I just received "shocking" promotion offer from Hay House, promoting the book "The Destiny Switch". I say shocking because the promotion read, "about to shock you with an unprecidented offer". To sum up the offer: 100 experts offer 100 free promotional gifts, such as, e-books, consultations, downloadable videos, email courses etc. and if you will order your copy or 9 copies or 97 copies of "The Destiny Switch" you can choose from 3 different promotional packages each with more and more gifts attached. Yes, the offer asks you to buy 97 copies. And it spells out what you can do with 97 copies if you choose package #3, such as give them to everyone you know. The testimonials and offers are all from the biggest names in the consciousness movement, many of whom wrote "over the top" testimonials. When I was first introduced to the "Make your book a #1 Amazon bestseller", the notion of recruiting a few collegues to offer their products to help you promote your book sounded like a win, win. However, more recently the number of "free gifts" attached to these book promotion letters has moved towards the ridiculous. Does anyone here believe as I do, that if you write a book of some merit, one that inspires, uplifts, informs and entertains that it will become its own testimonial in the end? It seems to me that there are some assumptions being made about the human nature of readers that maybe true, but that I would prefer to think untrue. Are readers really that hungry and greedy that to market a book you have attach a hundred free gifts to sell a book? On the surface the answer appears to be "yes" because this morning "The Destiny Switch" ranked #2 in books on Amazon. Why does this formula work? Hard to know for sure, if the sales ranking is a result of merely the huge mailing lists of all the testimonial authors being sent out in one day and that most any book description with a few testimonials would suffice or is it that the enticement of 100 free gifts is too hard to resist? For me the title of the book, "The Destiny Switch" is a seller, along with a few endorsements and I would definately buy the book. But add the 100 free gifts and I am now unlikely to buy, because I feel I am being coersed by something lerking in the shadows--my own temptation. What do you think?