So, you’ve written and published a book. Congratulations! Good for you!
And welcome to the club … I have some sobering news, though. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to write and publish a book – TODAY! So far this year, 2,396,061 books have been published, worldwide. How do you expect it’s possible for any one book to compete with numbers like that when searching for interested readers, not to mention buyers with money to spend? And how can any one author ever suppose their newly published book is better or more important than those other 2 million+ books, so much better that one author can expect readers, bloggers and reviewers to fall all over themselves in an attempt to help promote and publicize said book?
Many of these delusional, self-centred authors do exist, unfortunately … so many, in fact, that I feel the need, once again, to point out to them that their “activities” on social media and in seeking promotion are definitely not gaining them any champions – certainly not me nor a few other bloggers/reviewers I know. A couple of blogging friends have written about this same topic previously, and I’ve asked them to return now with a few more wise words to add to this blog of mine in the hope that – collectively – we may have some effect at getting through to these authors who continue to behave badly.
Tricia Drammeh, a published author who writes a couple of blogs promoting writing and authors, discusses in a post, The Death of a Book Blog, the problems she’s had to face dealing with difficult authors. (It was through this blog post that I came to “meet” Tricia online when I threw my support behind what she had to say.) Tricia also wished to add to my current post: Bloggers are overwhelmed by the number of requests and demands for reviews and promotional features. It’s impossible for them to feature every author who queries, so many have begun to delete emails from rude authors, or to ignore requests that do not follow their submission guidelines. Your best chance at earning a spot on a blog is to be courteous. Be respectful of the blogger’s time by following their submission guidelines. And, if you are featured, do your part to promote – not just yourself, but other authors featured on the blog. Authors really do need some guidelines, and those who are misbehaving are hurting not only themselves, but the community as a whole.
As well, The Story Reading Ape has recently found it necessary to thump his chest and rant about the problem of authors approaching him for promotion on his blog. Here’s what he has to say: As someone who makes online contact with authors on a daily basis, with the aim of seeing if I can help promote them (and their books) on my Author Promotions Enterprise Blog, there are a few issues that constantly IRK me. To read about these Irks in more detail, go to, Authors, Don’t Be Twits When Tweeting. Basically, it boils down to AUTOMATIC SELF-CENTRED REPLIES! These abominations exist in almost all media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Goodreads, Shelfari, Librarything, et al. I rarely find an author who thinks about a follower/friend request for a few moments and asks themselves WHY did this person start Following/Liking/Send me a Friend/Connection Request? A simple matter of looking at the person’s profile (in whatever media they contacted you) BEFORE you return their approach, will enable you to PERSONALISE your response and make them GLAD to have contacted you. Did I just hear you say something like “Bah Humbug – I don’t have time/I’ve got BETTER things to do/What do I care, they’re only a means to boost MY Follower numbers/Book Sales stats/etc.”? NEWSFLASH: You have just LOST yourself a Potential Book Sale/Reader/Fan/Follower/Friend! In my case, you’ve just lost a Ready Made (and FREE) Authors’ Platform with possibly more reach than your own! DON’T EVER FORGET – A Stranger is just a Friend you haven’t met or got to know yet! So GET RID of those ‘easy to set up once’ Automatic Replies and GREET WISELY and PERSONALLY. (Phew! The last thing we want is an irate Ape, so better do as he says, authors!!)
Since so many authors continue to do the same annoying (to us) things in an attempt to promote themselves, I decided they might actually see themselves in this following list, identify, and STOP DOING WHAT THEY’RE DOING!!! Let’s hope they’re all still reading …
How NOT to get promotion for yourself and your book:
1. Believe you’re the only person to have written and published a book. (See explanation above)
2. Publish without professional assistance in editing, cover design and formatting (whether eBook or print).
3. Spam social media about your book. Spam-a-lot, in fact, if you really want to irritate potential readers.
4. Don’t develop a fan base.
5. Don’t take part in any writing/reading communities – other than to exhort them to buy your book.
6. Don’t offer anything of value when engaging in social media. Don’t become engaged in social media at all.
7. Don’t read blogs and don’t comment on blogs.
8. Don’t write your own blog or offer value to the blogging community at large.
9. When seeking promotion and reviews for your book from bloggers, DON’T read their blog first, or engage with the blogger, or show any interest in their work if they themselves have published, or ask how you may help promote their blog, or read their submission instructions, or think that perhaps there are many more-worthy books ahead of yours already being considered for promotion or review. (Because, like, we’re all so impressed with you and your one book that we’ll immediately drop everything in order to help you get the word out about it … Yeah, In your dreams, maybe.)
