Michael Jenkins's Blog - Posts Tagged "friend-requests"
Mister...Mister Rogers?
One of the greatest things about getting my book on Goodreads is the wide breadth of readers you can reach in an instant.
There is a "to-read" option for every user where they can flag a book and put it in their "to-read" pile. Imagine my surprise when I saw that I had over 200 people putting Ask Me about My Grandcats: And Other Essays on their "to-read" list.
For those of you keeping score at home, that is over 200% more than I ever had before joining this website. 200 people were interested in reading it! I was excited about it; excited and grateful.
After seeing those numbers, I thought, What would Mr. Rogers do? Which is always a good question to ask yourself at any given time in your life.
Mr. Rogers was notorious for writing back fan letters. In fact, there was not a single child who wrote to Mr. Rogers that did not get a handwritten letter response to them. Shoot, if you met him on the street and took photos with him, he would send you a scrapbook of the photos. He was like a Terminator, but with kindness, understanding, and patience.
To quote Kyle Reese: "That's what he does! That's ALL he does!"
So, I thought I would write to those who put me on their "to-read" list. Even if said reader doesn't actually get around to reading it, I still appreciate the fact that they saw the book, the synopsis, and decided they were at least intrigued.
However, the only way to send a message to these potential readers was to befriend them on the site. With a friend request, I could send a message; the message of thanks I wanted to give them.
It wasn't a pushy note, in my opinion. It just thanked them for putting the book on their list, even if they don't end up reading it, followed by a corny joke. I wrote about 8 or 9 of these notes before I went to the "Author Guidelines" section and saw that what I was doing was considered "inappropriate."
Apparently, I was acting like a rogue marketer who did not respect boundaries. What I should have been doing was sprucing up my author page and let the readers come to me, or join a discussion group and drop my book name in there when appropriate.
I do not care for an en masse type of "Thank you" written on a blog post. It feels lazy, like when someone has a birthday on Facebook and someone just writes, "Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone," followed by a heartfelt emoji. No, I wanted to give a genuine, personal thank you with no emojis.
Once again, I consulted Mr. Rogers. Something that I did not think about was that my urge to show gratitude did not outweigh a person's desire to not be "haggled" even if the intention was not to do such.
Ironically, I can't give a personal apology, as that would further exacerbate the problem. General apology it is!
I'd love to further immerse myself in this website, talk with readers of all books, not just mine. To share observations, quips, sarcastic notes, jokes. Goodreads is a social media site that for once I'd enjoy being a part of.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll work on my scrapbooking skills, which is non-existent.
There is a "to-read" option for every user where they can flag a book and put it in their "to-read" pile. Imagine my surprise when I saw that I had over 200 people putting Ask Me about My Grandcats: And Other Essays on their "to-read" list.
For those of you keeping score at home, that is over 200% more than I ever had before joining this website. 200 people were interested in reading it! I was excited about it; excited and grateful.
After seeing those numbers, I thought, What would Mr. Rogers do? Which is always a good question to ask yourself at any given time in your life.
Mr. Rogers was notorious for writing back fan letters. In fact, there was not a single child who wrote to Mr. Rogers that did not get a handwritten letter response to them. Shoot, if you met him on the street and took photos with him, he would send you a scrapbook of the photos. He was like a Terminator, but with kindness, understanding, and patience.
To quote Kyle Reese: "That's what he does! That's ALL he does!"
So, I thought I would write to those who put me on their "to-read" list. Even if said reader doesn't actually get around to reading it, I still appreciate the fact that they saw the book, the synopsis, and decided they were at least intrigued.
However, the only way to send a message to these potential readers was to befriend them on the site. With a friend request, I could send a message; the message of thanks I wanted to give them.
It wasn't a pushy note, in my opinion. It just thanked them for putting the book on their list, even if they don't end up reading it, followed by a corny joke. I wrote about 8 or 9 of these notes before I went to the "Author Guidelines" section and saw that what I was doing was considered "inappropriate."
Apparently, I was acting like a rogue marketer who did not respect boundaries. What I should have been doing was sprucing up my author page and let the readers come to me, or join a discussion group and drop my book name in there when appropriate.
I do not care for an en masse type of "Thank you" written on a blog post. It feels lazy, like when someone has a birthday on Facebook and someone just writes, "Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone," followed by a heartfelt emoji. No, I wanted to give a genuine, personal thank you with no emojis.
Once again, I consulted Mr. Rogers. Something that I did not think about was that my urge to show gratitude did not outweigh a person's desire to not be "haggled" even if the intention was not to do such.
Ironically, I can't give a personal apology, as that would further exacerbate the problem. General apology it is!
I'd love to further immerse myself in this website, talk with readers of all books, not just mine. To share observations, quips, sarcastic notes, jokes. Goodreads is a social media site that for once I'd enjoy being a part of.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll work on my scrapbooking skills, which is non-existent.
