Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

Kasubi

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I was just wondering what are the most outlandish things people have done to promote their books? How inventive did you get? How sneaky? How stealthy?

What can people try that isn't traditional?

I'll get the ball rolling:

1. REST ROOMS

I was on a long car journey when I realised that petrol station toilets always have adverts on the back of the door. Just think about it - a captive audience! And which minimum wage employee is honestly going to check the back of the door each time they clean? All you need is blu-tack and flyers.

2. LIT FESTS

I once saw a guy handing out promotional flyers for his book at a big name literature festival. Festival security got all snotty about it and confiscated his flyers. Lesson learnt? Don't be obvious about it. At every literature festival there are tables of flyers for the main acts. Usually there's dozens, sometimes hundreds, of main acts. Pretend to be reading a flyer, whilst, with the other hand, popping some of your own on the table. They may get chucked if a particularly vigilant steward happens to notice, but chances are they'll stay there a lot longer than handing them out in plain view.

3. BACK COVER COUP

Everyone loves browsing bookshops. Spend an afternoon browsing your genre on the high street, and slip a small flyer or business card-sized advert (nothing that's likely to fall out before it gets to the counter) into the back or mid-point of a book. If the reader has bought the book, they're likely to like the same sort of stuff you write. Plus you know they're a paying customer. Give them a suggestion for what to read next.
 

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I was just wondering what are the most outlandish things people have done to promote their books? How inventive did you get? How sneaky? How stealthy?

What can people try that isn't traditional?

I'll get the ball rolling:

1. REST ROOMS

I was on a long car journey when I realised that petrol station toilets always have adverts on the back of the door. Just think about it - a captive audience! And which minimum wage employee is honestly going to check the back of the door each time they clean? All you need is blu-tack and flyers.

You're making work for the cleaners who will have to remove your fliers; you're penalising the companies who have paid to have their goods promoted in those spots, and cheating them out of their money's worth; and do you really want to advertise your books there? Or to put it another way, how many books have you ever bought as a result of seeing them advertised in public toilets?

2. LIT FESTS

I once saw a guy handing out promotional flyers for his book at a big name literature festival. Festival security got all snotty about it and confiscated his flyers. Lesson learnt? Don't be obvious about it. At every literature festival there are tables of flyers for the main acts. Usually there's dozens, sometimes hundreds, of main acts. Pretend to be reading a flyer, whilst, with the other hand, popping some of your own on the table. They may get chucked if a particularly vigilant steward happens to notice, but chances are they'll stay there a lot longer than handing them out in plain view.

If you do this you're taking unfair advantage of the hard work put in by the festival organisers; you're taking space you're not entitled to; and you're cheating the authors who have put in their time to speak at the festival, whose work is legitimately promoted there.

3. BACK COVER COUP
Everyone loves browsing bookshops. Spend an afternoon browsing your genre on the high street, and slip a small flyer or business card-sized advert (nothing that's likely to fall out before it gets to the counter) into the back or mid-point of a book. If the reader has bought the book, they're likely to like the same sort of stuff you write. Plus you know they're a paying customer. Give them a suggestion for what to read next.

And now you're suggesting we take advantage of our high street bookshops, many of which are struggling already, and expect them to provide us with free promotion while giving them nothing in return. You're giving the bookshop staff more work to do, by littering their bookshop with your flyers. And you're taking advantage of the authors and publishers of the books you hijack in this way, who put a lot of effort and money into making their books a success.

By all means promote your books in creative, exciting ways. But don't do so in ways which penalise other writers, take unfair advantage of the efforts others put in, or cheat others out of a fair return on their investments.

I worked in sales and marketing for a while, but in computer game publishing, not book publishing. I arranged a live window display once, in Oxford Street in London's West End: that went down very well. I found working with established reviewers was almost always effective; cross-promotions and bundling did well too. If I wanted to use a retail outlet to promote my products I always worked with them, and never tried to sneak anything past them. That would have had a very negative effect, and would have affected my future efforts too. It's not a good way to proceed.
 

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I apologize for being rude, here. Kasubi, I really hope you haven't been doing this stuff.

I despise outlandish hard-sell, selfish tactics like these. They tell me the author or street team involved has NO idea how their efforts affect other people.

