A long time ago when I used to organise events for a sort of living, we put on a Rum Festival at Whitehaven. We got free rum from lots of rummeries (is this a word?) from all over the world and offered it to the public. We did other things such as organise a (fake) public hanging in 18th Century dress which made the front page as the local churches wanted to get us to stop it! Great publicity. And we had pirates on stilts and pirate dance bands and we released a cloud of parrots into the air (that isn't actually true, though the rest is). There were wigs and dandies galore too.
But the big attraction was the free rum. We had a tent where people doled out free tots of rum to a never ending queue. It was very popular with everyone but the police who had to deal with the effects of it. It was a really hot day and people were walking round in shorts and t-shirts. There were thousands of people on the streets and of course businesses did well.
I was talking to the owner of a local menswear shop and he said that he actually sold more full three piece suits that day than any other he could remember. It was no weather to be wearing a suit, so the message I took away was that it's a numbers game. The more people who see what you're selling, the more people will buy it. It's just stochastic like.
I guess your product should avoid being shit too.
But, today 20th Feb I've sold 102 books...
Feels ok even if it's not quite sufficient to retire to Whitehaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment