I can sell you something if you stand in front of me.

My local editor, Lara Milton, was in the store yesterday and we were chatting and I was bemoaning how bad I was at publicity.

Meanwhile, I sold like three copies of Led to the Slaughter in front of her within an hour.

"I don't know," she said.  "You look pretty good at it to me."

Well, that's 'selling' not promotion.  After 34 years at the store, I've learned how to do that.  Sometimes I can be very, very good at it.  One-on-one salesmanship is a skill.  All I need is something I'm enthused about, and then I find ways to describe the item, then I refine the terms that seem to get a response and eventually I come up with a patter than is soft but insistent, helping the buyer make up his or her own mind, with a little gentle nudging from me.

Or sometimes, I can be less than gentle, almost insistent.  Or I can beg.  Or I can make a huge deal.  Or....

Whatever works.

If I apply myself to it, I can sell. 

But it has to be natural.  It has to be something I believe in.  It can't be manufactured.  It has to be genuine and authentic.

Fortunately, at any one time, I always have product in the store that I believe in...

Anyway, if I could somehow say the same things online about Led to the Slaughter that I say to the person in front of me, maybe I could make it work.

But I'm missing the one-on-one connection.  The sincerity it my voice. The body language.  The likeability.  Most of the little techniques I can use on a customer are lost when they are expanded outward to a broader audience.  I don't always charm the person in front of me, but I often do.  When it's not working, I can adjust my behavior until it does work.

It is a skill I learned, and I suppose if I applied myself to the techniques of promotion, in 34 years I'd probably be pretty good at it.