Toilets? Really? Unless your book is a Tijuana Bible or 'Fifty Yards To The Outhouse' by Willie Makeit, just - no. Even then, this is the 21st Century, and we have the Internet. 'Fifty Shades' cleared what, ninety million in its first box office weekend? Erotica is mainstream now.

Hijacking flyer tables at a book fair? Volunteer to help beforehand, and you might get space for free or cheap. Check out your local festivals. Some are juried - your book might not have made the cut because of quality or content. OTOH the Tucson Festival of Books lets in Author Solutions, AmericaStar, and any number of self-published authors.

Sticking your cards into other people's books? Wow. How would you feel if that was your book? If you owned the bookstore?

When I see gambits like these, I automatically suspect ignorance of good marketing, if not bad habits picked up from multi-level marketing gurus and vanity publishers (who spout this nonsense all the time.)

I appreciate brash marketing when it's done with charm and honesty.

In any of the three cases you mentioned, Kasubi, I'd toss the flyer/business card/whatever in the trash. I would not favorably remember the author or the book.
 

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All any of those things would do for me is make me never, ever read that particular writer. If you're any good, you don't need such tactics. If you aren't any good, such tactics won't help.
 

Cathy C

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I agree with all that has been said. However, there are similar methods to the above that are not only well-received, but have better effect:

1. Join BookCrossing. They have a program called "Books in the Wild" where you "release" books for others to read and track their course across the globe. Usually, the books are left on trains, buses or planes or at the stations where they land. You label the books, sort of like "Where's George" for money. It's fun for people to find a book and set it loose again and people get to read the books where, as the OP said, they are sort of captive audiences. But not where people have to clean up the mess. That's not cool.

2. LitFests are great for getting your book noticed. But please, just buy a day pass to the event. You can visit the dealer/vendor room and see if any of the booksellers have your book in stock. Offer to sign it! Nothing sells better at a book convention than a signed book. If they don't have the book, give them one (or more) and tell them to feel free to sell them. Nothing is better to a bookseller than free money and your book gets noticed more easily. Just don't fret if one or more of them says no. After all, they're the ones to have to tote them home if they don't sell. But many booksellers are from other locations than where the convention is, so they'll often take them home and put them on the shelf. :D

3. The business card thing at bookstores can work in certain circumstances. Start with local stores where you actually SHOP! This is critical because the staff is more likely to work with a local author who actually spends money at the store. If it's a indie shop, instead of a chain, see if you can put your cards or bookmarks at the front counter. I even had one Borders manager who offered me an amazing opportunity of sitting on the floor in a corner and putting one bookmark in every one of their bags at the registers! Most people at bookstores don't mind having a free bookmark (signed, of course ;) ) in their bag and the manager told me it did result in later sales. But again, ASK!!! I can't stress this enough. Bookstores like to sell books and if you spend the time to meet and greet and give them a press kit, often you can make them a partner instead of an adversary who is watching for your poaching.
 

Kasubi

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Okay, so we've explored - in depth - why you wouldn't do those things.

But what would you do?

With a market flooded with advertising. What is the most inventive thing you have done? What have you tried that wasn't a tweet or a paid-for promo? Did you do something by accident that seemed to work?
 

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I write, Kasubi. That helps. It would help more if I had more of my original fiction ready to send out. I have a backlist of older fan fiction stories that seem to lead to a small percentage of original fiction sales (I can track some visitors from fan sites, to to my blog, and then to my publisher or Amazon.) That's my biggest 'Accidental Marketing' discovery.

Some of my sales have come from people who read an unrelated essay on my blog or elsewhere, liked my writing, and tracked me down. A small but steady number of sales seem to come through my interactions here on AW.

I don't pay for advertising. I'll participate in large blog hops, and in 'theme days' for various genre-review blogs or large marketing support groups. I get fewer sales from direct marketing out of those, but I choose them more for networking.

A lot depends on the genre. My debut is a digital-only M/M space opera; I'm unlikely to market an e-book in person in my rather conservative area. If I had a self-pub mainstream romance, urban fantasy, or non-fiction book with local interest, I'd do the things Cathy lists in post #5.
 

Kasubi

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Sorry, Cathy! Didn't meant to ignore what you'd posted!

