Self-Promotion vs Harassment
Is it me or has anyone else noticed the massive spike in self-promotion on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites with the advent of the Kindle and the subsequent onslaught of epublishing?
A day does not go by when I am not bombarded with announcements from fellow writers who have self-published their own books. I can not escape it: whether it is tweets on Twitter or posts on Facebook telling me where I can view their websites, buy their books or rate their books. One fellow writer even took it upon herself not only to advertise on Facebook but send me not one but three personal emails: two to buy her book on Amazon and a third email asking me to rate her book on Amazon. She is not a friend and she is not even in my writers’ group. 
Now, I am all for self-promotion and I understand that agents and publishers want their writers to have a web presence but really there is a fine line between self-promotion and constant in-your-face harassment. Quite frankly, I am suffering from self-promotion fatigue.
Honest to God, when I see some of these other writers constantly on Facebook or Twitter in non-stop promotion or worse in my inbox of my personal email, I just cringe. It is now to the point where I just skip over their names.
However, another writer I know, will simply put it out there on Facebook and Twitter on the day her novel is to be published. Then she might announce a book giveaway in conjunction with her release date. That is it. She will mention once where she is on certain days of her blog tour. It does not seem as overpowering.
There are ways to self-promote without being annoying. Announce it once, maybe twice either on or near your release date. Have a contest and offer a giveaway–everybody loves freebies. Have your own website or do a blog tour by all means, but please do not personally email me, asking me to buy, rate and recommend your book, unless of course, we are close personal friends. If we are not close, personal friends or you are not in my writers’ group, I do not want your self-promos clogging up my inboxes.
I couldn’t agree more on excess promotion by social media. But then, I only tweet occasionally and never go to Facebook — for this good reason!
Did you see the article by the specfi writer who went cold turkey on social media to test how much they helped her sales, really, not just taking the media’s claims for granted? Less Facebook and Twitter, more sales. She instead put much less time into her homepage, giving it content beyond “Buy my book!”
So, yeah, these people are often overselling in a bad way. They believe what they’re told by the people who have the most to gain by their belief.
I got off Twitter for that reason, the self-promotion was endless and it seemed to be only advertisiing. I know agents want to see a ‘web presence’ but I really feel that it turns readers off. Less is definitely more.
I can’t remember the last time I was on Twitter and I don’t miss it. Facebook I use to keep in touch with friends and family back home.