Word of Mouth Doesn't Work

by Randy Vaughan
(Vinton, VA)

The Agony and...Even More Agony

After years of posting at various websites, I began to see that my responses to topics regarding jobs, employers, i.e., working for living, became repetitive, appropriate responses to predictable questions. So I began to actually save them as separate and distinct rants. Rants, of course, once "polished" easily become articles and a whole bunch of articles can become the stuff of a book.

But the book, in its first potential incarnation, lacked focus, or as a friend said, it "meandered". His one-word critique provided the focus I'd simply overlooked. Answers that began as rants that eventually become the stuff of articles had a distinct chronology I'd overlooked. My answers, you see, were relative not only in content but also in tone and passion to that specific period of my life and in direct connection with whatever occupation I may have had at the time.

So after nearly sixty employers and years of unknowingly writing the stuff that would be the content for a book, I self-published The Maniacal Laughter of the Damned: Why you can live and work in the real world without making a deal with the Devil. But all those years of experience with all those employers pale in comparison to the agony of trying to bring attention to the book.

An old southern saying puts it this way: "Self-brag is half a scandal." The Bible puts it this way: "Let another's lips praise thee and not thine own." And so from the very beginning--and because it's simply my nature--I was determined to let the book succeed, or fail, on its own merits.

But I've learned something over the last three years, something that would've made a most fitting and appropriate chapter in my book. When we hear the adage that "word of mouth is the best advertising," those who say it lie. They lie because while they are saying it, they are simultaneously spending fortunes to advertise their products on television, radio, and in print.

The publishing industry not only is no different, but quite possibly the worst of the bunch for this. Publishers and agents alike insist they want to publish "good" books. They admit, however, they reject all but one or two percent of everything they review. So of course only what they judge as being "good" becomes the books available for the public. The conclusion is inescapable: The defintion of a "good" book immediately has less to do with the content of the book and more with the persistence of the author. I.E., the published books aren't necessarily "good" at all, but merely were written by authors who simply refused to take "No" for answer.

It then becomes comical, doesn't it? The public has been force-fed chocolate and vanilla because those two flavors are what the publishers decided were worthy, were "good" enough, and the publishers and agents say "See? I told you it was a 'good' book." But how would the public or agents or publishers know whether or not "strawberry" was any "good" (now defined as something that would sell)? No one was willing to take a chance on it, were they?

So after three years of watching the total failure of the lie of "word of mouth," I have, for the last couple of months, worked tirelessly at trying to promote my own book. I'm seeing no meaningful results, yet. I do know this, however: The theme of my book hinges on how a person answers just one question relative to their jobs. "How far are you willing to go?" For nothing more than a paycheck and the stuff it will buy, just how much is a person willing to endure in the workplace?

Trying to publish the "traditional" way has left me with the same feeling that sixty employers gave me, that my best was never "good enough". What they wanted was my soul. The content of my book might be "good". The query might be "good". Everything might "good" but it's never quite "good enough" to be published, is it?