Bookcrossing is superb. Fantastic alternative idea. Though do you find you hear back from yours? I've released about thirty over the years but very few resurface. Just seem to disappear into the ether.

I am honestly surprised by the tone of most of the replies, though. The idea that there's a polite way and an impolite way to advertise.

We're quite content to have tampons and chocolate beamed into our homes, yet the idea of someone slipping an unobtrusive book suggestion into the back of a novel is distasteful?

Is there an unwritten rule of etiquette that governs advertising? Is the ethos of advertising well-mannered?

I was at a festival a while back (I had bought my day pass). It was a big one. Very big.

There was an author standing outside Waterstones handing out flyers for his book. Security took issue and moved him on. The guy got very upset about this and threw the flyers in the street, where they scattered.

I wish to this day I'd picked one up. Anyone with that amount of passion has probably written an interesting book.

You may be thinking "Good! It was right and proper that he be moved on. The scallywag!"

I don't think like that.

Big name literature festivals make really, really big money.

Why would I go and volunteer for one when they can afford to pay minimum wage? Literature is a noble cause, certainly, but it is not as sacrosanct as many a festival founder would have us believe.

The reason this guy was handing out his flyers was because he was frustrated. He'd worked really hard at something, but he didn't have the same backing of big name authors - specifically the financial backing. So he was willing to dress up warm on a grizzly, dank evening and stand in the cold, talking to people he hoped shared his interest in writing. What's to begrudge about that? We all start somewhere.

Big festivals don't always have big hearts. On balance, for the money they're making (this one got a £6mil grant from local authority to develop its website), they offer scant opportunity for new or local talent. They do little to promote the art they sell, or to support the aspirations of future artists.

The one I have forefront in my mind wouldn't even work with local community centres to get literature out into the underprivileged areas of town. Oh, the horror! That a renowned author might walk among the unwashed!

Hand over first, it's a business. A very entertaining, and at times deeply moving, business. But, a business.

Doesn't have to be that way.

A few years back I was at a small indie literature festival. A whole different experience. Big name authors and screenwriters up there alongside complete unknowns like myself. A highly egalitarian event.

No one was standing outside handing out their flyers, because nobody had to. As a new author I met people I would never have been sat next to anywhere else. Years later, they've done me some incredible services in the realms of promotion.

Networking and personal contacts are by far the greatest of promotional tools. But if nobody ever provides you with the opportunities to make those contacts, what you gonna do? The frustration is understandable.

People don't like to be swamped by advertising, no. But we are. Every day. Whether we think we notice half of it or not.

Ask whether I'm more offended by an author leaving a sample of her book pinned to my windscreen, or by Coca Cola sponsoring the Christmas tree in the middle of town? Should I be equally offended? At least the author left me something to read that doesn't rot my teeth.

And this question 'How would you feel if...'

Je ne comprends pas. Why should I feel anything? In what way does that touch my life in any form? How would I ever know about it? If I did know about it, what's to say I wouldn't want to read the book? Do you ignore adverts you're not interested in, or do you sit there in a stupor of self-indignation? Me - I ignore them.

Advertising itself is in no way moral. Shell obliterates an indigenous tribe, Nestlé dries up breast milk in Africa, Monsanto... do we really want to go there? Yet they're all allowed on telly because they've got money.

Most writers don't.

If someone decides to have a go at self promotion using whatever means they have to hand, why begrudge it? Whoever's cleaning the toilets in the petrol station is still earning more money than the volunteers at the literature festival, and probably the author handing out flyers on the street corner. Compared to what they usually have to clean up, a couple of handbills with a decent reading suggestion might even be a relief.

Everybody has their own morals on this. But imagine changing the story round to a different POV (avoiding, as Chimamanda Adichie might say, the danger of a single story). The struggling artist verses the machine, the underdog versus mainstream culture. The outsider against the pack.

Come on, literary types, sure you've heard that sort of story before ;)

In starting this thread, all I was looking for was a little imagination. A light-hearted romp through what people could do. Not necessarily what they would, but something with enough razzle to make us chuckle.

Would it be possible to continue in that spirit?
 

