X for dummies

Sitting here looking up at the shelf in this guest room, and see “The iMac for Dummies”. It might have been very useful in its day.

If I had been the marketing consultant, I would never have approved the “X for Dummies” series idea. I would have told them that no purchaser wants to be insulted, and that the humor would backfire.

Of course, I would have been wrong. People seem to like buying those books (I’ve only bought one volume in my life, in an area in which I really am a “dummy” and wanted to learn more.)

I’d be curious to know how many of those sales are driven by Amazon. You would think that people wouldn’t want to advertise their ignorance about certain things while standing in line at a bookstore.

For example, a good friend of mine used to work at Barnes & Noble in Chicago, and said that people would regularly walk up to the cash register and buy “Sex for Dummies”. Maybe they were doing it on a dare, or maybe some people just aren’t easily embarrassed.