Chirenjenzie discussion

I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit tired of random people friending me either here, twitter, or facebook only to follow up with a "so glad to meet you, please read my book" message.

I've run into more indie writers who seem to think this is a good marketing approach. My opinion ... they couldn't be more wrong. It turns people off.

I no longer check messages on twitter for this very reason. About 80% of the time I get a "Thanks for the follow, and read my book" message in some version or other. *sigh*

Here's the thing. Social networking is just that. Social. We friend people because we think they are interesting and we'd like to get to know them. If they feel the same, they friend back. If they want to know more about your work, they can click on your site, they can look on your author page, and they can join your fanpage.

I like to think of it this way: no one likes to go to an office party only to be cornered by that one person that yammers on and on about their project, their awards, blah, blah, blah... We hate it in person. Why do people think it's acceptable on the net?

What do you think? Am I being too type A? Is this a pinch point for anyone else?

I couldn't agree with you more on this one, Chi! It irritates me to no end when people send that, "Nice to meet you, here's my link because I'm so awesome," message. If I wanted to be sold on something, I'd watch QVC. I'm on Goodreads, Twitter, and Facebook for "social" networking, just like you. I want to find those who are fun to know. No one wants to feel used though. If I'm your friend it's because you seem interesting. The second you begin pumping me full of here-are-my-accomplishments drivel and shout-me-out-to-the-world nonsense, I don't want to be your friend anymore. No offense, but you're just annoying at that point. Friends aren't marketing tools. There's a balance when it comes to promotion. Pushing yourself onto people is sure fire way to not succeed. No one buys obnoxious...unless you're a reality TV show ;) Be considerate, people. There are plenty of writers who'll turn others off unnecessarily by being insufferable.

I love you all ;)

It's good to know I'm not the only one who finds those "Good to meet you - now why don't you buy whatever I'm selling" messages off-putting. I also now do a closer check on Twitter profiles before I follow back. Silly me. Trusting soul that I am, thought I'd be nice and follow everyone who followed me and I ended up with a plethora of spammers trying to sell me everything from dog training videos to battery-operated sex toys. I mean GEESH! :-(

Oh, Maeve, there's so much I could say about that last part! LOL! I'll just leave the (insert joke here) line blank ;)

Yes, it is irritating, isn't it? :p

*sheepish grin* I didn't realize how that sounded until it was too late!

:-)

You all crack me up! :-D The thing is, when it comes to indie authors, I just don't think they know. I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm learning that there is more misinformation on marketing as there is information. It all comes down to discernment. This is where the indie/self published books get kicked in the teeth. Marketing.

Maybe we should start a marketing tips thread and put on there things we know that work. Unfortunately, I know more of what doesn't work than what does! :-D

This is true, Chi. It's just ignorance (which I claim myself) in most cases. I say write away on another thread though. Process of elimination is just as helpful! Marketing is a tough sea to navigate, so any direction helps in my opinion!

Or the people who friend you on Facebook and then post nothing to their wall except their book cover and a sales link -- 10,15,20 times a day clogging up your feed.

I never respond to unsolicited book review requests. They can query The PodPeople Blog like everyone else, and I am an Indie author, too, and I rarely plug my books on social network or forum sites. I'll post a giveaway to specific giveaway groups, but that's it. Spam isn't marketing.

Love this thread! Thanks for bringing it up, Elizabeth. I find the random friend requests on Goodreads especially strange. I figure they're friending me because we have similar reading interests or because they like my books or whatever, but recently someone I'd never heard of before gave my book a two-star rating (no review) and then a few days later tried to friend me! I don't mind negative reviews at all, especially if there's some actual content in them to help steer the people away who wouldn't like my books, but that struck me as particularly weird.

The worst thing about that one is if you don't friend them, it looks like sour grapes. If you do friend them, you can't really say "why didn't you like my book?" because that breaks the never-reply-to-a-bad-review rule. Talk about a quagmire!