Cathy C

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Oh, I'm all for advertising and creativity, but yes, there is absolutely an etiquette to the process. Most definitely so. First and foremost is protecting the reader. While it's the reader you're trying to reach, you're only trying to reach interested readers. Just like a department store who has a person in front of the perfume counter passing out cards of new scents, that etiquette evolved from the same employee randomly spraying the perfume on people---without regard to allergies or sensitivities.

Readers have sensitivities too. A reader who reads inspirational, for example, could be offended at a flyer pressed on them for an erotica, or even vice versa!

I don't know where you got the idea litfests make money, though! Wow... :Wha: Really, they don't. Most of them barely make enough to do it again next year. I'm close friends with one of the organizers of a major romance convention. It's literally the biggest in the world, sponsored by a magazine, hosting more than 5,000 people each year and hundreds of authors. The fee is around $500 to attend and nearly every dime of that is spent by the magazine for expenses. For example:

People sign up to attend a banquet. The convention reports the number attending to the hotel. The hotel orders that much food and bills the convention. If the people don't attend and get their registration fee back...too bad, so sad. The food is billed anyway.

Blocks of rooms at a "convention rate" is only accomplished by the convention guaranteeing the hotel they will be filled. If they're not filled, payment is still expected.

Payment for use of the seminar/signing/dealer rooms originally ordered is mandatory, whether or not there are enough people to fill them. Remember that the convention hotel is ordered 2-3 YEARS in advance, without the host company having a clue whether anyone will be able to attend.

The convention guests (guest of honor, musical guests, etc.) has their room comped and their expenses paid, and sometimes a small stipend is given to the author for their time.

Decorations are the expense of the convention unless it's to advertise a particular book, where the author kicks in part of the cost.

Some of the staffers are paid, but most are volunteer. Why? No money.

The primary bookseller often charges a fee to be the on-site seller. You'd think it would be the other way around, wouldn't you? :Shrug:

Anyway, one of the big etiquettes is not to piss on (or piss off) Litfest people because they're doing the con to spread the word about books. It's not to get a profit. Truly. I could tell you horror stories from the POV of a convention organizer.

Another etiquette is similar to our very own AW motto---Respect your fellow writer. RYFW is critical to the process of advertising. You'll get a lot more promo with honey instead of vinegar. For example:

Join up with a group of other writers to spread the word about the other books, not your own. The other writers will do the same.

Congratulate other writers on their success, and MEAN it. You never know when a virtual friendship and well-wishing will come back to benefit you by a future cover quote or a mention of your book in unlikely places. Give goodwill and get goodwill. That's a definite etiquette. I can assure you that if you give people shit or step on them to get to the readers, you'll get the same in return. And some people are vicious when scorned.

So, yes. Etiquette is not only important, it's crucial.
 

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Because I've listened to enough editors and agents bitch about the 'light-hearted romps' they get in lieu of some query letters and book proposals. There are forthright, effective ways to get noticed. Very few of the ideas that will get airtime are really original - people have already been doing them, which is why they are so annoying.

As far as advertising, no, I do not like product placement in everything, nor am I a completely captive consumer of ads. I record all TV and cable shows, I skip ads unless they are really clever and creative. I treat companies that assault me with ads the same way I treat authors who spam me with 'Buy My Book!' tweets - I tend to avoid them more.

As for flyers - I hang out with romance writers: talk about flyers, bookmarks, and other swag! They don't work all that well. I tend to buy or borrow books based off word-of-mouth from trusted sources and reviewers. Flyers aren't that targeted. If it's in a genre or a theme I'm not interested in, it's just more litter to me.

I share your dim view about some book fairs and festivals. I know they're a business, just like trade shows. I just happen to have agents who work from within them, so I don't have to.

I might feel sorry for the guy standing out in the cold. But then again, I already know there's a greater than average chance he's either a crackpot or very, very new to this business.

But by all means, I'm interested in hearing how other people *think* they should be marketing things.
 
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I am honestly surprised by the tone of most of the replies, though. The idea that there's a polite way and an impolite way to advertise.

We're quite content to have tampons and chocolate beamed into our homes, yet the idea of someone slipping an unobtrusive book suggestion into the back of a novel is distasteful?

