We Have A Winner: Congratulations to Abelle at Only In Silence!

Congratulations to Abelle at Only in Silence for guessing the cost of the NEW YORK TIMES ad to be $2,000! I will send Abelle an autographed copy of "My Funny Dad, Harry" as soon as I receive her address via email. In appreciation to all others who ventured a guess, they will receive a "My Funny Dad, Harry" bookmark as a consolation prize if they wish to give me their address via Entrecard email or myfunnydadharry@sbcglobal.net. This is my first contest on this blog and I thought it was pretty fun. I'm just glad some people participated!

I regret spending $2,000 for this little ad and here is the email I sent to Outskirts expressing my disappointment as well as the response I received back. I thought you may be interested to see their reaction to the ad.

-----Original Message-----

From: Karen Arlettaz-Zemek
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 6:18 AM
To: Outskirts Press; Outskirts Press Marketing
Subject: Re: Outskirts Press, Inc Customer Receipt/Purchase Confirmation

This was such a big disappointment, a real gyp and I believe that buying this ad was the stupidest thing I ever bought. You should have mentioned the one-page Outskirts ad would be buried inside a special book section among other colorful and bigger ads. I feel we got ripped off here.

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From: Outskirts Press Marking
Sent: December 11, 2008

Hi Karen,

We’re sorry you feel that way. Most authors wait their entire lives to appear in the New York Times, and they never get mentioned, much less along with a picture of their book. We feel this was an exciting opportunity for the 12 authors who were selected. Many more of our authors expressed interest and were not able to participate. This was one of our most highly-requested marketing opportunities by our family of published authors, and that was the main reason we offered it. Of course, we always want our authors to be satisfied with the services we offer, which is why we mentioned all the specific details about the opportunity in advance.

The New York Times Book Review always includes both color and black/white pages; and our opportunity was clearly described as being presented in black/white in the New York Times Book Review section. As you can imagine, pages in the New York Times are very expensive. Even in black/white, a single page in that issue of the New York Times Book Review has a rate card price of over $40,000. Color ads are much more expensive; our goal was to keep the cost down for our authors as much as possible, considering that 5 million people would see it. There were 12 books on our page, for an average cost of $3,333 each. Our co-op price of $2,000 was a very attractive savings and opportunity. In order for the ad to have been “bigger” (I assume you mean 2 full-pages rather than one full-page), the cost would have doubled, too. We don’t have control over where the New York editorial staff places pages, unfortunately, although we feel our page was the most attractive and appealing black/white page in that section.

Thank you for sharing your feelings with us. Feedback like this is always very valuable.

Sincerely,

OP Marketing

I was bummed out about this and embarrassed but yesterday a scripture came to mind that encouraged me: Romans 8:28 says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (NIV) I believe "all things" even includes my stupidity. Only time will tell, but I do believe God can make good things happen, even when we make mistakes and use poor judgment. My God is great and good so I will trust His word and not beat myself up over this anymore.

I am also currently reading "Love Your Life" by Victoria Osteen and she advises not to dwell on our mistakes but to look back on our accomplshments which is exactly what I am going to do now.