I don't get a lot of *thanks for following, now read my book* because I don't follow back (on Twitter) until I have some dialogue with someone. Every once in a blue moon, I'll post that if you want me to follow back, talk to me. And while I do post some links to my stuff, it is not directed AT any individual, but is a single post and is far outweighed by my interactive posts. And I probably shouldn't say this here, but I do get "friended" all the time on Goodreads, but most of the time ignore what comes in (I'm good with the delete button) except for when it's one of the group digests - because I do read those - even if I don't get a chance to hop on & respond often. Facebook gets my blog posts and not a whole lot more. Twitter is definitely more my speed/style and I've developed some fantastic relationships 140 characters at a time. In fact, I'm getting ready to go meet another twitter friend for the first time in just a few minutes. :)

LK,
It's so fun to meet twends! And I shout out a blogpost, interviews, smashwords, and the site every now and then too. But, like you, it's never a DM to a stranger.

Have fun!

I find the whole process mind numbing. They say you're supposed to flog your books, tweet now and again, post stuff on Facebook, whatever. But when I see a new person who's following/friending me, I don't automatically think, "Oooh, a potential new reader!" Maybe I should. But I think it's tacky to continually post crap about my book. HOWEVER, what else are we supposed to do? I mean, it's about getting the word out there, and sitting on this book and not mentioning in once in a while...that doesn't make sense either. On Twitter, I really appreciate the friends that I've made, and I love hearing about other folks' successes. I get annoyed when I see bloated reviews pop up on books that I personally couldn't finish, but that's just me. If I'd known how painful this whole marketing process is -- I'm not a natural marketer as I don't want to get in people's faces and I'm not clever enough to find ways to squeeze my way into people's lives -- just buy the damn book, is what I want to say most days. You might like it. We don't have to be besties. You don't have to learn my dog's name or my son's favorite superhero. We might end up being friends; maybe we'll find we have tons in common and we both like Oreos and Bruce Springsteen. Bottom line, I think we all just want to provide a quality product for a reasonable price and get on with the process of writing.

GoodReads is weird because I get random friend requests all the time, but I pretty much always accept, as I want to see what other people are reading. I find the diversity of reading tastes fascinating.

If you find the magic bullet, let me know. In the meantime, I gotta go take the cake out of the oven as I got roped into donating to the cake walk. I am sorry for the family who ends up with my culinary efforts...ha ha ha. Take care, friends!

Great questions, Jennifer! I think the key is to find balance...post about your book when you have something to say, and the rest of the time, just post about other stuff that you find interesting. On the FB page for my books, I post about cool stuff that's happening in the world (breakthroughs in science, the latest on the Hobbit filming, etc.) as well as linking to particularly nice reviews of my books and writing updates on when a new cover is ready, etc. I realized early on that the very best part of marketing was all the cool people I was meeting online, so I've just focused on enjoying all these friendships and not thinking that much about trying to sell my books. That might not be the best sales strategy, but I'm having the most fun that way, which is what matters most to me.

Good luck with the cake! As we all know, the cover is the most important selling feature, so just decorate the cake with some fresh flowers and people will be delighted. :)

Jennifer,
Have I mentioned how happy I am that you joined our little group? I love the way you phrase your thoughts :-D.

And I agree with both of you. I'm not a natural narcissist either. It's hard for me to say "hey, have you read my great masterpiece." I just want to get to know people too!

Hey, Jacquelyn! Well, we can TOTALLY be friends because I joined the new Hobbit blog the moment I saw it was available, and sat and slobbered over the 10:29 video Peter Jackson posted the other night about the first day's shooting! Woohooooo! SO excited! *nerd alert*

Yeah, okay, so it sounds like I'm doing it sorta right, then. On my book FB page, I try to post reviews of other books that I think people might enjoy, writing tips, interesting articles, the like. I post links to reviews of my own book, too, 'cuz I guess that's the place to do it. Otherwise it might just be my mom reading them...

