A couple of weeks ago, as I deleted the daily dose of spam in my inbox, I came across this strange email. The subject line read: Where can we send you review copies of our books?

Was this some new form of phishing? an ID theft attempt? or a wannabe stalker seeking geographical coordinates? These are days of paranoia, after all.

But books as bait?

So I opened the email, and instead of the surreal automated text generated by a bot running off a zombie server, there was a crisp one-liner from a guy called Russell Fernandez, who identified himself as the marketing manager of Princeton Architectural Press.

Aside from a sense of satisfaction at receiving reviewer recognition from an established print publisher specialising in visual culture, I was intrigued by the marketing strategy behind this approach. Thinking back to the cluetrain manifesto this felt akin to the opening remarks of an asynchronous conversation. Call it gonzo one2one indirect marketing if you like.

Interestingly, a particular publication was mentioned. A collection of drawings by an a(u/r)tistic savant.

Here is a book on what is known as outsider art being sent to what can (still?) be called outsider media outlets known to report on outsider art. How elegant.

A couple of blogs have already carried reviews.

For the record, I received two books, the one described above is discussed below.