cynical chess marketing

1. Crunch rybka 24 7

2. get ghostwriter

3. tack the name of a famous chess player onto the book.He or she hardly sees the manuscript, if at all.

4. Sell lots of copies.

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I have in my hand a book "How to Play the English Opening" bu Anatoly Karpov. The more that I look at it, the more it seems to jump as me as a formula 1-4 as above book.

Am I getting too cynical in my old age? Is my childhood of Ronald Reagan and Max Headroom MTV catching up with me?

I have no idea about that book in particular, but sadly, there seems to be no shortage of lazy, unscrupulous marketers in any market where the prospect of high demand from proven buyers tempts them to take shortcuts so the customer ends up holding the bag of goods after parting with her hard-earned cash. 

These sharks are the type who instead of thinking of ways to deliver the ultimate value to their customers with the best ideal solution,

only think of ways to greedily line their pockets with ill-gotten cash.

But the good news is, their time is short.

Customers in every niche seem to have a brilliant internal BS detector and won't purchase again from someone who has left them with an unsavory taste in their mouth on the first transaction.

That's why it pays the good businessman to always view the market research, product development and offer creation from the customer's point of view.

Word of mouth from satisfied customers may not be a "shortcut" but those who have known true success enjoy the peace of mind of laying their head down on a pillow at night knowing their solution added value in their market and made their customers' lives better. 

These are the ones who enjoy the kind of loyalty from satisfied, repeat customers and clients that money just can't buy.

Thankfully, there's no secret shortcut to integrity and that makes life easier for those of us who do things the right way. And it's life's way of making things all balance out in the end. 

But yeah, it's real easy to get cynical when you feel like you've been "sold" instead of provided more value than you paid to get.

It's not just you. It's everyone. And with how much easier it is to get the word out about a business...good or bad....consumers these days are smart enough to do their due diligence with product reviews from verifiable, third party resources to help them sort the wheat from the chaff before they buy for the most part. 

This has helped considerably but as long as there seems to be an opportunity to make a fast buck, we'll always need to be vigilant consumers to protect ourselves when shopping.

Good topic LinuxBlue1

Sorry but you forgot one step:

Pay some fake reviewers to write a good 5 star review of the book.

The reviewers are low-level/low-life chess players who is given a copy for free by the publisher.

Notice also that most chess books are totally useless, they will not improve your level, or really teach you something about chess.

If Karpov wrote a book about the English Opening, would he be writing about playing the black side?

Yeah. They even go to sites like fiverr.com where they can pay a girl $5 to gush on video about how their product instantly changed her life. 

The same one on every salespage makes them easier to spot than a 3 dollar bill, but you hope not to make the mistake.

"Bob" from Ohio could be the product owner herself for all we know.

That's why you want to look for reviews from people and businesses you have done good business with before, have verifiable contact details from any testimonials, have a solid reputation for delivering quality customer service  and have an accountable guarantee with a money-back refund policy in place if it's not for you.

I liked the era of the 80's in chess. But then again I have said that before about Raymond Keene and everyone else thinks that he is a tosser who couldn't write a chess book to get a girlfriend back

Max Euwe would be my favourite chess author. And if I had to pick an author who NEVER takes the cynical route it would be Jacob Aagaard - I am reading his "Excelling at Chess" and the amount of thought that he puts into it is amazing. I've never gone wrong with his books. He's great.