Niko
I'll just give you some details of what I have done in the past.
1992: Ideas for Chapter 2 and 3 came to me while in my last year of politics.
1997: I started writing them down.
2000: Self-published the first version. Sent many copies to media outlets and recognized thinkers. Only two got back me. Looking back, I needed more writing skills and needed to flush out some ideas. For example, I got a comment about how do we move from HERE to THERE, which then inspired Chapter 6.
2004: Wrote a more academic inclined book, which involved reading about 20 or more books and citing excerpts. Unfortunately there is little written about TDG-like electoral structures, so my citations were rather weak connections for the TDG. The academics who read my manuscript and offered comments spotted this and trounced the book. I deemed that I will not be able to reach these people. I did not take that book any further. I put in on the shelf.
2008: After hearing some pundits trying to "improve" democracy, I thought my ideas needed to be presented again to the world. I had developed better writing skills. I rewrote the first version (no academics) into a much better book. I put it on my website www.davevolek.org (which will be shut down in November). I ran a lot of Google ads to this website. I also was active on political internet forums.
2008-2016: I put up other inventions on this website, but the TDG was the flagship invention. About once a year, I changed the layout and text of the TDG landing page, but I could not get much penetration with visitors from my advertising.
2017: After the election of Mr. Trump, I thought the world would be more ready for my ideas. I did some videos and put them on the 2008 website. I also put the book into an ebook format, which is available on Kindle and Kobo. I was active again on internet forums. One fellow from a G+ forum recommends writing a novel about future people participating in the TDG.
I also hired a professional marketer to conduct a FB campaign for the TDG. This marketer put together some great memes and put them in front of people. I got a lot of troll-like comments, which I was not surprised, but I thought this campaign should eventually find some of that 1%. It didn't. The only tangible result was a lower bank account (for me).
2018: Circumstances prevailed that I could attend a rural mental health conference in my town. This conference is outside of my workplace duties. There I encountered community builders: "These are the people who will build the TDG" I thought. "People who spend lots of time on internet forums are not out there in their local community". How to reach these builders is a puzzle I don't have a practical answer for. I just can't afford to take time off work and attend conferences.
2020: I finished the novel "Diary of a Future Politician". It is a friendlier way to teach about the TDG. I liken it to the popular book "The Celestine Prophecy" published circa 1990. Not the best characters and plot, but very educational about its topic. I also gave the TDG its own URL. The website was rebuilt with a modern look. The penetration rate is higher (maybe 5%), but according my stats, these readers finish the books in 5 minutes. I have seen only a handful of 2-hour reads for TDG and DFP with the new website (since April).
And both TDG and DFP are available as ebooks.
In April, I actually sold 4 books, which was my entire sales in the past three years. I thought that was a good start. But May was 1 sale and June was 0.
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As you can see, I have tried different things over the years. I don't think there is a magic marketing bullet that is going to turn things around. We have a saying in Canada: "Throw enough shit into the fan, and some of it will stick to the wall." Unfortunately I don't have a lot of resources to keep throwing shit into the fan.
For example, I am going to send printed copies of my DFP books to various thinkers in the USA. But it costs me about $20 to print and send one book. So I will try about 20 books and see where it goes The Slovaks have a popular saying "Uvidime, which I apply to this situation." I probably should send 400 books to find that one influencer who can get this TDG started, but the money is not there for that kind of marketing.
I also took an intensive marketing course in 1992 from Heriot Watt University. One of the more interesting things I learned from "The Product Cycle" was that early adopters will immediately recognize the need for a new product and not be all that concerned about how this product is packaged. The followers will need the fancy packaging, but if they don't see someone else using it, even the fancy packaging won't help.
My experience is that people who spend time on political internet forums are not going to be the early TDG adopters. Their minds on how the world can be better are fixed in place. New packaging is not going to help.
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I'm quite comfortable communicating with you through Medium. At least there is the possibility others can hear our conversation. One thing I like about Medium as that articles do not disappear after a couple of weeks.
As far as a new website is concerned, I think I need to keep this current website for a couple of years. There is no guarantee another website layout will improve things. I have tried this kind of change with other inventions--to no avail.
As far as data science is concerned, the visitors are sparse. I get about 100 American visitors from my BING ads a week. 95% of them leave after seeing the landing page (which is better than the previous website). While the new layout gets them clicking to another page, I don't see them reading much. I used to get about 10 visitors a week from Medium, but I'm not commenting on Medium articles these days. This number is dropping. But again, most Medium readers won't move past the TDG landing page. I don't think we need a more intensive data analysis. But you might be seeing things I cannot see.
How do I find those community builders--without putting my family into bankruptcy?
That is the question!
But ultimately, I believe the answer is to turn my 10 or so cheerleaders into doers.