10. DON’T think the rules pertain to you. (They’re meant for the other 2,396,060 books that have been published this year.)
And, to finish off, if you don’t believe me and the other bloggers, perhaps you’ll listen to Anne Enright …
Books: Publishing, Reading, Writing 
I am glad to read you think blogging is a good method of promotion as I enjoy blogging 🙂
Reblogged this on rebekahganiere.
Thank you for the reblog!
Sad, hilarious and true in equal measure I’m afraid! Both Tricia (my good friend – who happens to be an excellent writer and genuinely lovely person too) and I have sadly come across such behaviour more time than I’d care to remember. From childish rants on social media to accosting customers during book signings. I’ve even had friends whose books had been deliberately targeted by trolls, fellow authors behaving badly and posting 1 star reviews in the hope of boosting their own failing books. What on earth possesses these people to behave like that? It simply baffles me as it’s as far from professional behaviour and just sullies all indie authors with a terrible reputation! 😦 Certainly in my experience, the people who do behave badly tend to have badly written books too, they invest all their energies in negative activities and ego-centric promotion instead of honing their craft, and it usually shows in their work! 😀
I think you’ll agree, Sophie, that it’s as Tricia and I (and others) have discussed offline … there are many out there, and not just authors, who blame their lack of success in life on everyone except the one person who is truly to blame, and that is they themself!
Absolutely!!! Everyone is to blame except themselves. I mean really, do they honestly think stalking customers in a bookshop is the way to get their book sold? Lol, I know being a writer means having a wondrous and rich imagination, but some authors are truly delusional! Lol, I’ve even had some people, with a straight face, discuss their plans when they’re famous and what to say on TV interviews! OMG! Dear dear dear… There’s not a lot you can say to people like that, other than just to nod your head and leave them to it. 😀 x
Reblogged this on fordsthoughts and commented:
A follow-up of ‘How to get promotion for yourself and your book’ This is ‘How not to get promotion for yourself and your book’ Originally written the other way round!
Actually, the other way around, Shirley – NOT came before HOW, but thanks for reblogging both!
[…] How NOT to get promotion for yourself and your book …. […]
Very well said! I hope that SOME of the authors that behave badly will finally get the message. WOW – over 2 million books published this year! That should give any author pause for thought! This figure definitely surprised ME and puts into perspective the reality that your own book might have some very serious competition out there. So behaving badly will just hurt an author’s chances even more. Take heed everyone!
Thanks, Sharon! I hope everyone finds those figures sobering … and humbling!
[…] How NOT to get promotion for yourself and your book … […]
[…] days ago I wrote a blog post that proved to be the most popular, in terms of reach and reaction, of any I’ve ever written! […]
Reblogged this on MARSocial Author Business Enhancement Interviews.
Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
Thank you for this advise. I guess most of us authors find a compulsive drive to follow the lead of the unstoppable flow of self-promoting peers who spam the media with automatic tweets. Your post only proves what I’ve seen by being myself one of those blasters at some point: it doesn’t work –– overrunning the social media with your self-centeredness does nothing but annoy others. As you mentioned it, perhaps the best way to self-promote is to simply participate in the social media world as you would in the normal social space. You wouldn’t go around shouting “BUY MY BOOK!” to strangers. At any rate, thanks a lot for this post.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Paul! Sorry you had to find this out through personal experience, but as you say you’re further ahead simply participating in social media.