Is there an unwritten rule of etiquette that governs advertising? Is the ethos of advertising well-mannered?

I objected to your suggestions not because I considered them vulgar, but because it seemed to me you were suggesting taking unfair advantage of others, and behaving unethically.

If you're going to rely on bookshops and literature festivals to promote your work, contact them, ask their permission, and be prepared to pay a fee. Don't try to sneak in and take advantage of all their effort and expertise without making a contribution of your own.

Big name literature festivals make really, really big money.

No, they really, really don't.

Many operate at a loss, and only continue because they are supported by grants and bursaries. Arts Council England funds a lot of the UK's literature festivals, for example.

Big festivals don't always have big hearts. On balance, for the money they're making (this one got a £6mil grant from local authority to develop its website), they offer scant opportunity for new or local talent. They do little to promote the art they sell, or to support the aspirations of future artists.

I don't know which festival you're talking about here but I have spoken at many festivals and I strongly dispute your assertion. Good festivals support new talent, established writers, aspiring writers; they have events for children, they sell books, they improve the profile of good literature, and they help potential readers to find new writers. They do a huge amount for foreign writing too.

Je ne comprends pas. Why should I feel anything? In what way does that touch my life in any form? How would I ever know about it? If I did know about it, what's to say I wouldn't want to read the book? Do you ignore adverts you're not interested in, or do you sit there in a stupor of self-indignation? Me - I ignore them.

You've missed my point entirely.

It's one thing to ignore ads which have been appropriately paid for. It's another to be faced with advertising which is riding on the back of someone else's efforts.

Etiquette is not only important, it's crucial.

Agreed.

http://absolutewrite.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/
 

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From the thread title, I was thinking you meant stuff like street art, which has been used before to market. The thing with that is it isn't about painting an advert, but doing something artistic that gets attention. Though it's not always the attention hoped for (like the Mooninites case, when the signs put up were mistaken for bombs). That's one of those grey areas where you might get arrested or you might not. The work might be removed or it might be preserved as art.

Which is really the issue you're facing here, that it's not so much that your ideas were impolite. It's that it's breaking rules, that will at best get you thrown out of places/banned from returning, and at worse facing criminal charges.

On things that won't get you arrested, conventions do sometimes have freebie tables where anyone can leave stuff. Targeting events that have an open table would be more logical than targeted those where it'd get you thrown out. But my observation was that few people wanted bookmarks, postcards and stuff like that. If I planned to market through that, I'd do a chapbook with a few short stories and more information about my work in the back. More expensive per item, but better to have a few chapbooks that all go, than a bunch of bookmarks nobody takes.
 

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Now we've established that some of us don't like the suggestions the OP came up with, what can we come up with which is alternative, exciting, and likely to be a positive promotional exercise?

In my experience, people put a lot of effort into thinking of ways to promote. But they rarely do the other essential half of the exercise, which requires thinking of ways those promotional activities will reach potential readers. For example, you can put your flyers (fliers?) out on side-tables in hotel bars: but if your potential readers don't congregate in those hotel bars, your efforts will be wasted.

Every marketing activity you do, every promotional effort you make, should be focused on connecting with your potential readers. If you work with a vague idea of connecting with people then yep, you might well do that, and that's good, of course: but your efforts will be far more effective if you work with a clear picture in mind of who your reader is, what he or she wants, and how you can show them that your book will fulfill those wants and desires.

It sounds complicated, but it's relatively easy once you get into the swing of things. For example, only place ads where your potential readers will see them; only offer giveaways to people who are likely to like your book; go after reviews in publications your potential readers read (and this one means you might well be better off getting reviews in unconventional publications if your readers read them, than in more popular publications your readers ignore).
 

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[snip] ... go after reviews in publications your potential readers read (and this one means you might well be better off getting reviews in unconventional publications if your readers read them, than in more popular publications your readers ignore).

This one seems key to me. Learn where your potential readers find out about new books (besides word of mouth), and get exposure there. For instance, I'm a YA writer, so I would target a blog like the Midnight Garden (with a big Goodreads presence) rather than my local daily paper. Your local paper does make sense if your book has a strong local or regional hook.

