So what should we be doing?
It's been a problem ever since social networking online was invented. Writers, and still more, publishers, thought it was a heaven-sent way to advertise one's wares, and most publishers will urge their writers to use it to that end. Unfortunately there is a fine line between making people aware of what you do and making a total pest of yourself, and on networks like Facebook and Twitter (especially the former), people cross it every day. How Not To Promote One's Writing is dead easy: not only are there guides to it all over the internet, but we can see daily examples that, to anyone with an ounce of tact or style, beggar belief. Don't post reviews of your work on other people's timelines. Don't, when wishing them happy birthday, suggest in the next breath that they buy your book. Don't ask someone to add you as a friend and at once ask if they'd like to review your book. Don't add them, without asking, to groups that concern your work. Don't "invite" them online to events hundreds of miles from where they live, just because they're on your friends list. We could all go on....
But what would actually be more use is some guidance on what we can do by way of self-promotion, that will have the effect of making people want to know more, rather than less, about our work.
So here's my suggested method.
Facebook and Twitter are both good for making announcements. "I'm reading at Y on date Z". "Hey, I got into magazine X!"."My book got a good review at this link." All fine, as long as you say it once, not every day for a week, and as long as you also post about other stuff, preferably not all writing-related.
If you can, though, make even these posts not all about you, so that people other than you, your best friend and your doting mamma have an incentive to read them. It's a matter of phrasing. Try "Delighted to be reading at Y on date Z with those fine poets A and B" (tagged if you can). And "Folks might like to try magazine X; I just got a friendly reply from them" (if you can add "a timely reply", your friends will be not only interested but amazed). The third one properly goes "Many thanks to CD for his generous review at [link]". There's a degree of normal politeness in this, but it also works for you, in that it widens the circle of interest (A, B and CD will all also have their fans).
Have a writing blog, and post non-ephemeral stuff about writing on there first, linking from Facebook and Twitter. But make the blog about writing, not just your writing. Talk about general questions, ways of working, current debates in writing. Review other people's books and mention their successes. If you must think in terms of "what's in it for me", well, there's always the chance that if you review Jack's book, he may return the favour. But that isn't really the payback. What you are aiming for is to make your blog interesting to writers and readers in general, so that when you do choose to post about your own work, you will have an audience predisposed to listen.
And even posts about your own work can be given a more general application. Most writers are fascinated by others' ways of working, so post about your methods. A poem or an extract from a novel will have some audience, but a post about "why I chose to write this in the second person" or "the problems I had with the sestina form and why I persisted" will, I reckon, have more. Try to make blogposts fairly regularly, maybe between two and four a month, so that folk don't forget you're there. In the blogroll on the left are good examples of how to do it: Emma Darwin, Jo Prescott, Emma Lee, just for a start.
Keep the blog for writing-related posts, but on social media, talk about everything under the sun as well as writing. What you are trying to avoid is people seeing your name in the newsfeed and thinking "oh dear, Fred's boring on about his work again".
Think of yourself as part of a community, and your job online as promoting and growing that community - if you like, it's about increasing the diameter of the pie, rather than fighting for a bigger slice of what there currently is.
That's what occurs to me offhand, anyway.
But what would actually be more use is some guidance on what we can do by way of self-promotion, that will have the effect of making people want to know more, rather than less, about our work.
So here's my suggested method.
Facebook and Twitter are both good for making announcements. "I'm reading at Y on date Z". "Hey, I got into magazine X!"."My book got a good review at this link." All fine, as long as you say it once, not every day for a week, and as long as you also post about other stuff, preferably not all writing-related.
If you can, though, make even these posts not all about you, so that people other than you, your best friend and your doting mamma have an incentive to read them. It's a matter of phrasing. Try "Delighted to be reading at Y on date Z with those fine poets A and B" (tagged if you can). And "Folks might like to try magazine X; I just got a friendly reply from them" (if you can add "a timely reply", your friends will be not only interested but amazed). The third one properly goes "Many thanks to CD for his generous review at [link]". There's a degree of normal politeness in this, but it also works for you, in that it widens the circle of interest (A, B and CD will all also have their fans).
Have a writing blog, and post non-ephemeral stuff about writing on there first, linking from Facebook and Twitter. But make the blog about writing, not just your writing. Talk about general questions, ways of working, current debates in writing. Review other people's books and mention their successes. If you must think in terms of "what's in it for me", well, there's always the chance that if you review Jack's book, he may return the favour. But that isn't really the payback. What you are aiming for is to make your blog interesting to writers and readers in general, so that when you do choose to post about your own work, you will have an audience predisposed to listen.
And even posts about your own work can be given a more general application. Most writers are fascinated by others' ways of working, so post about your methods. A poem or an extract from a novel will have some audience, but a post about "why I chose to write this in the second person" or "the problems I had with the sestina form and why I persisted" will, I reckon, have more. Try to make blogposts fairly regularly, maybe between two and four a month, so that folk don't forget you're there. In the blogroll on the left are good examples of how to do it: Emma Darwin, Jo Prescott, Emma Lee, just for a start.
Keep the blog for writing-related posts, but on social media, talk about everything under the sun as well as writing. What you are trying to avoid is people seeing your name in the newsfeed and thinking "oh dear, Fred's boring on about his work again".
Think of yourself as part of a community, and your job online as promoting and growing that community - if you like, it's about increasing the diameter of the pie, rather than fighting for a bigger slice of what there currently is.
That's what occurs to me offhand, anyway.
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