I almost bought the book, Love Warrior, before I realized that I have no interest in these types of books :-)

The video is from a page on Amazon dedicated to this book  The page was well designed and I took notes.  While I don't have access to an Orpah like pitch person, I'm not sure it matter very much any more.

When Oprah's book club was at its peak, the selection for her book club was an eagerly anticipated event followed by a boatload of media attention.  Today, not so much attention is paid the selection.  In fact, I discovered this by accident: Another website was interested in me replacing the widget on their website, with an AALBC.com widget.  Their widget showed an ad for the Oprah book (Actually, the ad did its job because I learned about the book, but in the past, I would have discovered the book by through free media coverage).

Check out how wide the author's grin is. It was plastered on her face for a full 30 seconds.  I have to believe they told her to do that because it is such a big sustained smile it looks unnatural.

The book is a #1 Amazon bestseller, but those rankings have become so watered down it has become meaningless to me (though I appreciate, a regular visitor to the web doesn't care).  The book is #1 in the Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Marriage & Family category.  In the old days, the book would have been #1 in across all book.  Right now it is #74, not too shabby but not nearly the same impact as in previous years.

Perhaps mainstream media is tied up covering the elections and the platforms covering books have simply been crowded out by everything else.

 

 

 

Is anything what it seems anymore???  The world has become so superficial. Truth and honesty have become casualties in the public arena, and the power of suggestion is mesmerizing the masses.  Intellect and creativity are taking a backseat to the materialism that captivates the victims of consumerism.  Meanwhile, the smug Millennials are  enslaved to their smart phones, totally deserving of the screwed-up country they are going to inherit. Too bad election day won't be the end, instead of a prelude to the next phase in this hot mess. 

No, I'm afraid nothing is what it seems.  The author's wide grin, the Amazon #1 ratings, it is all designed to get us to consume.  This is a very different thing than simply turning us on to a good book.  The former is motivated by profit the later sharing useful information.  The profit motive adversely perverts everything. There is nothing wrong with making money, but when it becomes the only goal things get twisted.

This is the reason Amazon is the only place the majority of us buy and learn about books, but importantly it is the reason why we don't even care.