So glad you posted this! I needed a little encouragement in insisting that guest authors adhere to my guidelines. I don’t want to be rude, but I also don’t want to be taken for granted.
If you feel you’re being taken for granted, Tina, you should just turn down those who are not following your guidelines. Spend your time with the authors who do appreciate what you do. Thanks for reading and commenting!
7. Don’t read blogs and don’t comment on blogs. <– This one has really been bugging me. Mostly (which you mentioned) the people who follow me and never say anything. I check out their blogs and they almost always have a book they wrote. As far as I can tell most follow me just so I will check out their site and buy their book, not because they are interested in anything I have to say. 😦
Excellent post. Thank you for sharing.
That is a difficult one, Green Embers. I guess we have to just keep writing and hope we hit a chord with a few more of those who follow but seldom or never engage with us. I have to tell you, though, this particular blog post has brought out a lot more of my followers to comment, like, and reblog – as well as brought me many new followers. I’ve been blogging for years, but this is the first post that’s received such a large – and positive – reaction. So a lot if it seems to boil down to the material we’re posting – and getting it out there at the right time and the right place. And also the luck of the draw. I wouldn’t discount your non-engaged followers, though. Just keep writing and posting and you might eventually hit on something, as I did today, that causes them to read and comment. Thanks for reading and commenting here, yourself, Green Embers!
Hear, hear. Thank you for this valuable advice, especially coming up to that spamming extravaganza of the book publishing year – Christmas!
Thank you for reading and commenting, nessafrance!
…great commentary… timeless advice for all quill-scrapers… yeez get NUTHIN if yeez don’t first GIVE, and continue to give…:)..re-blogging
Thank you, kind sir! Always happy to have your support!
Reblogged this on Seumas Gallacher and commented:
…great commentary… timeless advice for all quill-scrapers… yeez get NUTHIN if yeez don;t first GIVE, and continue to give…:)
Reblogged this on Writing for the Whole Darn Universe and commented:
Must read for all authors. 🙂
Thanks for reblogging, Maliaann!
The number of books being published each day is astounding.
I’m bookmarking this so I can return ( and get back to reality if needed)
So much truth and great advice in this post – It should be Fresh Pressed.
Rude people are annoying in any arena – the sad thing is, as you say, is many are blundering along not realizing how annoying they are ( …and all those “likes”/”follows” from not real readers, but companies seeking to promote themselves…UGH!)
Well, said, Susan.
Thanks for reading and commenting, philmouse! Always good to hear your take on topics like this.
You know what might be a good idea for authors to remember when asking a blogger to post – give the blogger a unique angle or something different so the post won’t be just like all the others. Can’t tell you how many posts I skip because when I click over, there’s the same old author picture and same old cover picture…I just move on thinking I’ve read all that before.
Offer different pictures. Maybe real pictures of the story’s setting. Picture/info about room or desk where you write. Your neighborhood, your relationship with your car – the grocery store. Offer up an interview with your cat or dog who has to tolerate all that time waiting around while you edit. (No pix of children – keep kids out of it..although their art work or “cute”comments/observations. Childhood/school pictures/favorite toy – anything different.
Give the blogger an angle to write with. Gotta grab the blog reader’s eye and interest before they will sit and listen about the book
Just an idea to consider
That’s a great suggestion, philmouse! You’ve definitely got me thinking about my own promotion and how to be different.
I will do a tiny bit of self promotion on social media but my primary aim is building relationships with readers and writers, not to sell books. That was the goal for my blog from the very beginning. I haven’t fully grasped the twitter thing because it seems a constant stream of spam and that is a total turn off. Another pet peeve of mine is the bot generated or service generated posts. That might be marketing for some, but I would much rather engage a person that a computer generated blurb. The building of community and the mutual exchange of ideas and information is the draw for me.
Thanks for reading and commenting, SK! (Another of the wonderful authors promoted on Reading Recommendations who gives back 10-fold to the book community!)
Good post. One thing I’ve noticed, while reaching out to author/genre fb pages, is that many have rules on spam posts, and that the group is supposed to be about discussion; but I find my scroll finger cramping as I scroll past all the spam posts looking for something substantive to comment on.
