Attention! This Book Will Make You Money (Audiobook) - Jim F. Kukral

This book was not what I was looking for, but I still gave it 3 stars because it may be useful for others. The book contains some interesting stories and examples, but is slightly dated. Online marketing changes quickly. Attention! spends unnecessary time presenting the case that online marketing and social media is important. Most people now understand this.

The first part of this book explains why getting the right kind of attention is important for marketing and business in general. No surprise there. Next, the author lists a lot of people who are “that guy” and can promote products, secure book deals, and make things happen because they have earned celebrity status in unique ways. He elaborates that businesses or groups can be “that guy” and achieve the same results. To be really honest, I grew tired of hearing the term “that guy.”

I am a relatively new student of marketing and promotion. I tried some of the attention getting ideas as I read the book, but on a small scale. There was a good section about using You Tube or blogs to get attention of key people, rather than blasting a social media message at random. The idea seems brilliant, though I have not yet used it successfully.

I did try it in a blog post titled, Fix My Harley - A Brilliant Idea, to ask people who see the blog and video to offer advice. Originally, I was going to purchase a domain name and build this into an interactive do it yourself site, but it has already been done. Jim Kukral's handling of the possibilities is much better than I am making it sound. This part of his message was excellent.

Unfortunately, other attention getting ideas were offensive. In one section about blogging he suggested to “go negative” and while writing a negative blog might be necessary, I cannot advocate doing it just to get attention. There are a few qualifying statements afterward, but the fact remains that he went there and I don’t want to follow. Some examples were clownish (wearing silly clothes), but this technique has a long history of success, so I don’t knock it.

I found his discussions of the following topics useful and insightful:

- Limitations of press releases
- Limitations of media blasts
- Benefit of one on one media contacts
     - respect their time
     - have your pitch ready
     - be on topic
     - lead with credibility

I didn't find the section on idea generation particularly helpful, because I bought the book looking for ways to implement ideas I already had. The suggestions were good, but not terribly original. I may implement the suggestion to wear a special hat during idea time, because hats are fun, right? The psychology behind this idea is sound. Having a set time and environment can be a good practice for generating ideas or writing.

There were too many examples of marketing ploys. Two or three examples of eating contests would have been plenty, but the narration of examples for this one technique went on until I wanted to turn the audio book off.

The most aggravating thing in the book was the constant web site links. I felt like I was on Google constantly (distracting). This is a trend I see in a lot of nonfiction books lately. When I purchase a book, I want to read it, not surf the web. I can do that for free. Some people will really enjoy this aspect of the book. I didn’t.

I wanted to like this book, and still believe others may find it useful. It was not what I was looking for. If you don't know that you need to get people's attention to market products and if you have not embraced the value of marketing online (social media, videos, and blogs) then this book is a must read. If you are looking specifics, there are some, but not enough for my taste.