How Can I Get Me Some Word of Mouth?

I heard about your book through word of mouth. The nine words a new author -- or any author, frankly -- aspires to.  That strange phrase that makes me think of the mouths of elephants and rhinos and giraffes, why I don't know -- is the one we're all chasing after.

Word of mouth, frankly, is how books sell.  We all know it. We all know it's a magical thing, this word of mouth, and it's hard to find.  We try what we can to grab it -- we blog endlessly and we tweet about everything and nothing and we beg friends to spread the word and we try to be witty on Facebook. We offer to do readings and come to book clubs (Admittedly, the book clubs and the readings are just plain fun) and we tell the people who liked our book to please review it online and tell their friends and....

In the end, it's hard to know if any of it works.  Or maybe it does.  Why do some books get Word of Mouth when others don't? Perfectly fine books, excellent, page turner, gripping books don't. And then books that I found rather meh get talked about and talked about. Why?

Whoever can figure out the magic potion -- if you do x plus y you will get z -- will surely become a millionaire after she sells it for a small fee to every author out there. But that's not going to happen. Because it's impossible to know. And for the books that are successful, the author, or editor, or publicist, or publishing house will insist it was this or it was that, when really, it could be anything. If they tell you they know, they are lying. They don't.

Still, I would like some word of mouth, please. So I beg the people who've read my book and loved it to please write reviews and tell their friends, I blog (I like reaching out, really, I promise), I tweet, and I Facebook.  I try to say witty things (though, frankly, most other people seem to be far more clever than I am).  

Things I will not do:  I never ask for false reviews. I tell anyone who reads it to review it honestly and fairly and if they didn't like it, that's okay. I will not tell my friends to give it five stars on Amazon.  I will not bully people into buying it. I will not make people feel bad if they didn't like it.  

We're authors. We just want people to read our work, and for some to love it.  I get a thrill every time someone tells me she enjoyed it.  I made someone happy, I made someone think, I made someone feel.  That's the thing about being an author that I love. But word of mouth....sure,that would be nice, too.