I agree with you on that, Charles, and I’m not joining those sites any longer. I tried doing the opposite on some – offering promotion on my blog, but not one author took me up on that. I guess I was supposed to contact them. But, like you, it takes a lot of scrolling to find anything worth while. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Amid the clamour of congratulations, I’m going to take exception to one thing:
“I rarely find an author who thinks about a follower/friend request for a few moments and asks themselves WHY did this person start Following/Liking/Send me a Friend/Connection Request? A simple matter of looking at the person’s profile (in whatever media they contacted you) BEFORE”
Well, I do. I guess I’m one of those rare authors your simian friend speaks of. When I get a request or a follow on FB or Goodreads I go look at the person’s profile. Especially FB where it’s less clear that the request is based on my books. And generally what I find is absolutely no clue why someone has decided to follow me. I sometimes get follows on Goodreads and I can’t even discover evidence that they’ve ever read one of my books! I’ve just about given up with FB: if I don’t know who someone is there’s almost certainly no clue as to why they sent a request. If I’m lucky I might find out later.
Twitter… Oh gods, don’t get me started on Twitter. “MrNedsBooks is now following you,” says the email. I go look up MrNedsBooks are what do I find? A book promotion service who have followed me because they want me to know they’re there. I didn’t ask for it, I don’t want it, they’ve never read a thing I’ve written, they just gone through a list of authors by hash-tag and followed all of them (and probably un-followed them 5 minutes later; you don’t get told about that, the follow has done its job).
So, what I’m saying a little long-windedly, is that there are the self-publicists out there (and there are the ones who are forced into it by the publishers), but I find it hard to believe that I’m the only one who doesn’t really want to ram my existence down everyone’s throat, is happy to seen where I’m seen, would love the odd blogger to notice I exist, but knows they can be a little over-stressed and don’t like pushy authors… And I find rants about how bad authors are just a little bit grating.
Authors should be polite to the people they rely on for publicity. The people providing that publicity need to be polite to the authors who are, after all, giving them something to talk about. It should by symbiotic. We should be working together to give our customers what they want (hopefully good books and recommendations pointing at them). Ranting about all the bad guys and basically tarring us all with that brush isn’t polite.
PS. I’ve run the odd public server in my time and I have shut them down because I got fed up to the back teeth of the people who used the service. I know from where all this angst comes. I really do.
I, too, check before following back – or even following in the first place, so you are not alone, Tharcion. And this was never meant as an all-inclusive rant about EVERY author who self-promotes – just those who behave badly. As I said in my part of this piece, there are enough authors who don’t know how to behave that we felt it necessary to, once again, discuss this topic. As promoters and reviewers perhaps we see the bad side more often than the good. When we do discover good authors, however, you can bet we’ll praise them and promote them in whatever way they can. (Many of the authors I’ve promoted on my blog have become very good friends and, in turn, many who have promoted me and my writing are now regular correspondents through my blog and theirs.) Unfortunately, a lot of those good authors are often not seen by us, because they do tend to be shy and retiring and not in-your-face annoying like the authors we’re really complaining about here. I can assure you that I am every bit as polite to those who treat me politely, as I know both Tricia Drammeh and The Story Reading Ape are on their own blogs. Thanks for reading and commenting, Tharcion!
I think you’ve made some good points, Tharcion, but I also think you’ve read a little more into the original post than was intended. I believe the “target authors” of the post are those who clamor for promotion from anybody and everybody simply because they feel they have some divine right to it…while at the same time not even offering token reciprocity.
Independent authors have a very tough row to hoe and mutual support is our greatest asset – those who expect marketing help from others are somewhat morally obligated to return the favor.
And for the record – there are apps that will tell you when twitter followers have unfollowed you. I use one called “manage flitter”. It allows me to see people I am following who are not following me back – then I have the option to unfollow that person. It also does other stuff – but that is what I use it for primarily.
