The SLUSHPILE Blog

Review Date: 10/2/2007

Rating:

Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking - Andy Sernovitz - published by Kaplan Publishing. - 184 pages (hardback edition).

Market Analysis:

Amazon retail price: $16.47. Total retail cost per page: $0.089.

If this were a paperback printed on demand: cost per page: $0.013 = $3.29 to print + .90 per cover = Total print cost of $4.19. The List price is $24.95 - 55% wholesale discount = $11.23 - total print cost of 4.19 = $7.04 profit margin per book.

Book ranking as of day of purchase: 3213. Approximate Amazon Sales between 150 to 200 books a month if this remains consistent in that ranking area. So the publisher net income is between $1056.00 and $1408.00 a month through Amazon. This of course does not include books sold through other outlets.

Review:

I was really torn between giving this book three or four stars. What inclined me toward four was that I didn’t get a straight run through it, but instead was three quarters of the way through and had to put it aside for a week–which is a long time to put reading aside and then pick up again without it losing a great deal of its momentum. So, I went with the higher scoring in the belief that I would have had a more positive experience with the material if it had not been for a circumstance beyond the author’s control.

That being said, you may still be wondering what I found lacking to keep it from getting five stars. First of all, I don’t hand five stars out like candy (and I wish a lot of other reviewers would follow that lead, as it seems as though there are an over-abundance of five stars over at Amazon). I feel that a five star rating is for the exceptional. A four star is for the good. Three stars for the nominal, with two and one stars relegated to the bad and really stinky. I steer away from half stars as that smacks of indecision (and would require me having to add those images to my library and they are difficult to come by).

I rate this book at four stars because it is good. It is not exceptional. If you’re purchasing as marketing advice, it will provide you with enough to know that you need to buy more books by other authors that go into a good deal more detail. If you’ve already purchased a couple of marketing books, it will reinforce what you’ve already read and give you a good pep talk to keep you motivated. It is not going to enlighten you to anything new (unless it’s your first purchase of marketing material–in which case see point above about now knowing you need to buy more books).

As a writer, publisher and editor myself, I have to make one comment about the writing–more precisely the voice, or tone, of the book. I received the distinct impression that Mr. Sernovitz saw a trend of sales in marketing books, whipped one together with no real effort or research beyond what he already knew off the top of his head (which is considerable–no argument from me there) and tossed it out onto the market. Again, as in one of my prior reviews of a different book, I wish the author had taken more time, gone more indepth, researched and added to what he already knew and given us a real read. In many ways I felt teased, and a little cheated.