Authors Behaving Badly: Social Media

Dear Friend,

I am happy to see that you have a new release out. Really, I am. And I’m pleased that you supplied me with the link. Not so happy that you felt the need to remind me every hour on the hour for two days though. Please stop. I know, these posts disappear pretty quickly and you want to make sure everyone sees it, but really, too much is too much. What would work better for me is if you set up an event that would linger in the side bar until I either said I was attending or not. Don’t feel bad if I don’t respond or say no. It’s not a personal attack. More of a “I’m too busy” or a “not my cup of tea, but thanks and good luck.” And feel free to post mention of reviews or new news, but if you keep beating me with the fact that your book is out, I’m going to want to beat you. Especially if your hogging up my recent news bumps off a message from my nephew about giving the governor a tour of the robotics lab. Old news about your book, new news about my nephew, what do you think I’m going to be most interested in?

While I have you, can I have a chat with you about interaction? I notice that you post a lot of status updates, but never bother to comment on mine. See, it’s called SOCIAL media, not “I talk, you listen” media. I interpret “friend” as someone I want to interact with, not someone I plan to fawn at the feet of. If you constantly post updates without commenting on mine I lose interest in commenting on yours. And losing interest is the last thing you want. See, in the current market, your readers want to know you as a person and you are behaving like a commodity. I’m not asking for huge treatises on every little facet of my day, but the occasional Like or LOL, goes a long way.

One last thing. I’m aware you’ve started an author page. Good for you! I didn’t join it. Sorry. Another matter of not my cup of tea or possibly the way you’ve acted with a regular page has soured me on you. You know what’s not going to help? Scolding me for not joining or whining about how alone you are on your new page and how I’m going to miss out on all kinds of stuff if I don’t join because this page is going to disappear in X number of days. That might be why I’m not joining.

That’s really all I have for now. I hope you’ll consider what I said because if you keep beating me over the head with your releases while simultaneously ignoring me or scolding and whining at me for not being your friend somewhere else, I’m going to have to take you off my friends list and that makes me feel bad. And I don’t like to feel bad.

Tootles!
Charlotte McClain

Charlotte does have a new title out this month which she is not going to beat you over the head with. Secrets Everybody Knows is available from Lyrical Press now.

Authors Behaving Badly: Forums

Once upon a time I belonged to a reader’s forum. (Actually I still belong to it, but that doesn’t have the same ring.) I’m not terribly active on the forum because I don’t read as much as most of the really active posters do, but I do pop in about once a day to see if there’s anything going on. When I do post, I try to stay on topic and not just flog my books. That just seems rude. Like the guy at the party who can’t talk about anything but himself.

Well, a few months ago I noticed someone new posting. Mostly I noticed her because she drove me crazy. She would post pretty provoking questions and then use them as a forum to talk about her book. It frustrated me on two levels. One, the topics tended to be something I wanted to discuss in general terms, not just in terms of her book which I had not read (and based on her flogging, I don’t want to now.) Two, I found myself doing the same thing. She would start a conversation and state categorically that something didn’t work causing me to feel the need to defend myself, using my own titles. (For example, menage. The original topic was sex scenes in novels and then she went and stated that menage didn’t work as romance because it “never” explored the emotional fall out. My book Trio was all about the emotional fallout. I got a negative review because of it.)

It made me feel like a used car salesman. “Look at this little beauty here! 70,000 words and lots of deep emotion. It was only ever driven by a little old lady to go to church!”

So I quit reading her posts. When I noticed she was the last one to comment on something, I skipped it. The loss of a chance to engage in an intelligent debate balanced out by the absence of that dirty feeling of hawking my books.

Tonight I visited my forum and noticed the writer in question was missing. Had been missing. Hmm. I did just recently get fourth quarter royalty statements from two of my publishers so my guess is that she got hers as well and decided the sales (or lack thereof) weren’t worth the hassle.

So what’s the moral of the story? If you’re a writer looking to promote yourself on a forum, be a member of the forum, not a promoter. Think about what you’re saying before you post it too. People judge you by those little snippets and if they decide they don’t like you, they aren’t going to go looking for your book. Just because you talk about something constantly doesn’t mean people are going to want to listen. Like a person who constantly talks about their dog or their grandkids or their car, we don’t care anymore.

So for now it’s safe to go back on the forum … until the next new author gets the brilliant idea to promote their book by being controversial.