Dana Kaye
You all know I'm a positive person, right? So you won't think less of me if I take this Friday morning to kvetch a bit?
Lately, I have noticed some growing trends amongst authors, seasoned and newbie, that want to make me jump through the computer, wring their neck and say, "You just lost a reader!"
Authors, I understand you have pressure to promote. I know you want to sell a million copies. I know you wake up every day with anxiety: Am I going to sell through? What if I get a bad review? Am I not doing enough? But often, in these times of panic, you end up over-promoting and becoming a nuisance and, in the end, lose potential readers.
Top Ten Things Authors Should NEVER Do To Promote Their Book
- Send Facebook Page suggestions every day. Send one suggestion, if they want to become a friend, they will.
- Update Twitter every day with contests, hashtags, and links to buy your book. Think of Twitter as a conversation; updating with interesting tidbits or questions will engage your followers. As I've said before, it's a conversation, not a soapbox.
- @ Reply in that spammy way that's just to get people to look at your post. @ reply if you're talking to me, don't post, "My book is now available on Amazon, @Dana_Kaye". It's obnoxious.
- Post your promotional material on other people's walls. I log on to FB one morning and find someone had posted a photo of their book cover and a link to their website on my Kaye Publicity page. That page is for my clients and he isn't one of them. I de-friended him and certainly will never buy his book. If your friends want to assist in your promotional efforts, they will. But don't invade their space.
- Steal e-mail addresses for your mailing list. Just because I registered for a conference or post my e-mail on my website, does not give you the right to take my e-mail and add it to your list. If we've conversed a few times via e-mail or Facebook, ask if I mind being added to your mailing list. Any newsletter I receive that I didn't sign up for gets marked as spam and the author is on my "Do Not Read" list.
- Use forums and listserves as your personal opportunity for self-promotion. Forums like Backspaceand the ITW Debut authors forum are meant for authors to ask questions and build an online community. They are not an audience for your promotion tactics.
- Use other people's blogs as your personal opportunity for self-promotion. Fortunately we don't get a lot of this here at Hey, Dead Guy, but other blogs aren't so lucky. Comment on posts where you have something to say, but don't comment on every single blog with a link to your site or Amazon listing.
- Post every single review you've ever gotten, good and bad. If you get a rave in the Times, post away. If a blogger said something particularly cool, go for it. But I don't need to see every single review, most of which are old and out of date. And why are authors posting negative reviews? Do they really want to bring their shortcomings to my attention?
- Badger book critics. So they didn't review your book or they didn't give you a good review. So what? They don't have a personal vendetta against you, what good is it to confront them? Professionalism goes a long way.
- Waste money on ad space. I'm seeing this more and more, authors buying blog and facebook advertisements for their book. Don't waste your money. Your much better off guest blogging or doing an interview on a blog than purchasing an ad. And Facebook ads? Focus on beefing up your presence on Facebook organically. Honestly, when was the last time you bought something because a Facebook ad told you to?
My apologies if my list is blunt, bordering on bitchy. But if you are an author and using one of these 10 tactics to promote, please do yourself a favor and stop immediately.
Is there anything missing from my list?