Thanks, Tim, for your thought on this! (Tim was the second author I promoted on Reading Recommendations and is one of the very good ‘uns who gives back more than he gets by way of support and promotion. Plus, he’s a great writer!)
Well, I quoted the part of the original post I was concerned with. It specifically states that authors who bother doing the work are rare. It does not state “rare within the target group” and I don’t think that was the intention. I know that there was a target audience, and I know that it was not really the authors being mentioned since I doubt any will read it. My point about Twitter was not whether I was followed (I follow people who interest me and that’s it) it’s that I frequently have no way of knowing who anyone is and that follows are often cynical.
Hi Tharcion,
There are always exceptions to the rule and any author who does NOT greet a new follower with a pre-prepared automatic reply stating the things discussed in the article, but prefers to either, not respond (Yes – That’s OK to do), or, respond with a personal message, can justifiably ignore the entire post.
However, the authors who DO do the things stated in the article, need to read it, not from the POV of being a criticism, but from the POV of learning that these practices WILL lose them potential readers / followers / sales and allies in promotion.
I agree that many of the ‘Profiles’ shown in the mentioned media are sadly lacking in information and will offer little by way of determining the motivation behind the friend / follow request – but that happens in offline life as well.
The advantage of real life, face to face contact is that body language can often fill in the gaps.
A sincere thanks to you for reading and understanding the article and making your opinion known, it gave us the opportunity of addressing this kind of concern which may be shared by others.
Chris Graham (aka The Story Reading Ape)
Something I’ve done with Twitter is write a profile so potential followers know exactly who I am besides an author and what I can offer them.
“@SusanMToy – Author/Publisher Island in the Clouds and IslandShorts eBooks – Author Impresario – Promoting reading, fellow authors and books where/whenever I can”
When I check out a profile of someone I might want to follow, I look for a similar description – one that’s not all about the author and their book, but what they might be able to do for me, as a follower, and for the writing community at large. I also check out a few tweets to see that they’re posting something of value and interest to me. My numbers aren’t huge on Twitter, by choice, but I know from the amount of retweets, likes, and compliments I receive that I have the correct mix of followers for me.
By the way, I always follow libraries, bookstores, and most writing and book organizations, whether they follow me back or not. But some have followed back, and that’s a bonus!
And thank you, both, for replying.
This advice is excellent! Even though I have not yet published any novels, I do agree that sometimes there is a real danger of the ego taking over when it comes to promoting oneself (#1), and that is one of the downfalls.
After having spent a very long time inside their own minds writing a book, I can appreciate how difficult it is for authors to suddenly have to move from that self-centred space, where all they think about is their own work, into a place where they are now just a very small cog in a big wheel that continues to turn and will crush them if they don’t get on board and work together with all the other little cogs … Understandable that they continue to be self-centred, but not excusable. Thanks for reading and commenting, checkasmith!
Reblogged this on The 960 Writers and commented:
Very true and sensible advice. As writers we should work on personal connections, not have autoresponders and icky SEO act on our behalf.
Thanks for reading and reblogging, barbarabarbex!
When I get the auto spam to my twitter DM these days, I’ve started responding. And telling the truth. Hey, your book looks interesting. It’s something I might have read. But because you spammed my DM, I can’t reward that.
That’s a good response, Mike M! Have you ever received a reply from the auto spammers? Thanks for reading and commenting!
Once. She was charming about it. I still follow her. I still haven’t bought the book though.
Reblogged this on Reven Archer Black: Author of Fantasy & Speculative Fiction for Adults and commented:
Some succinct notes reminding all of us authors to be kind and courteous to bloggers, readers, and each other… and a short lesson in social media etiquette. Great points that we all need to remember and keep in practice. – RAB
Thanks for reading and reblogging, Spec Fic Girl!
One of my pet peeves is when an author follows you on Twitter and then when you follow them back you get an automatic message that tells you to check out their books. Really hate that.
