The fragrance survey thread inspired me to take a perfume journey this weekend. I sniffed myself dizzy and discovered a dozen candidate scents and one odd piece of website copy.

There is something almost admirable about the rank fiction that serves as Eight & Bob’s origin story.

The gentleman enthusiast who winces at the thought of profit tainting his art. A recipe lost for half a century, recovered. A source plant so reclusive it escapes scientific classification; so temperamental, yet so indispensable, that only seven percent of its already fitful, dithering harvest dictates the global supply of a perfume from which the producer apportions each nation’s allowance in a grand concession to the yearning noses of the world….

I am a little inured to the extrait de bull in branding, but this packed potpourri of horseshit projects like the drydown of a cabbage dinner. And it just keeps delivering. There’s JFK incognito! An ever-resourceful butler named Philippe! A car crash. Nazis.

The point, I think, is to congratulate the buyer discerning enough to look past brand stories. All such tales are a volley of gas for the connoisseur to ignore, they seem to be saying. It might have made for a fun comic book. As it is, Eight & Bob’s puffery is a little too on the nose.

My real-world impression: I would like my linen cabinet to smell like this—faintly, maybe. There is an initial citrus fizz over cream soda in a clean white shirt; a soft-palmed, dry handshake that keeps a steady grip longer than you would expect; and cool wood. I'm going back to try it again. This is a scent that convinces you, "You don't need to check my references." And maybe Mother Teresa can show up in the backstory sequel.

So, over the pandemic, I decided to follow a dream and write a novel. I followed all of the best practices I could find, had it beta read by folks so that the finished product would be as polished as possible, posted it on Amazon's kdp site in ebook and paperback/hardcover, and then set out to get the word out, but nothing seems to be attracting any attention to it.

To be fair, I know I'm not going to be the next Stephen king, but at the same time I feel like I should be able to find an audience somewhere. I've tried Facebook ads, i run a blog I post to semi regularly, as well as mirror posts on FB and insta, I've tried a couple of short videos on tiktok, but since its launch a couple years back, I've managed to amass just under 20 bucks Canadian in royalties.

Now, money wasn't a motivator when I began this new trek, but it would be nice to feel like the world I created has reached a few people and given them at least a small amount of entertainment.

If you're an author that's had success with some form of marketing, please share, and if you're someone who reads new stuff on the regular, where do you go to find new stories?

So I rarely take rideshare, but sometimes it's important. Today, my driver was friendly, chatty, personable, driving a brand new Ford electric vehicle. He mentioned that he had spent more than a decade selling for an auto dealership before starting to drive. He bragged about the car, the price, the fact that it's built like a tank and safe in a crash. He talked down Tesla and Elon Musk for faults and failings I'm sure most of us can imagine without effort. He had an answer for every anecdote I told about my car experiences that brought the conversation back around to the advantages of this make and model of car, including the fact that cars are significantly cheaper than a couple of years ago.

It wasn't a terrible experience but I feel bemused, puzzled, a little annoyed, a little bit impressed. It's creative if this is in fact a strategy not a coincidence.

Can anyone relate to this experience? What are your thoughts?

I haven’t touched reddit since the APIcalyspe. I’m planning to delete my account but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I was a heavy Apollo user on iOS but never subscribed to it for its push notification service, instead I kept the official reddit app installed and the only thing I used it for were its notifications. I still have both apps installed.

Anyway, I was surprised to see one pop up yesterday, especially since it wasn’t connected to my user activity (a new private message or reply to an old comment of mine or something). The notification was just an ad. More specifically, it was promoting some trending post on the site that had “>12,000 upvotes.” In many many years of having the app installed I’ve never seen that before. Is it new?

Reddit’s had a mildly antagonist relationship with its users for ages, but it feels like they are REALLY intensifying things now. I’m glad I got off the train when I did. And sorry for making yet another post about reddit, I think we’re all getting tired of harping on it here.