Kamikaze promotion strategies

Buying second hand books online can really give you some fits of anger sometimes, especially when there is a mixup and you end up receiving something completely unrelated. In my case I battle this emotion with writing sarcastic little emails to the seller. I will probably never hear from this one again:

Dear #fill-in-ridiculous-username#,

After already waiting half a month for the book I ordered – Royal Mail at its best I guess – I finally received *the wrong book*. I ordered Bad Seed: The Biography of Nick Cave and the book I actually got was Steven W. Mosher, A Mother’s Ordeal, something about the Chinese One Couple One Child policy. Since I actually needed the book I ordered about a week ago and the complete unrelatedness of the two books is utterly laughable, I can only see this as a sign to take my business elsewhere.

If the book I actually ordered is returned from a similar odyssey or found somewhere, you can obviously send it to me if you wish. However, until then I’m holding this “lasting piece of literature” I received from you as a hostage. In case the other book doesn’t show up, you can keep the money by the way, since my floor is somewhat crooked and maybe I can use my hostage to stabilise my desk or something.

Reading the book? No thanks. China is seriously overpopulated and it’s a semi-totalitarian state, tough luck. My goodness though, who needs to read a book about that nowadays, almost 20 years after the book was first published? And especially when other people are held prisoner for having the wrong political views or, oh god even worse, when other people are being exploited under terrible conditions in the Apple factories? Seems to me that in the book which you erroneously sent to me all is well in the end. So I can only congratulate everyone involved on coping well with the difficulties of their lives, well done! Apart from that it seems to me more like the proverbial Chinese bag of rice.

I conclude therefore that “hostage” is probably not even a very accurate choice of word, since probably nobody would be terribly bothered about the book staying in my custody. I guess if there actually was a mixup, the person who in the end received my book would say to himself: “Blimey! Never mind that shoddy other cheap thing I ordered; this is actually much more interesting!” Maybe I even got someone interested in Mr. Cave, who knows! So, in the end I am almost certain that all will be well without even lifting a finger, how nice! And on this note …

So long and thanks for nothing,
…

Still, this actually gives me a rather weird strategy of promoting my novel. It would go like this: I could pose as a seller of silly books and then I just send all them silly people my book instead. I guess that at least a part of the buyers will not bother with all the hassle of returning it …