annoyedMaybe it's social media updates. Maybe it's occasional blog posts. Maybe it's setting up a mailing list. There are a lot of ways to do self-promotion, and since I consider sincerity to be the most important thing of all, there's really no wrong way. As long as you're comfortable and happy and not drowning in your update links, you're probably okay.
But here's the thing. There is a line between "self-promotion" and "spam," and while that line is usually pretty visible, it's also easy to cross, even without intending to. I schedule Current Projects posts; make Inchworm Girl posts once a week at max; and try to do sales announcements and convention announcements when it will have the greatest impact. It is thus possible—not likely, but possible—that all three of these things could happen on the same day. That would seem a little spammy, and take away from all three. It would also still be confined to my space, which you can read at your leisure, if you read it at all.
The same goes for Twitter. On and around book release day, I get very "OMG BOOK" for about, oh, 80% of my Tweets. I lose a few followers every time I have a book come out, since the rest of the time, my Twitter is very much "here are pictures of my cats and snarky comments about my doll collection." (Most of those followers come back again about a week later, when the book stuff dies down.) And that's fine! I am shouting and running around within my own space, they aren't interested, they go to the corner store for some milk and bread and come back when things are back to normal. This is all totally awesome.
The trouble, for me, comes when self-promotion begins going into other peoples' spaces without being invited. An example:
Last week I tweeted about how my sister is a nervous flier. Within twenty minutes I had received an unsolicited tweet from a retired commercial pilot who does not normally follow me, with a link to his book on calming fears of flying. Now, this may seem like he's just being helpful, but again, he does not follow me, and I did not ask for advice. This is a stranger who clearly has some standard searches coming across my comment and deciding that he can use it to profit.
I told him that what he was doing was spamming, and he asked why I was making such a fuss. The reason is simple: because he came into my space, without my asking him to, and tried to sell me something I had not asked for. He was spamming.
Something I see with much more frequency, although also on Twitter (and, in a modified form, on Facebook), is people @-checking random groups of authors/fans/whatever with "Hey, think about it, Soviet steampunk [link to book]." Again, this is not encouraging me to buy your book, or even to look at it. This is spamming.
It's different when you're doing it in your own space, or when you've been solicited. If I Tweet "What should I be reading?" and you give me a link to your awesome Shakespearean detective erotica, we're all good. If I click over to your feed and it's two-thirds self-promo, that's cool too. But once you come into my space, you'd best be sure you were invited. By the same token, if I'm coming into your space, I'd best be sure that I was invited.
Anything else is likely to turn my serious message into a piece of unwanted lunch meat.
December 9 2014, 12:22:26 UTC 2 years ago
Then I tweeted about the post. I got a response suggesting I read this random tweeter's book--that had those checklist options for a plot.
I face palmed. Like, awww nice you at least thought it was relevant, but you either didn't read the linked post, or your amazon description really doesn't do your book credit if you don't think it applies.....
*Tangentially, usually you have to save the kingdom for environmentalist reasons through the power of mystic woo. I would 120% read this book if the mermaids wanted to recruit her for their ecoterrorist collective. Alas, no one's done it possibly because it's too obvious a solution to a real problem/too hard compared to mystic woo/too morally complex compared to the "everyone but the bad guys can agree" factor of mystic woo, so I may have to write it myself. /grumble
December 9 2014, 22:12:09 UTC 2 years ago
(and, just in a "share the O_O" way, have you seen http://www.amazon.com/Mermaids-Ransom-J
December 9 2014, 22:26:34 UTC 2 years ago
I have a friend who tried to find mermaid erotica (a field in which I have no experience) and she was pretty disappointed too, though. I'll have to ask if she saw stuff like this! Because to be totally honest I am pretty sure the mish-mash fantasy creatures are a Thing, especially with angels/demons.
(I would so read mermaid ecoterrorists. I really hate stories about how you gotta swim to the bottom of the sea and fight monsters for the Object of Woo to save the kingdom, because it's a total non-starter for actually solving the problems plaguing the ocean. Sure, mermaids taking out oil rigs is ethically dubious but at least they're doing something that actually has repercussions. "We found the magic gem, the ocean is saved!" only works for me, if, idk, it destroys all coal fired plants and sends all the oil reserves to the moon, or something, and book 2 is the ensuing mad scramble to keep the world from collapsing....)
December 10 2014, 01:51:35 UTC 2 years ago
According to something I read recently, oil rigs actually support a great deal of ecological diversity once their... legs? struts? are colonized by marine life (apparently young creatures can go up and down without leaving the safety of an overgrown tower, basically, so this lets them get really dense and diverse and stuff). At least, after the rig is abandoned. Clearly the sensible thing for mermaids to do is make sure they're abandoned quickly, right?
(I saw the mermaid-angel thing on the shelf in the store, read the back cover, and decided that while it probably all made sense in the context of being Book 2, I... was not the target audience for reading book 2 first.)
*makes a note to write mermaid erotica sometime*
December 10 2014, 01:58:13 UTC 2 years ago
I saw the mermaid-angel thing on the shelf in the store
I am really impressed that it showed up in a store! ...And also disappointed, given how I largely give up trying to find books in brick and mortar stores these days. I have trouble finding award nominated books, but I can get mermaid-angel erotica. Of course.
And if you do write mermaid erotica, lemme know. I have an audience waiting for good stuff. (And glad you like my checklist!)
December 12 2014, 11:14:52 UTC 2 years ago
I will see what I can do with mermaids sometime! ...though first I have to finish The Dragon Thing, The SF Thing, and The Series Thing. >_<3
December 10 2014, 21:45:39 UTC 2 years ago