Dude, You’re Doing It Wrong
In most things, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a whole lot of ways that fall somewhere in between. This is incredibly true with regards to authors promoting themselves. I am not, nor have I ever been, the queen of promo. It’s not instinctive to me, and I fail as often as I succeed. When I don’t do so well, I get up, dust myself off, and try something else. But as many times as I haven’t done it the right way, I am constantly amazed to discover that I haven’t really done it the wrong way either.
You know how I figure this out?
When other authors do it really wrong.
Social media is a wonderful thing. It’s an awesome force to get information to people and laugh and joke and have fun. But lately, more and more people have been abusing it. As an example, a while back I joined a bookish ning thing. It was long enough ago that I’d forgotten about it–completely. Quite honestly, there are too many social media options for me to do them all. If I did, I’d never write. So anyway, I joined this thing. I think I have seven connections on there. Every once in a blue moon (like maybe three times…ever), I’ll get an email from one of them about a book release or something. They’re on my friends list, so I read it, maybe buy, and move on.
This time though, I got an email from someone I’d never heard of. They aren’t on my friends list there, and I can guarantee they never will be. First–and I don’t care if it is your real name–as an author it is deceptive to use a moniker that is very close to a famous author (who is not you). I’ve seen it a few times and it’s irritating every time. Maybe if it’s a lesser known but well-known in certain circles author, it’s not that big a deal, but when J.R. Rowling pops on the scene, you know damn well it’s to confuse people. Don’t do that shit. Sink or swim on your own merits, not by tricking people into reading your stuff.
So I get this email from not-a-famous-author-but-has-a-very-similar name pointing me to a blog post. Already irritated, but curious if maybe I popped onto their email list because it has something to do with one of my books, I click the link. (No, it’s not a virus.) The link takes me to a blog post so far removed from not only my work but anything that could even be remotely attached to my interests…anywhere. So now, I’m irritated and insulted.
Dude, that’s not how you convince me to buy your work, or follow your blog, or do anything to help you. That’s how you get me to rant about your dumb ass use of social media. Because you’re doing it wrong. What you did was the equivalent of a company sneaking into…my library and “borrowing” everyone’s contact information to make telemarketing calls about buying into some new start up company. It’s not the calls that are the problem there–it’s how the information was obtained. I am not your friend. I am not your target audience, and I don’t want to be.
Oh yeah, and one more thing. No matter how hard you try, Dude…you’re not Stephen King.
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Well said!
Thanks
Agreed.
Also, I can’t believe Nat let you post that pic! Lol!
Nat posted that picture
I’m amazed you even HAVE that picture!
GoogleFu my friend!
Hehehe she totally picked it out. I have the hardest time finding appropriate pics for my posts. She had it in like ten seconds
I’m awesome that way
THIS. Also, about a quarter of the authors I deal with in slush email me spam advertisements for their books months after rejection (usually self-published). Because not wanting it enough to publish it obviously means I want to run out and buy it right away.
I think my personal pet peeve right now is the people who tweet three times a day about their available books. As if I’d forgotten since yesterday.
LOL Yes, of course you’d want their book NOW. Silly editor.
The other one I try to balance mentally. I follow about 300 people on twitter, so a lot of stuff gets lost in the stream and as long as it doesn’t go crazy overboard, I don’t care. But I do know people who it seems all they ever do is use twitter to say “BUY MY BOOK!” I don’t follow those people long. (Of course, they seem to have a lot of followers, so maybe they *are* doing it right. I just can’t stomach doing that to people.)
I’d totally tell people a few times a day, over a few days, about a new release, or when it pops up for sale at a new place, etc. That’s cool. But I mean people whose books have been out a year and they still have a scheduled tweet that goes out three times a day telling everyone to buy each book. It just becomes noise instead of information I read and process.
The thing is…I’m paying attention already to the people whose books I might be interested in. I’m not going to miss, for example, Lili’s next release (Oct 25!). I practically have it tattooed on my arm. I’ve sold books to people who follow me on Twitter not because I advertise to them, but because people know me and go on their own to seek out my work.
BTW, true story: one time I received the same “Buy my book!” spam email from a slush author 3x because she sent it to three different email addresses that all come to me. Every pub/agent she’d submitted to were on that list (she’d didn’t BCC anyone–there were hundreds of them, large and small press). I finally tried to be helpful and explained it was spam, so please don’t do that. She argued (!) with me and claimed that because we’d corresponded, it wasn’t spam. Our “correspondence” was a form letter rejection. For reals.
LMAO. I know it really isn’t funny, but it is. People are just idiots. The only way I’d contact someone who rejected a book was if they’d specifically said something like, “This isn’t a good fit for our agency/house/whatever, but let me know when you find a home for it…” And then it would be a personal note, not a mass mailing.
I hate, Hate, HATE stupid slush authors who give all of us a bad name.
I had no idea people did this. J.R rowling? It took me a minute to figure out what the problem was. I know, I’m going to change my name to Nova Roberts. Just kidding:)
I made up JR. Rowling, but it wouldn’t surprise me. There is actually a Steven King and I know there was someone who had something almost identical to Stacia Kane’s name. Stasia maybe? There are others too. It’s especially troublesome to me when it’s in the same genre as the well-known author because it feels like it’s done for the sole purpose of being shelved with them.
In the spirit of total disclosure, there is a Celeste Delaney somewhere, but I think she’s a model. So if she starts writing, she followed me…not the other way around
“Don’t do that shit. Sink or swim on your own merits, not by tricking people into reading your stuff.”
Amen to that, sister.