On Buffoonery
There’s a reason I’m filing this under “marketing.”
Read on.
So apparently it’s a thing to troll popular Mormon-themed hashtags, in order to find people to preach to about the supposed evils of the church. Just like it’s a thing to troll the #YesAllWomen hashtag in order to explain the (again, supposed) evils of feminism. Ironically, while there are legitimate criticisms of each, neither are actually tackled in these “discussions.” Random people, who never bother to a) introduce themselves, b) ask who you are, or c) ask any questions about what you might already believe, choose to d) spam you with the information they deem relevant. Which is almost always a semi-literate spiel about why they’re huge victims.
Which, also ironically, is often what people do to (attempt to) sell books.
But we’ll get to that.
When you’re a missionary, you spend more time listening than you do talking. Which is a good program for getting converts but it’s also just a good program, in general. Because the goal really actually isn’t to “get converts,” willy-nilly, but to match people, as people, with what they actually need. Respecting the fact that we’re all individuals, and have different needs. People come to the same conclusion–whether it’s that they want to fall in love, or read a certain book, or indeed join a specific church–for a variety of different reasons, having traveled down a variety of different paths. Abandoning the “selling” mentality, to get anywhere with someone, you need to actually want to get to know them. Not in order to sell them something, or to convince them of the rightness of your particular point of view, but because you care about them. If knowing them isn’t sufficient reward, in and of itself…what? You think people can’t tell?
I can certainly tell, when people are only communicating with me in furtherance of some agenda. Usually an entirely self-focused one. “Agree with me. Look to me as a leader. Believe my claims. Give me your money.”
And that’s where the buffoonery comes in. “This person showed such little recognition of me as an individual, and such a complete lack of interest in my individual point of view, that I just had to agree with them” said no one, ever. If you’re not interested enough in me to even spend ten seconds getting to know me–or 140 characters on Twitter, then what’s in it for me to listen to you? How have you proved yourself to me, exactly?
The fact that you think I’m wrong is only going to work on me if I have cripplingly low self esteem. In which case you’re a predator, trying to cull the herd, and I should be even less interested. People who have worth to contribute to the world, regardless of their religious leanings, build other people up. They don’t prey on their weaknesses; they don’t pull them down. Anyone who does that, in the interests of “educating” others about their supposed wrongs, is especially to be avoided.
As survivors of abuse can attest, “educating” the victim about how horrible she (or he) is…old hat doesn’t begin to cover it.
Unsurprisingly, I’m likely to conclude that someone who treats others this way is a “victim” only of his own karma.
There are a great many reasons that people leave the Mormon Church. I’m not attempting to speak for every former member, here. My experiences with ex-Mormons haven’t been entirely positive, mainly because they tend to want to tell me what’s wrong with everything I believe and me for believing it and then accuse me of being intolerant when I (politely) express reservations. I’m not looking to tell them–or anybody–how to live their lives. There’s more than one path to righteousness, and calling yourself one thing or another is no guarantee of anything. Conduct matters more than labels. But nor does setting boundaries, and expecting others to respect those boundaries, make me intolerant. We’re all entitled to boundaries.
Generally, I’m a big fan of the golden rule. Many people, in coming up to me and telling me, without so much as a “how do you do,” how much I suck or my religion sucks are horrified that I don’t instantly agree with them. But imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and I were approaching strangers to tell them how horrible they were? Asking other people to treat you with the same dignity that they demand for themselves isn’t close-mindedness, and it isn’t intolerance.
I’m happy to discuss with anyone, their issues with, or concerns about, the church. But nor do I hold myself out as a punching bag. No one should be made a focus for someone else’s rage, disappointment, or unmet expectations. That’s no different, really, than having been hurt in love and so using that experience as a justification for hurting the next person in your life. That isn’t karma. You can’t “pay it forward” like that. Your second lover isn’t responsible for the flaws–real or imagined–of your first, and flexing your anger muscles at them doesn’t “prove” anything about what you suffered except that you refused to learn anything positive from it and, instead, let it turn you into a jerk.
If you want me to respect you, and listen to your opinion, regardless of your point of view, then prove to me that you’re someone I should listen to: by proving, through word and deed, that you’re a decent human being.
The best way to market yourself is to not need marketing in the first place. Be someone whom other people naturally want to be around, no spin required. You shouldn’t have to tell people what to think of you–and it doesn’t work, anyway. They’ll decide for themselves, based on how you treat them, how they observe you treating others, and on how you treat yourself.
Which is why telling people “buy my book” doesn’t work. “I don’t know you, I don’t care who you are, but give me money” isn’t a great marketing tactic. Any decent marketing strategy revolves around answering that all-important question: what’s in it for the other guy? Which is part of why having a good website is so important. Half-assing your actual writing, whether in your book or on your website, is the book marketing equivalent of yelling at someone about tapirs without bothering to ask their name first.
Get to know your audience. First, so you know who they are and second, so you can give them what they want. If you have a true artistic vision and you treat that vision with integrity then yes, you’re going to write what you want. Whatever’s in your heart to write. But if you want to make money doing that, and I personally think getting people to pay you for doing something you’d be doing anyway is the best thing ever, then you have to actually sell your books. And selling your books means connecting them to the people who actually want to buy them. Who were already out scouring the shelves for a book exactly like yours in the first place.
Phrases like “un-putdownable” apply equally well to cookbooks, true crime books, and romance novels. If you like those sorts of things. What’s “un-putdownable” to one person might not be to the next. A far better means of advertising your book is simply to explain what it’s about. For example, I’ve told people, The Demon of Darkling Reach is a romance for people who’d rather have an affair with Dracula than Edward Cullen. So that either floats your boat, or it doesn’t. But for people who want less gore and more existential angst, this book is most certainly not “un-putdownable.”
In closing: you need to offer people more than desperate (or even vaguely threatening) pleas of “you need me,” in order to succeed with them.
At anything.
