Why I don't promote much

I don't really promote at all. I tried to promote, back when I first published on Lulu and while I was actively editing for Freya's Bower and Wild Child Publishing. Thing is, I saw this pattern I didn't like. All the Yahoo groups, the Facebook pages, Myspace blogs: they were frequented by other writers, not readers. Writers were inevitably promoting to writers, giving prizes to writers, hoping for purchases by other writers, getting pats on the back and commiseration from other writers.

I don't mind pats on the back and commiseration. We all need that, but I like to know that's the true intention of a forum. Unfortunately, that isn't how reader forums usually turn out.


The internet is truly not a friendly place for Indie book promotion. It's very hard to connect author to reader without getting accused of spam. Just look at the Kindle forums. It's the rule there that one must never self-promote. I've seen sarcastic posts following a self-promotion, telling the author he just guaranteed that his book would be ignored (interestingly, an author I recognized posted one of these nasty responses). 

So yeah. I don't really promote much. I don't like nastiness. Authors are not my market, especially authors who need to make other writers feel small to boost their own self-importance, authors who tell new writers to quit because they'll never make it, because they're doing it wrong and will never learn to do it right. Yeah, I've lived through and seen it. Seen it recently. Got pissed and actually informed a forum mod that a frequent poster on Lulu was being negative and unkind to a young writer. Why do so many people need to feel important at the expense of someone's self-esteem. That's just low.

My market is readers. Not authors. Especially not authors with fixed ideas about how writing must be done, authors who have bought into the current fashion trends in writing. Yeah, trends in writing exist. In my field, trends are unfortunately touted as hard rules. Self-important writers often forget that writing is an art form. The only actual rules are grammar and spelling. Grammar and spelling are our paint and paintbrushes. Everything else is technique. After grammar and spelling, we have flow and clarity and style. There are no hard rules about flow and clarity and style. It's a big mistake to think there are. But as I said, some writers buy into "the rules". An Indie publisher should never market to anyone with a ruler. Rulers are for measuring and thwacking desks. What you want is a reader who doesn't see your technique, because a reader feels the flow and the clarity and the style. In the end, that's what really matters.

Now that I have my books in ePUB and Kindle format, I hope readers will stumble across my work more often. I've had purchases from readers in Italy and I think Switzerland. My horizon expanded simply because Lulu finally put up an ePUB converter. I'm very grateful for it.

For some time now, I've been thinking of leaving pretty much all the Yahoo groups I've been a part of. Disconnect, let them go. I don't read the digests anyhow. Why am I hanging on to them?

Time to let them go.