Why my enthusiasm to help you turned into grumpiness (and this ranting blog post) #AuthorMarketing #Rant
I’m a sincere believer in ‘pass it forward’. I can’t even count the number of book bloggers who have had my back with doing promotions and writing reviews for my books. Some of them have been with me from the beginning when I had no clue what I was doing and stuck with me through my dangerously steep learning curve.
I like to pass this forward by helping other indie writers out there. I mostly help self-published authors because I know how difficult it is to get the word out there. Like me, many of them are climbing that steep learning curve in figuring out how to market their books. I try to lend a hand up, but sometimes I want to let go and watch them fall – preferably while screaming. That’s right, folks. It’s rant time.
Here are some examples of why I would gladly let go of a writer’s hand and gleefully watch them curse me out as they tumble to the ground:
No sharing. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million gazillion times, if I spend the time to blog about your writing, you should at least stop by the blog and say hi! At a minimum. A like and a share would be preferred. I’m doing you a favor here, but I can’t do it all!
Can’t accept no for an answer. This is another of my pet peeves I’ve complained about way too much. There is a reason I’ve told you I can’t review your book. You should be happy I even responded. I offer almost every writer whose book I chose not to review an author spotlight. Can you not be happy with that instead of whining about me reviewing your book?
False bragging rights. Please, please don’t tell me you are a bestselling author when I can look on Amazon my dang self and see your book is ranked at 1,000,000th. Just because your book hit the top 20 on Amazon for one freaking day two years ago doesn’t make you a bestselling author. And I’m not very impressed if you’re #10 in a category that has twenty books. Do you think I’m stupid?
Cheap giveaway. I’m very much aware of how expensive it is to market your books. Pfff… I am down with that. BUT that doesn’t mean your giveaway should be cheap. And by cheap I’m talking giving away an ecopy of your own book. Seriously? What’s that costing you? Nothing? A dollar? Come on, that’s just pathetic. And we all know you’d give away a gazillion of those ebooks if you could get some decent reviews.
Inability to follow directions. I am not a professional blogger. I’m not earning any money with this. I do this in addition to the 10,000 other things I do a day. So, have a little respect and follow my guidelines when sending me materials for a book spotlight. I don’t need to be spending my valuable time formatting blog posts because you couldn’t be bothered to follow directions.
Failure to follow back. This peeves me. You are a brand spanking new author and yet you can’t bother to follow me on Twitter where I’m promoting your work? Grrrr….
I completely agree. I find it sad when I spend so much of my time reading, reviewing, doing graphics for a post and then the author doesn’t even like the twitter post. I understand that if they’re truly a best-selling author you get tons of reviews everyday and can’t trace back every blog post to say: “wow, thank you.” I get it, but c’mon, when I’m even tagging you to the twitter post, it’s not like you can ignore it.
Fortunately, I never encountered an author who couldn’t take no for an answer. Also, about the cheap giveaways, I think nowadays the only appealing ones are those involving paperbacks or Amazon GC. Unless it’s a very popular book everybody’s dying to read, no one is going to enter a giveaway for an ecopy of an unknown book from an unknown author.
Disgruntled bloggers unite! I now have a few REAL bestselling authors who always send me a Netgalley link to their novels for review. I know they don’t have time to worry about little old me (although some have really good publicists who do comment – a few even became followers!) An ecopy of an unknown book from an unknown author – exactly that.
Yes, I think when giveaways are concerned, the less famous you are, the more you have to invest. And it’s so nice to be alerted when there’s something interesting on Netgalley by some good authors!
Hear, hear! I get tired of authors who think they’re better than me. They’re so high and mighty and when I tell them no, they off on a rant of their own. I’m an author, too, not just some lowly blogger to be stepped on. I follow the Golden Rule and others should do the same.
Great rant, my friend!
I used to try and give advice to writers who couldn’t handle the ‘no’. I’d advise them about typos in their synopsis or that the synopsis was too long or whatever. OMG! Unbelievable how quickly a writer asking a favor can turn into a self-righteous prick. I learned my lesson. No more Ms. Nice Guy.
PREACH!
My BIGGEST PET PEEVE is authors who are all “we’re in this together and have to support each other” and the second you support them, they vanish – gone to smooze someone else. Your support never appears!
ICK! 😡
Here’s a tip for them – being a bestseller doesn’t mean you had a good book, just great marketing and promotion.
Remember who helped get your book out there! 😒
Great post, DE!
Thanks!
By the way, thanks for all your awesome support ☺️
You’re always welcome! I enjoy helping other authors – it’s fun! It’s not so much fun when the life-sucking, self-centered,..uh, er…sorry!
Have a great weekend! 😀 😀 😀
I’m already enjoying my weekend here 🍾🍾🍾 You have a great one!
I’ll never understand authors who don’t give a thanks to all the bloggers who host their tours. Unless your name starts with Stephen and ends with King, you’re sh*t is not yet dipped in gold, my friend. Bloggers are the only reason why your name is even reaching readers, so that’s kind of like a new band completely snubbing all the radio stations, only bloggers aren’t typically getting any kind of compensation for promoting your work.
I’m crazy obsessed with making sure I don’t miss a single host when my book is on tour – and that’s with a day job. I remember being so excited with my first book tour, I not only thanked every single host on every social media outlet, I followed them, too. I probably came across as an over-enthusiastic newbie–on crack–with stalker tendencies! LOL
So, when I started hosting for promoters, I was completely gobsmacked by the number of authors who never liked (or possibly even looked at?) any of my posts. The numbers were disheartening and weren’t limited to just one or two promotional services. After so many years of doing that, I’ve just about lost all of my enthusiasm for being a tour host and that makes me sad, because I really do like supporting fellow authors.
BTW, I came for the rant, but if you’re gonna break out the wine… 😀
I still stalk any and all bloggers who support me whether via a blog tour or review 😉 I find the writers who approach me individually are usually quite enthusiastic and fun to support. I may start doing more of those.
The wine’s cold!