When does it become Too Much?

Remember the adage, the empty can rattles the most?  As a writer, I live in fear of being categorized the “empty can,” the one that rattles ceaselessly about everything and anything.  In today’s ever increasingly, easy to access via social media world, the author has to interact with their readers.  It’s encouraged and expected, which is fantastic, but for an author, there is the double edged sword.  When does it become too much?

I could say, when one name comes up twenty times a day in the facebook feed… with them promoting themselves.  Or when, every time you turn around and download your email, their name is there in the send and receive pile.  But it’s not really that simple is it?

So I went a-hunting, to see what was out there, in terms of the ‘how to’ of author self promotion, this blog is the results of my investigations.

A word of warning:

The wise words of Andy Straka (1), were among some of the first I found, summing up my fears very effectively.  Sometimes too much self-promotion can hurt relationships. No one wants to be around a constant self-promoter. Your relationship with someone is far more important than the particular book you may be pitching at the moment. You know what?  I think he’s right.  How many times have we seen an advertisement on television, only to say, “Oh not that again!” But it’s true.  If we keep telling the world how good we are, you run the risk of it becoming too much.  These then become the facebook pages we either unlike or hide or in the worst possible outcome, get tagged as spam.  They are the ones we drop from our twitter feed and they are the friends we leave behind.

Target your words to keep them meaningful:

It’s easy to find one place where you participate in online discussions.  Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads or even your blog (yes there are many platforms and I have only chosen a handful here).  But if you focus on one platform only, you run the risk of becoming rapidly obsolete.  As an author, it is our job (yes, alas it is) to get out there and interact outside our comfort zone. 

While there is the argument that says we should keep in contact with our current readers, we don’t want to stagnate.  We need to find new readers of our words, reach a new audience and grow our followings. To do that, we need to look elsewhere and network effectively.  Blog Hops, Guest Blogs and participate in a wide array of groups will help, but we need new and interesting material each and every time.

We also need to weigh and measure what we are saying.  If our sum total of interactions is “Look at me! Look at me!”  then our readers will become gradually more disenchanted as we self promote ourselves and forget their needs.  

That’s not to say we shouldn’t tell everyone about our high points of being published, achieving personal milestones.  But we need to have balance in our interactions.  What we do should include a good size dose of meeting with others, carrying on meaningful discussions with our peers and our readers and learning from them.  And most of all, our readers need to feel wanted/included/valued.

Protect your platform at all costs:

 

Your platform is your public face where you maintain your presence online.  It is the one people come to know, and will interact with and should become one of your most important marketing tools as an author.  So  it’s important that we know how to protect it.

Simple.  Follow the rules. (This is a personal bug bear of mine…) Over the last few years I have seen all kinds of scary things such as how to flout the guidelines of Amazon (2)  to ignore the terms and conditions of facebook, twitter etc.,  I find this scary because at the end of the day, authors are supposed to be Professionals.  

I can’t think of anything worse than building up a following, with thousands on a platform, just to lose it because we believed the rules did not apply to us.  To me, this is like signing a contract with a publishing house to give them worldwide rights to a book and then selling, say, the German rights to another company just because we can.  As professionals, we would never consider doing that to the publishing houses we have signed with, yet some are willing to be unprofessional in other avenues.

How does Over Communicating and Over Marketing hurt authors?

As with any industry, when you over communicate, your followers begin to see it as spam.  Laura Lake quantifies the situation like this:  a few weeks ago I unsubscribed to a newsletter. Why? The communication became overwhelming. I was following this company on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and RSS Feed. I was receiving close to 5 to 7 communications daily about upcoming events. Perhaps that doesn't seem like a lot but take that times 5 times a week and you'll see my point - that's approximately 25 to 35 emails weekly. I wanted information on the events and I was even interested in attending them, but I was turned off by all of the communication. True, Laura is not an author, but the message remains the same.  

Consider what you are saying and where.  Think about how many times your followers/readers are seeing the same message.  

If you think that you could be a perpetrator or this new and unusual torture, take heart!  Help is available.

What you can do if you are over marketing/communicating about yourself:

Unfortunately, while there have been some notable situations where negative publicity have worked in the favour of authors, we cannot rely on this working for us.  So we need to prepare a game plan for dealing with the fallout of negative reactions to our marketing.

It’s never too late to evaluate what you are doing and find a new way to interact.  Check how many times a week you tweet/message or even send out your newsletters saying exactly the same thing.  Check the content to make sure it is valuable and interesting and not targeted at the same group over and over again.

Give your readers something to look forward to… do you have giveaways, snippets, family trees or even timelines on your website for your stories?  Can you add freebies?  These are all quick and easy marketing ideas that cost you nothing, except a little bit of time.

If you have a monthly or on release newsletter, give your followers a choice of whether they want to follow your paranormal releases newsletter or your contemporary.  Not every reader is interested in every genre you write in.

Have other authors in your genre and outside too, leave a guest post for you.

Become a Blog Hop host.  New authors bring their own followers and you may be lucky enough to pick up a couple of new followers.

Add interesting and informative posts to your blog site.

Most of all, step out of your shoes and be discerning about your interactions with others.  Weigh and measure before you hit send.

Imogene

To read more about the science of marketing, visit:

http://southernauthors.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/three-rules-of-publicity.html

http://www.promotionalacarteblog.com/2012/07/teaching-authors-violate-amazons-reviews-guidelines/

http://marketing.about.com/od/internetmarketing/a/Marketing-Communication-How-Much-Is-Too-Much.htm

http://robinmizell.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/part-7-free-publicity-for-book-authors/

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/oct02/ksmith.htm

http://www.amazoncategoriescreatebestsellers.com/2012/07/authors-teaching-authors-to-violate-amazons-review-guidelines/

http://insatiablebooksluts.com/2012/07/28/the-authors-guide-to-social-media-does-bad-publicity-hurt-authors/

http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Ways-to-Deal-With-Negative-Publicity&id=4032314
 http://marketing.about.com/od/strategytutorials/a/socialmediamktg.htm