These are the authors who have bought into the idea that the number of followers is more important than the quality of those followers – the same too who get sucked into “buying” lists of followers. These will never be your ideal market, if you are an author, so best to just unfollow them altogether, is my way of thinking. Thanks for reading and commenting, maliaann!
Yeah, I get those twitter followers all the time who want me to buy thousands of awesome followers. I always block them. Idiots! And you’re welcome! Great post! 🙂
Those spam DM’s on Twitter… don’t they just drive you crazy? Come on now, who really thinks they are a good idea?
I used to try to comment back and say, “Hey! I have a book to sell, too, ya know!” but now I just unfollow anyone who spams me. If you really get annoyed by someone who continues to spam, though, you can block their account. Twitter always investigates and does not take kindly to anyone they consider to be as spammer. Thanks for reading and commenting, Ali!
Yep. Just goes to show there’s no easy way to do this. It’s more like building a wall, brick by brick…
Singing, “All in all, we’re just another brick in the wall,” all the time ? 🙂 You’re right though – it is a brick wall, or a platform, and we need to continue building it forever and ever. And you thought writing the book was the hard part!!! Thanks for commenting, Kevin! (And for all your support, too!)
Good post! I totally agree with you on everything you said. 🙂 *raises glass* Cheers!
Cheers back, Rebekkah! Thanks for reading and commenting!
Phew, I should turn this comment into a blog post in fact. I will rewrite it and turn it into a blog post, and spread it along with the link to your post. Thanks for inspiring me for a good blog post subject!
Happy to have inspired you, Leona! Please post the link here to your own blog post when you publish it. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Those automatic replies are mighty annoying. Especially the ones dropping facebook page and book links. I am very active on social media and I literally get HUNDREDS of such messages… I simply don’t have the time to click on them. I only click the blog/web site links of the people who actually take the time to talk to me, send a mention, say something about my blog, say thanks for a helpful article link I tweeted. I think some bad marketers are giving bad advice to the authors. No one stops to think there are thousands of authors in social media and many of them are using these automatic replies. You click the first few, but after seeing enough of them you just delete the messages. It’s so very annoying.
Spamming book bloggers is also annoying. I think the book bloggers started to get bombarded after the success of Amanda Hocking (not 100% sure but guessing that). She mentioned on mainstream media, as well as her own blog that she owes her tremendous success of selling 1.5 million books on Amazon as a no-name indie author to book bloggers. In her own blog and media interviews she casually mentioned that she asked the book bloggers if they’d review her book and most of them said yes.
The thing is, I actually took the time to read her blog archives and found out that she is telling the truth but people are too lazy to get to the bottom of it and they are interpreting it all wrong. She did ask the book bloggers to review her book, but she didn’t go spamming them. She asked in her own blog, with a post. Those book bloggers were her followers. She was blogging every day and very active in the blog community, and she built up a huge fan base. She had hundreds of followers. When she made a blog post and wrote that the she is giving away a review copy and asked if anyone is interested in reading it, dozens and dozens of people replied via comments, all of them book bloggers or goodreads members. A number of them asked for a physical copy, sice they had no e-readers. So, she didn’t send unsolicited requests to anyone, she sent the review copies to the people who actually asked for it in blog comments.
She worked very hard, spent YEARS building a fan base and a rather huge number of followers. She talked about her characters, answered reader questions, talked about her upcoming books to the people who already read her books and loved them. She didn’t spam anyone.
Internet marketers are deceiving people and teaching them the wrong and unethical stuff. There is no such thing as overnight success. George Martin wrote the first book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series in 1994. It became big only recently. Cassandra Clare spent YEARS in Harry Potter fan fic community, building a huge fan base there, before she made it big. It’s years of hard work, and the successful indies spent years in the fan fic or blogger communities, building a fan base there. They spent more time building up their social media/follower base than actually writing the books. Far more.
That is the long and short of it. Success doesn’t come on a silver platter, it requires dedication and hard work.
You are so very correct about bad marketers giving bad advice to authors. The sad part is that too many authors are spending money needlessly for ineffective marketing services when they could do so much of this work themselves, and quite easily. They just need to be more realistic as to who their market actually is (and that it’s NOT every reader in the world!) and target that market more accurately. The other is a scattershot method which never works. Thanks for your further thoughts on this topic, Leona!
