Well, that didn't work

Posted by David N. Welton Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:20:00 GMT

Ouch. Absolutely no takers on the Squeezed Books contest:

http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/contest

http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/leaders

I wonder what didn't work out? I mean, a book isn't a huge prize, exactly, but I know I've participated in mini-contests such as "leave a comment on my blog saying why you should win this book". I actually got a copy of Nick Carr's "The Big Switch" that way. And as it turns out, all it would have taken to win a free book in the Squeezed Books contest is an edit of a few words (as long as it wasn't random gibberish), so the 'barrier to entry' was pretty low. Perhaps I wasn't able to publicize it enough? Maybe the 'right' people didn't find it? Maybe people didn't find it credible? Too much of a pain to log in? The instructions aren't clear?

It's tough - I am and always will be a programmer at heart, and this marketing stuff is harder than it seems! However, barring any sudden blinding insights, I'm going to try again. This time, whoever contributes the most to new or existing business book summaries by September 30th gets two business books of their choice, since we didn't give one away last time.

Tags  | no comments | no trackbacks

Squeezed Books Contest

Posted by David N. Welton Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:07:00 GMT

I'd like to announce a modest contest on the Squeezed Books web site: the person who contributes the most to existing or new summaries wins a free business book + shipping, from Amazon, courtesy of Squeezed Books.

Yeah, I know that it doesn't really compare with the millions that big companies can give away, but I thought it would be a nice way to reward people who work on the site. If it works out well, we'll repeat it every month.

So, if you're the kind of person who already takes notes when you read a book, or you've read a lot of business books and can distill their key points, this might be a good opportunity to take a chance at a free book, and share your knowledge with others (summaries, unless otherwise noted, are under a Creative Commons license).

Questions and comments welcome: it's an experiment, so ideas on how to improve it are welcome too.

Tags  | no comments | no trackbacks