Have you ever heard of the Middle Child Syndrome? According to our good friend Wikipedia, it is:
The feeling of exclusion by middle children (those with one younger and one older sibling). This effect occurs because the first child is more prone to receive privileges and responsibilities (by virtue of being the oldest), while the youngest in the family is generally considered the “baby”. The second (or middle child) no longer has their status as the baby and leaves them with no “clear role” in the family, or a feeling of being “left out”. Despite being used to explain a child’s behavior, middle child syndrome is not actually a “clinical disorder”.
I believe my Kindle Scout campaign is currently suffering from MCS. Consider this: Over the last two days there has been a massive influx of new books accepted for campaigns. When new books arrive, they get a huge spike in attention (that first day is enormous). At the same time, there are a number of campaigns that are ending. The last few days of a campaign is when a large amount of people will finally nominate you…especially people that are heavy-hitting voters (they constantly keep their three nominations filled up) who don’t want to waste a nomination on a book that still has 20+ days left in its campaign.
So you hit that three week mark and you are the middle child. You can scream, kick, and cry all you want…but you’re not going to get the attention that the first born gets or that shiny new child will garner. You are the forgotten, the cast off.
Or so it feels.
I can take a look at my Twitter feed or my Facebook posts and see that people are still very much interested in the campaign, but the numbers I can send to the Suicide Station campaign page currently pale in comparison to what those shiny new campaigns can collect. And that’s okay. I was shiny and new at one point. Now, I’m the middle child and the syndrome is strong in me.
To that end, I’ve redoubled my efforts on Facebook ads. Yeah, those things. Let me tell you a little bit about Facebook ads. I think I’ve already mentioned how odd their acceptance policy is for images. I’ve had ads run successfully and then, when attempting to run another ad with a similar graphic, see it declined. Why? Too much text. That’s not all together true. When you have a book cover with little text, that happens to cover a good portion of the image…it’ll get denied. Today I took the cover for Suicide Station, stripped all the words off, and submitted it for a Facebook ad. There’s no WAY they can decline that ad.
Oh…I just said “never”. And you know when it’s okay to say never, right? Never.
Anyway…at the moment, I am set on making a huge push for the final week of the campaign. And I would warn anyone planning on submitting to Kindle Scout, know that the third week is hell. You’ll feel like, well, the middle child…as if your parents dropped you off at school and forgot to pick you up at the end of the day.
Prepare for it.
Numbers
Not nearly as pretty as I’d have liked them to be today, but I’ll take it. My internal/external percentage bumped up a notch to 37/63.
My call to you
For those that have supported Suicide Station, I cannot begin to thank you enough. I would, however, also ask that (if you feel it worthy) you spread the word. The next few days promise to send streaks of gray racing through my coif. So help me fight back the gray! Tell your friends, family, lovers, confidantes, co-workers, pets, groceries, furniture…even your favorite characters on your favorite television shows! Tell them all about Suicide Station.
Chant with me now:
Fight back the gray!
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