In the same vein, don't send out press releases at random; know whom you're pitching. (We only review local books, and I get about five emails daily pitching books written by out-of-staters. They're just spam to me. Many of these come from publicists, so if you hire a publicist, make sure he or she is targeting the mailings.)

Anyone with that amount of passion has probably written an interesting book.

I wish this were true, but in my experience, willingness to market in aggressive or creative ways does not correlate with the quality of the book in any way, shape or form. There are many kinds of passion, not all conducive to writing a good, interesting, or coherent book.

I've seen flyers for self-published books around town, but I have yet to see one with a striking design and a succinct, coherent, compelling blurb. If I did, would I check it out? Maybe, maybe not. But a flyer without those elements is an anti-advertisement.

In my role as a reviewer, I tend to think most highly of writers who put a book in my hand and let it speak for itself rather than doing a hard sell. Maybe they'll say something like "I hope you'll enjoy this, since you wrote a positive review of [similar book X]." Anything more is overkill.
 

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I am new at this (just published this month), so I don't have any tried and true method. I have a plan though for marketing. I've contacted bloggers for reviews and had 8 agree so far, found a review site for my genre (they review honestly in exchange for a PDF copy, applied (still waiting on response) for a virtual book tour. I also have paid for advertising at ebooksoda, fussy librarian and Betty Book Freak. I have applications in at ENT, Kindle Books and Tips, Buck Books and ebookstage. (Book Bub rejected me). I have a goodreads giveaway that ends tomorrow and found a group that tweets author's books in my genre. Trying to set up a book signing, but Barnes and Noble doesn't allow Create Space books in their stores. So I have some more calls to make.

None of these are sneaky, but I am hopeful some will be effective. I have a monthly calendar where I planned at least one thing to promote my book each day, even if it's small. So far I've only sold 51, but I'm hopeful once my paid promotions take place the numbers will increase.
 

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Advertising itself is in no way moral. Shell obliterates an indigenous tribe, Nestlé dries up breast milk in Africa, Monsanto... do we really want to go there? Yet they're all allowed on telly because they've got money.

Most writers don't.

…and those that do the legwork to get honest reviews on Amazon are doing favour by putting integrity into the review system of company that couldn’t care less either way. On the title of this thread “Guerrilla marketing tactics” Amazon is right up that street.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/t...5-star-reviews.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss&

quote: “Asked why Amazon did not seem to notice that at least a few consumers called into question the VIP deal on its own site, a spokeswoman declined to comment” In other words Amazon did nothing with the complaints of individuals, acting only after it hit the mainstream news.

In the following Amazon offered incentives to review before the review, to be given after the review, while the review itself is also integral with the incentive because they would be promoted via their review.

http://observer.com/2011/06/amazon-publishing-to-authors-review-our-books-and-we-will-promote-you/

In comparison, paying $5 for a review that doesn’t promise to be positive, is not only an equivalently much lower payment, but if given before the review, the reviewer can say what they really think without fear of not getting paid.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/09/amazon-fulfillment/

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03...ing-page-possibly-inflating-the-games-rating/

That’s just a sample.

From big eCommerce’s perspective (not just Amazon), customer reviews are all about perception. They are there as lip service to a “customer power free speech” ideology and that’s a far as they need to go. There is more to be gained from having “customer reviews” even if over half are fake, than not having them at all and losing that perception. They don’t police them or need to police them, while they have no legal responsibility over fake customer reviews anyway, as per section 203 of the Communications Decency Act.
 

Ravioli

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I agree with all that has been said. However, there are similar methods to the above that are not only well-received, but have better effect:

1. Join BookCrossing. They have a program called "Books in the Wild" where you "release" books for others to read and track their course across the globe. Usually, the books are left on trains, buses or planes or at the stations where they land. You label the books, sort of like "Where's George" for money. It's fun for people to find a book and set it loose again and people get to read the books where, as the OP said, they are sort of captive audiences. But not where people have to clean up the mess. That's not cool.

That sounds like so much fun :D I actually did something similar with my art once. Made a drawing, wrote my Art page and name down on it, and left it behind at the airport. A week later, someone wrote me on my Art page with a pic of that drawing!

I also thought about having several copies printed (eew the cost I just got fired!) and discreetly "forgetting" them in crowded places where people got nothing better to do than pick up and read.