You've heard that saying before and mostly on goodreads or Amazon. Immediately, what springs to mind is "Oooh. They must have commented on a negative review. Tsk. Tsk."
Not necessarily. And this may sound funny coming from me, but first and foremost, I'm a reader. I LOVE to read and this is my reader two cents and this how if you're not an ABB, you can avoid being one. ;)
I mentioned previously that lots of folks are being twits. Twitter...just spam, spam, spam. I said nobody talks about anything at all but their book. And then there's Pinterest. I don't need or want to see fornicating couples every time I log on. But here are some more examples of what I'm seeing in the industry that is just :O.
Facebook: Don't friend 5,000 people and spam them. If you have more friends than you can keep up with, than you can honestly take an interest in, then it may be time to reevaluate. Personally, I no longer bother friending strangers. If I don't know you personally, I won't friend you. My account now is strictly friends only. The entire world does not need to be privy to all my deep thoughts and occasional rants of frustration.
Don't friend me just to sell me a book. It doesn't work.
Just because you are published with the same publisher does not mean you are not a stalker, murderer, or psycho. To tell the truth, some of the books I'm seeing from some of my publishers...um, err, there's def a chance there are some perverts sending me friend requests. Sorry, but no. Please go like my author page, which is open to the public--including perverts. LOL
Don't friend me if you don't plan to give me the time of day. It's really not hard to "like" something someone says periodically, let them know you are there.
Otherwise, just have a page. It won't clog anyone's feed... Lemme tell you a secret... Log onto Facebook, look to the left, in the sidebar, Favorites, Pages, Groups... Beneath Pages, there's a pages feed with an orange flag. You click on that and you can see what was posted on all the pages you like.
And hey, it's a page dedicated to YOU, about YOU. Spam away!
Events: DO NOT invite all 400 of your friends to your book release party. Facebook, sadly, has it set up so that we receive these really annoying notifications to everything said in the event, whether we want to go or not, until we can actually log onto the computer and turn them off. This is irritating. I have gotten hate mail because someone mass invited hundreds of people to an event I was hosting.
Authors, follow directions. There's apparently a sudden influx of illiterate authors...somehow they can write, but can't read.
A prime example is I have posted about my Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week feature a few times. It's very specific about what I want/need an author to send me. So, why then, do I get five emails, all asking me "What do you need?"
Please, READ the instructions before you go ballistic and email me.
Also...if someone agrees to host you on their blog, REMEMBER it. Send your stuff in time. Bloggers are not your secretaries.
If it feels like I'm attacking authors, I'm really not. I have began to follow these rules myself. I'm an author too! And next week, I'm going to post my thoughts on how readers can better support them. But it's a two-way street, folks.
If you want readers to support you as a writer, show them these tiny signs of respect.
'Til next Saturday. :)
Nice write-up, Tara. :)
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