I have written before about how people who do marketing (i.e., that class of workers whose function it is to make us purchase things we may or may not need) think the rest of us are drooling idiots.
Allow me to throw the following example on to the heap.
My wife enjoys reading and one of her favorite authors is Nora Roberts. You may not know this, and my wife did not know this at the start of her Roberts’s reading adventure, but this author has another series of books outside of her typical romance books.
Under the name J.D. Robb, she writes about Eve Dallas, a police office in a near-future world.
This post is not to discuss the quality of her work, which since I have not read any of them, I am unqualified to critique anyway.
No, this post is to highlight some wording on the paperback version of her 2003 book, Imitation in Death. In addition to the title of the book and the name of the author, there is an oval with text meant to show that this book is something special. Usually, other Robb novels have the words, “First Time in Paperback”, which is to tell the reader that this is their first opportunity to buy the book cheaper.
However, this is not what this orange oval said. It, instead read…
First Time in Print!
Remember, I’m looking at a book. This is a story I’m looking at. Where else would I have seen this tale called Imitation in Death?
Was it ever a movie? Was an audiobook put out? Is there a podcast I can download?
Please tell me, where was this tale available before it was in print?
See what I mean. People who do marketing must think we’re idiots.
By the way…this blog posting is really special because it’s the first time in print.
See…it’s even stupid when I say it.
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