To Post or not to Post? The question for authors and their followers.
If you’ve follo
wed this blog at all, you probably know I’m a recently published author. If you are one of the rare people who don’t know, perhaps that is because you haven’t been as sucked into the “social media” drain as I have. In which case you are probably not reading this…
So here’s the thing.
Please understand that even those of us who are published by what they call “Traditional Publishers,” have been put into the position of promoting our own books.
Only a select few—the Anthony Doerrs, JK Rowlings and Harper Lees of the writing world, get the kind of exposure from their publicists that we all dream of. You know the kind- The ones that show up on the front tables at Chapters, get write-ups in national magazines and coveted spots in the airport bookstores.
The rest of us have to kick that launch promotion can as far as we are able. Ourselves. With a little help from our friends, our mothers and of course Social Media.
Use facebook, they say. And twitter. Post interesting stuff. Share and like other people’s stuff. Build relationships. Be nice. Oh and occasionally remind people you wrote a great book!
I invited all my FB Friends to my events. Then I invited to more events, because not everyone made it to the first event. Maybe they didn’t see it ‘cause they don’t FB much. Perhaps they were just busy and had other more important things to do. Give their dog a bath– I don’t know. Truth is, I don’t attend everything I get invited to either and I am extremely grateful for the overwhelming support I’ve received in this journey from family, friends and people I haven’t even met.
The thing is, I didn’t post all that much. I made a few edits, which I often do as I am a spaghetti head and overlook important things or overthink how I worded something—the normal hazards of being a writer or posting on my phone and hitting the wrong key. By the way, posting on the phone is a dumb idea. Don’t you hate autocorrect? What I didn’t realize was that each of my “edits” or addition to the event post showed up in people’s feeds. And of course people commented, shared and liked. Which of course I greatly appreciate!
I boosted a few FB posts on my author page. My sincere hope is that this went “broad” and not just to my present followers. But a lot of my friends and relatives are friends with my other friends. Sometimes they hit “Share.” A round of thank yous to those who do this, but you know what that means. Yep. You just might see that post several times.
Promotional tweets seem to be slightly more acceptable on Twitter- so I tweet my book about once a day, because I am still in the early stages of this journey and I have to let people know about my book. Got to strike while the iron is hot. Today’s new thing quickly becomes tomorrow’s old thing. Hopefully that will be “old classic” thing!
I have also been on the other side of the fence- the recipient of repeated robot posts “buy my book,” etc. Honestly I was so annoyed that I had to mute a fellow author. Sorry.
I want to find that middle place. Informing but not imposing.
Please know that my relationship with you– my family, friends and readers, is more important than book sales. If my posts, tweets or book recommendations are annoying you, you can hide them from your feed. You can unfollow me. (Incidentally for those who aren’t aware, this is different from unfriending in FB). If you think my actions are obnoxious, let me know.
But very gently please, because the learning curve has been steep and I am trying hard not to be annoying! I would love to hear your thoughts on this, whether you are an author or a reader.
P.S. Did I mention I wrote a book… 
