Here is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Should an author send out Twitter Pm’s to every new follower? And if so, what should they send out?

Now, here’s the deal- I’ve always thought that Twitter PM’s promoting someones’ work was… eh, tacky to say the least. But I figured I couldn’t knock it until I tried it. And you know what, if it helps me gain more views then that would be amazing! I’ve been trying to get the word out about my books.

So, for a weekend I decided to do it. What did I say? Something short and sweet along the lines of “thank you for the follow- here is a free gift: a short excerpt of my book.” and I sent a link to my blog because I didn’t want to send a link to the publishers one where it was like buy the book! I read somewhere that marketing is very much about offering the client/buyer something. I wanted to focus on offering a free sample. And hey, if the sample turned into sales awesome.

So, what happened? Well, let’s take a detailed look at it and then I’ll tell you all about how I felt doing it, and about the outcome. Spoiler: It was not as awesome as I had hoped.

New Followers who got the message: 26

People who replied: 12 (I thought this was a good number!)

People who replied more than once: 7

People who were already following me that I sent the message to: 710

Views I got on the link: 21- yes our of… *does quick mental math even though she’s at a computer* 736

How many followers I lost: None! Wow, I gotta admit I was amazed about that one. 

Sales: I can’t say for sure honestly. I work with a publisher- which is kinda sad but I’ll live! 

So, overall, that’s how it went down. Are you shocked? Surprised? Were you expecting more or less than what you see here? I have to admit; I was expecting less. I was expecting many more unfollows.

I read somewhere that marketing was all about consent. And maybe that is why I don’t like the idea of PMs and why I find it so invasive. But, because I am so against it to begin with, I decided to reach out to other authors and see if they have done alright with it. The truth is, this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to do that. Just like the other two times I did it, I found two things very common.

1) There are people like me who don’t like it and don’t do it. We don’t enjoy getting them and we don’t send them out.

2) There are people who do them, much fewer people. And honestly, they seem to get very defensive when people say they don’t like them.

Oh, also apparently there is a small handful of authors who find it rude that people don’t reply to their PM’s promoting their book.

So, there it is! It’s a quick post today, but I wanted to offer something cause I know I’ve been pretty lacking recently.

If anyone wants to add their thoughts, or if they want to do their own post (maybe about how wrong I am to be down on PMs’?) I would love to hear about it!