorming session (which are always out of my price-range… unless I could talk the wife into taking out a second mortgage on our home).  I’ve never monetarily supported Seth Godin, but a friend gave me a copy of one of his books (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?) and it was worth the read.  Seth predicts a future work world that is quickly coming to fruition (it really is pretty much already here); a world where just doing what you’ve been trained to do (work hard and do what you’re told) does not lead to any sort of success.  Of course, the “new” success means you have to go outside of your comfort zone and become indispensable in the world in some way, shape or manner… so I know there ain’t no success in my future.  Also, Seth preaches that one should do his or her “art” to be fulfilled and become indispensable, and he claims that you can find “art” in working a job… so I have some basic philosophical differences with Mr. Godin.  Of course, Mr. Godin is well respected, has thousands of followers, and is independently wealthy.  I get no respect, write a blog that my dad and a couple of friends read, and scrape by.  Whose outlook you want to subscribe to is up to you.

So anyway, I don’t feel the need to support Seth Godin.  He does pretty well without my help.  When he blogs about his latest book or seminar, I just chuckle to myself and delete that email.  I likes me the free advice.

Today, I get an email with Seth’s newest post.  It’s about his newest book, We Are All Weird, and I was about to send this little sucker right to my deleted items folder when I noticed a couple of phrases:

“limited number in stock”

“no plans to reprint”

Hold the phone… back that station wagon up, Betty Lou!  Did I just read, “Limited edition book by a best-selling author that may some day be worth MILLIONS of dollars”?  Seth sells millions of books, and he is only actually printing 11,000 copies of this one.  So I’m immediately IMing my wife to see if we can squeeze about $17 out of our budget, and she says we can.  So, before you can say “sucker”, I’ve secured one of the 11,000 copies of Seth’s newest book.

Seth is also of the belief that paper books will become a thing of the past.  He is most likely correct.   The release of this newest book has unlimited availability in it’s digital format.  Is Seth Godin trying to hasten the decline of the paper book?  I believe he is.

I don’t read digital books.  I don’t believe in digital books.  I believe that digital books will continue to trend for the next several years… until the zombie apocalypse!  How are you going to charge your Kindle when there isn’t any electricity, Joe Bob?  How are you going to get to that PDF when you can’t turn your computer on, Sally Sue?  There will be millions of copies of books on digital storage devices that will be completely useless without power of some sort.  Meanwhile, I’ll have my library of paper books that I can read at my leisure in between foraging for food and beheading zombies.   Hahaha… take that, Kindle freak!  Besides, there is nothing in the world like spending an afternoon browsing a book store; it may be the most relaxing experience on the planet.  Plus, books smell good… you know, that dead tree and glue smell.

Seth is obviously smart.  Many of his followers (or “Tribe”, as he refers to them), I’m sure, subscribe to his opinion that digital is better.  Those people will buy the Kindle edition of his new book and be completely happy.  I, on the other hand, would have never purchased this book in its digital format.  I would have not purchased this book if I knew that I could check out a copy at the local library a few months from now if the desire struck me.  Throw “limited availability” out there, and all of a sudden I’m interested.  Make it seem like this is my only chance to own this bad boy in a format I would read, and suddenly I’m forking over 17 bucks for it.

I’m a sucker.  I’m sure the book will be great.  I’m sure it will be chock-full of great insight and advice (which I will probably never apply to my life).  Maybe I’ll even review the book on this blog once I finish it.  I am feeling, however, a little used… a little taken advantage of.  Maybe it’s just a touch of buyer’s remorse.  Or maybe it’s the fact that a master of the art of marketing just went fishing… and the taste of blood and metal from the hook and lead from the sinker is still fresh in my mouth.