Telemarketer:
“Hello, I’m ABC from XYZ. How are you tonight?”
Me: “I’m
great. How are you?”
Telemarketer:
“Fine, thank you. We’re conducting a survey—”
Me: “Hey, I
need you to do me a favor. Go to Amazon.com right quick.” Slight pause. “Let me
know when you’re there.”
Telemarketer:
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have access to a computer at the moment. I’m calling because—”
Me: “Okay, then
get on your cell phone and access Amazon from there. Stay on this phone with me
and get on the internet with your cell phone.”
Telemarketer:
“Believe it or not, I don’t have a smart phone, sir. The reason I was calling
is—”
Me: “Ask
someone to borrow their smart phone and get on Amazon real quick.”
Telemarketer:
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re not allowed to have cell phones while we’re doing
surveys.”
Me: “Well,
do you have a pen and paper?”
Telemarketer:
“Yes, sir, I do have that.”
Me: “Let me
know when you’re ready to write something down.”
Rustling
noise in the background.
Telemarketer:
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Me: “Write
down ‘BJ Bourg’—that’s the name of the author.” I waited a few seconds. “Got
that?”
Telemarketer:
“Yes, sir.”
Me: “Now
write down ‘JAMES 516’—that’s the name of the book.” Again, I waited a few
seconds. “Did you get that?”
Telemarketer:
“Yes, sir.”
Me: “When
you get a chance, go to Amazon.com and buy a copy of the book—you WON’T regret
it!”
Telemarketer:
“Okay, sir, thank you for the tip. Goodbye.”
The line
went dead.
Book marketing
kung fu wins!
BJ Bourg is the author of JAMES 516 (Amber Quill Press, 2014), THE SEVENTH TAKING (Amber Quill Press, 2015), and HOLLOW CRIB (Five Star-Gale-Cengage, 2016).
© 2015 BJ Bourg
BJ Bourg is the author of JAMES 516 (Amber Quill Press, 2014), THE SEVENTH TAKING (Amber Quill Press, 2015), and HOLLOW CRIB (Five Star-Gale-Cengage, 2016).
© 2015 BJ Bourg
Hilarious! We get so many of these calls even though we're on the no call list. It's really annoying. We just hang up or screen them and don't answer. But why not pitch them our novels? After all, they are trying to sell us something.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was on a no-call list, too. Yeah, and what if they actually went out and bought a copy? They'd have one hell of a story to tell; "I heard about this book from some random person I was harassing at work the other night..."
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