Reblogged this on Leona's Blog of Shadows and commented:
Very wise advice, every indie author must read this. Very good points and I agree with all of them.
Thank you for reblogging, Leona!
Well said is exactly what I was thinking too. I’m sick of hearing people blab about how great their books are. Of course you think it’s great. That doesn’t mean it is. What I really want is a place where people can share great books (especially indy or small press), books that you are a fan of. I’m looking for something different from the review. I’d like to see people saying, I’m a fan of … and I’m going to promote someone else’s book. I don’t know if that sort of thing exists though.
You may be interested in viewing my Reading Recommendations blog, in that case, mgill0627. I do not review, but post promotions for many authors, known and unknown to me, and I also ask them to recommend a book by another author. http://readingrecommendations.wordpress.com/ If you have a look at the “Promotion and Resources for Authors” page at the top of the site you’ll find links to a number of other bloggers I associate with who also offer great recommendations, as well as reviews. Both Tricia Drammah and The Story Reading Ape, who provided me with quotes for this post, write terrific blogs in which they review and recommend authors and their books. If you like what you see on any of these blogs, we’d appreciate your comments and sharing the blogs and information further among your own friends. Thanks for reading and commenting!
As an indie author, I definitely have some things to still learn. . . Thanks for sharing!
If it’s any consolation, Jennifer, we all have a long learning curve that never seems to end. The best way to learn, however, is to just keep reading about the experience of others and experiment with various ways of promotion to see what works best for you. Then try to come up with a few new ways of your own to promote. Please do share your successes with the rest of us. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Reblogged this on lightningbooksbyagmoye and commented:
Story Ape suggested this article was better than his, so here it is reblogged
Thank you for reblogging, agmoye!
Excellent advice. As I have dipped my toe into this world of publishing, I’ve come to realize the power of respect, kindness and genuine contributions. I wish more people would learn that.
“Respect, kindness and genuine contributions” – wouldn’t it be nice if we all considered practicing these three attributes in every corner of our lives, and not just as published authors! The world would certainly be a better place! Thanks for reading and commenting, Lisa!
Amen to that. Sadly, I don’t see it happening any time soon.
I hope the tide will begin to turn soon, though, Lisa, as more realize that their promotion techniques are counter-productive. Thanks for coming back with another comment!
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog….. An Author Promotions Enterprise! and commented:
AUTHORS you REALLY need to read this article AND the articles linked within it
WHY?
To IMPROVE your chances of success, but more importantly, to STOP SHOOTING YOURSELVES IN THE FEET!
Thank you, as always, for the reblog, Mr. Ape! But also for your inspiration and the quote for this article of mine! You are a true friend of all published authors!
Excellent, excellent post! Rude behavior annoys bloggers, and it annoys other authors too. As a self-published author, I understand the frustration (and desperation!!!) that comes with promoting a book. As a blogger and sometimes-reviewer, I also sympathize with the frustration felt by book bloggers who are inundated with requests. The majority of bloggers are not compensated for all their hard work promoting our books, so the very least we can do is treat them with respect. Remember, they are working for us for free. Make their lives easier by following their submission guidelines and submitting requested materials in the time frame and format specified. And be nice! A little gratitude goes a long way.
Thank you, Tricia, for ALWAYS being nice! And for the inspiration you gave me to write this post, and the addition of a quote from you, too!!
Reblogged this on Tricia Drammeh and commented:
Want to increase the likelihood that bloggers will feature your book on their blog? Want more reviews? More support? Read Susan Toy’s latest post for some EXCELLENT advice.
Thanks for reblogging, Tricia!
We reviewers and bloggers all agree, this is a great article. I stopped halfway through it and re-blogged the original from Story Ape or I would have re-blogged yours. Have a great day.
Mr. Ape’s original article was one of my inspirations for writing this blog post!
Well said! 🙂
Thank you!