Neil & Amanda sit down and have a drink. George says OW.
Ok, bad joke. But it was inspired by this tweet from Goodreads this afternoon.
As you can imagine, there were some pretty interesting responses. My immediate knee jerk response, which I did not write in a tweet but saved for you lovely people was, “George W. Bush can write?” Seriously. My next thought was, “What the hell is Goodreads doing stumping for a war criminal?” Finally my marketing brain kicked in and said, “Who exactly is the audience for that tweet?”
Don’t get me wrong, I do not think that every single tweet one sends has to be finely crafted and designed to tug at the heart-strings or wallets of just this or that demographic. But, if you’re trying to appeal to people to come to your website, that’s a pretty interesting group right there. What were they thinking?
Personally, I think Alicia Keys is amazing. I first saw her perform in a benefit right after 9/11 and immediately went out and bought her CD. She’s a powerhouse. Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman together in one tweet also makes sense, they’re married and they make a lot of good art together and separately, and they’re both really awesome people. (I’m lucky enough to have met both of them and I think they’re fantastic human beings.) Heck, putting all three of those people together makes a certain amount of cross genre sense, two strong women, three great artists.
But add in George W. Bush and your strategy falls all to hell. First of all, I’m still not convinced that he can write. Yes, I know he went to Harvard and Yale, but he majored in drinking, sleeping in, and missing class. I’ll give it to him that he can write his name, he had to be able to do that to sign those 291 Executive Orders Cheney issued while they were in office. But write a book? Nope, there’s a ghostwriter out there somewhere. Maybe two of them.
To sum up, if you haven’t read any Neil Gaiman books, go out and get yourself some. Each one is a little jewel. If you haven’t seen Amanda Palmer perform, do it. I saw her do two songs in person and they were two of the most amazing, electrifying performances I’ve ever seen. And, I’ve pre-ordered her book and will have it in my hands at 12:01 am on 11/11/14. As for Alicia Keys, I’ll have to investigate her book. I don’t know anything about it, yet. And George, well… never mind.
Then again, maybe your strategy did work, Goodreads. I did write this blog post.
~Kelly
The Books are Taking Over... 