I've met some really fantastic people on Twitter, too -- I was reticent to join as I didn't quite understand the whole process of tweeting, but I can say now that I'm in it thick. I love the instantaneous feedback, the brevity of conversations, the "hey how's your day" camaraderie that happens. I spend my days waiting on my school-age kids, so when I'm home for that six hours, alone, supposedly working (!), it's nice to have a little something to go to where I can just say "yo" to other humans. The cat doesn't always want to talk to me...sometimes he's just TOO busy chasing dust bunnies or watching the floaties that are clouding his 13-year-old eyes these days.

Thanks for the note. Flowers is a good idea for the cake, although I will probably have to make them gummy bears instead as it's for the elementary school, and knowing me, I'd pick poisonous flowers and someone would die and then they'd sue me and take my minivan and then I'd have to walk to jail.

Happy Friday!

P.S. SPEAKING of FRIDAY, not sure if you're a Glee fan (I have a drama nerd in my house): did you hear that Glee is doing a rendition of Rebecca Black's now-infamous song "Friday"? Oh, my ears are bleeding already...

Hey, Elizabeth! I'm glad I joined your group, too, 'cuz you folks are Too Much Awesomeness. My daughter has been saying that a lot -- did I use it right? Am I cool? I figure if I were better at being a narcissist, I would've been far more successful in my life. But it feels so...sleazy. Look at Snooki, though -- she got a book deal -- maybe I should poof my hair, get some fake tan going on, get a boob job, plump my lips, have 15 years surgically removed from my body...

Nahhhhh. Makes me tired just thinking about it. And then I wouldn't be able to lick the bowl from the cake I just made. Baking while the kids are gone -- I think I LIKE that! I didn't have to wrestle the 6-year-old for the beaters. I got to lick 'em clean all by MYSELF! What did you say? Oh, there's chocolate on my face? Yeah, you're just jealous. Cake walk, schmake walk. Come on over, girls. Let's eat this bad boy ourselves. I'll put on coffee...

Oh holy cats, not Friday! That dreadful, dreadful song. It's such an earworm. My daughter is also a drama nerd (she just played Riff Raff in Rocky Horror), and she adores Glee. I can't wait to hear what she has to say about Friday...hee hee! Let the diatribe begin!

Just found your FB page, and it looks great. I look forward to reading your posts.

I was squealing through the whole Hobbit video that Peter Jackson posted...it brought a tear to my eye to watch him walking through Bag End. Felt like coming home. In an I'm-so-pathetic-home-a-movie-set-feels-like-home kind of way.

I'll admit...I got teary-eyed, too. And even though it was after midnight when I finally got to watch it, I ALMOST went and plugged in Return of the King, just so I could swoon at Aragorn. As he's not in The Hobbit. Oh, Aragorn...how I love thee. Well, pretty much anything Viggo does is swoon-worthy. Mmm-mmm-Viggo.

Yay for RHPS! My daughter is in Oliver right now (opens in May) through her high school, and is also involved in another acting group where they film a movie throughout the year and then put on a year-end live stage show. Last year's movie was adorable. The jury is still out on how this year's will end up.

Thanks for finding my FB page. I shall go through the forum here and find yours! See? NEW FRIENDS ROCK!

Yay, another Viggo devotee! New friends do rock! :)

My FB page is here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Sot...

Cheers,
Jackie

I liked your page -- man, you have a lot of followers! Amazing! Hey, I tried to add you to my personal FB page but can't find you. I'm Jenn Sy (last name is Sommersby Young, so I hyphenate, and then Facebook renamed me to "Sy." Most people call me Jenn Sigh...).

Thanks for the link. And the cake NOW has Oreos, sprinkles, and gummy bears. I'm going to win Mother of the Year for this. At least I would if they knew how much effort I put into this. Cooking is NOT my forte. :oP