The Damn Dogs Don’t Like It
October 05, 2025
The world seems to work on sales. We're always selling something, ideas, an image of ourselves, products, etc. If you think about it for a minute you may see that selling, the act of convincing someone to take action is a fundamental part of life.
Lately I’ve been selling something different: my own story.
And I’m starting to wonder what I'm doing wrong or what I'm missing.
Back in the 1980s, when I was a stockbroker at Shearson Lehman American Express, I heard a joke at a sales meeting that stuck with me for decades:
At the annual sales meeting of a major dog food company, the executives gather.
The factory manager says, “We’ve got the most advanced production line in the industry.”
R&D adds, “Our ingredients are premium. Our formula’s scientifically balanced. Our packaging is award-winning.”
Marketing chimes in, “We’ve got the best branding and the best shelf placement. Everyone knows our name.”
Finally, the sales manager stands up and says, “Well, despite all that, our sales are down 50%.”
He pauses.
“Do you want to know why?”
“Because the damn dogs don’t like it!”
That one always got a laugh. But it’s funnier until you realize: some days, you are the dog food company.
📉 Mock Interview: Maybe the Readers Don’t Like It
Interviewer:
Russell, your book, Time and Chance has clean formatting, evocative titles, and a presence across Goodreads, Instagram, and Medium. Yet your stats show 364 views and one sale. What’s going on?
Me:
Let’s start with the covers. We’ve got some of the best in the business — crisp layout, emotional color, typography that could win a staring contest.
Interviewer:
And formatting?
Me:
Flawless. No blank pages, no rogue indents, no font crimes. My EPUBs glide through validators like Olympic figure skaters.
Interviewer:
Outreach?
Me:
Linktree, QR codes, Reels, giveaways, Facebook book groups, Instagram hashtags, LinkedIn book groups; I’ve got more channels than a cable package.
Interviewer:
Pricing?
Me:
I’ve danced between $2.99 and $4.99 like a caffeinated economist. It’s not the money — it’s the appetite.
Interviewer:
So what’s the verdict?
Me:
For some reason, the pitch isn’t landing. For some reason, the damn dogs don’t like it.
And I’d really like to ask the dogs what they think.
Case File: The Curious Incident of the Clicks.
Subject: Time and Chance
Views: 364
Sales: 1
Conversion Rate: ~0.27%
Cause of Death: Reader hesitation, genre mismatch, or emotional misfire? What's holding people back? What is it? I wish I knew.
We’ve laid out the evidence:
The covers are crisp
The formatting is flawless.
The outreach is active.
The emotional resonance is tuned like a vintage cassette deck.
And yet… 364 views, one sale.
Maybe the readers don’t dislike it. Maybe they just haven’t heard me bark loud enough.
Twenty people downloaded a sample of my book, I Grew up in Broad Ripple. No one came back to buy the book. There were no comments. Not a thank you, not even, “Your book was a complete waste of time.”
So here’s my question to you:
What makes you bite?
Is it the blurb, the price, the vibe?
Are we barking up the wrong genre tree?
If you’ve ever chased freedom, made a few questionable decisions, and somehow lived to tell the story — you might just find a kindred spirit in My Wild 1970 Ride.
It’s a memoir of one unforgettable year — hitchhiking to Mardi Gras, blacking out in the French Quarter, working on a tugboat in the Gulf, and stumbling through the chaos of being young, broke, and alive in 1970.
👉 My Wild 1970 Ride—hop in. The engine’s running, and the dogs are welcome too.
https://is.gd/bmw70r
About the Author
Russell A. Beck is the author of My Wild 1970 Ride, a memoir about one chaotic, exhilarating year of youth, luck, and hard-earned wisdom. He writes with humor and heart about freedom, mistakes, and the stories we tell once we’ve made it out the other side.
The world seems to work on sales. We're always selling something, ideas, an image of ourselves, products, etc. If you think about it for a minute you may see that selling, the act of convincing someone to take action is a fundamental part of life.
Lately I’ve been selling something different: my own story.
And I’m starting to wonder what I'm doing wrong or what I'm missing.
Back in the 1980s, when I was a stockbroker at Shearson Lehman American Express, I heard a joke at a sales meeting that stuck with me for decades:
At the annual sales meeting of a major dog food company, the executives gather.
The factory manager says, “We’ve got the most advanced production line in the industry.”
R&D adds, “Our ingredients are premium. Our formula’s scientifically balanced. Our packaging is award-winning.”
Marketing chimes in, “We’ve got the best branding and the best shelf placement. Everyone knows our name.”
Finally, the sales manager stands up and says, “Well, despite all that, our sales are down 50%.”
He pauses.
“Do you want to know why?”
“Because the damn dogs don’t like it!”
That one always got a laugh. But it’s funnier until you realize: some days, you are the dog food company.
📉 Mock Interview: Maybe the Readers Don’t Like It
Interviewer:
Russell, your book, Time and Chance has clean formatting, evocative titles, and a presence across Goodreads, Instagram, and Medium. Yet your stats show 364 views and one sale. What’s going on?
Me:
Let’s start with the covers. We’ve got some of the best in the business — crisp layout, emotional color, typography that could win a staring contest.
Interviewer:
And formatting?
Me:
Flawless. No blank pages, no rogue indents, no font crimes. My EPUBs glide through validators like Olympic figure skaters.
Interviewer:
Outreach?
Me:
Linktree, QR codes, Reels, giveaways, Facebook book groups, Instagram hashtags, LinkedIn book groups; I’ve got more channels than a cable package.
Interviewer:
Pricing?
Me:
I’ve danced between $2.99 and $4.99 like a caffeinated economist. It’s not the money — it’s the appetite.
Interviewer:
So what’s the verdict?
Me:
For some reason, the pitch isn’t landing. For some reason, the damn dogs don’t like it.
And I’d really like to ask the dogs what they think.
Case File: The Curious Incident of the Clicks.
Subject: Time and Chance
Views: 364
Sales: 1
Conversion Rate: ~0.27%
Cause of Death: Reader hesitation, genre mismatch, or emotional misfire? What's holding people back? What is it? I wish I knew.
We’ve laid out the evidence:
The covers are crisp
The formatting is flawless.
The outreach is active.
The emotional resonance is tuned like a vintage cassette deck.
And yet… 364 views, one sale.
Maybe the readers don’t dislike it. Maybe they just haven’t heard me bark loud enough.
Twenty people downloaded a sample of my book, I Grew up in Broad Ripple. No one came back to buy the book. There were no comments. Not a thank you, not even, “Your book was a complete waste of time.”
So here’s my question to you:
What makes you bite?
Is it the blurb, the price, the vibe?
Are we barking up the wrong genre tree?
If you’ve ever chased freedom, made a few questionable decisions, and somehow lived to tell the story — you might just find a kindred spirit in My Wild 1970 Ride.
It’s a memoir of one unforgettable year — hitchhiking to Mardi Gras, blacking out in the French Quarter, working on a tugboat in the Gulf, and stumbling through the chaos of being young, broke, and alive in 1970.
👉 My Wild 1970 Ride—hop in. The engine’s running, and the dogs are welcome too.
https://is.gd/bmw70r
About the Author
Russell A. Beck is the author of My Wild 1970 Ride, a memoir about one chaotic, exhilarating year of youth, luck, and hard-earned wisdom. He writes with humor and heart about freedom, mistakes, and the stories we tell once we’ve made it out the other side.
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