So I blogged yesterday about the OJ thing how out of touch Abebooks is with the booksellers who have put them on the map
Then today I see they sent out a press release on the results from their ridiculous poll about the new OJ book.
What a set up! They email their clients (us) and promote the poll on their blog and their website and then in turn take the results and send out a press release about the “revulsion” from the book world regarding the book.
Simply blatant self promotion to get in on the hyper-attention the OJ story is getting from all media outlets.
A couple of gems from the press release:
“A total of 833 booksellers were questioned” – really? shouldn’t that be responded! How many did they mail out? Did they send it to all 13,500 of their booksellers? If they did the headline should read – Most booksellers don’t give a hoot about this according to the polls
“Abebooks also polled independent professional booksellers” – Independent sure but professional might be a reach, one only has to look at any of the megalisters (someone just told me yesterday that one of them has over 5 million books listed on Abebooks, I haven’t verified it but I believe it) or a sampling of the book descriptions that come back from any search to know that this is simply not true and that these two terms “independent professional” don’t necessarily go together
Wow. Beware of the PR machine!