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seanan_mcguireIf you are a creative professional, it is a sad reality that self-promotion is a part of your job. Maybe that wasn't always true; maybe there was a time when you could emerge from your creative chambers, hand your latest piece of deathless art to your agent, and then retreat back into your office fastness to keep creating. But alas, we do not live in that possibly mythic world, and if you work in the arts, at all, you need to be willing to sell yourself to whatever degree, and in whatever manner, you are comfortable.
Maybe it's social media updates. Maybe it's occasional blog posts. Maybe it's setting up a mailing list. There are a lot of ways to do self-promotion, and since I consider sincerity to be the most important thing of all, there's really no wrong way. As long as you're comfortable and happy and not drowning in your update links, you're probably okay.
But here's the thing. There is a line between "self-promotion" and "spam," and while that line is usually pretty visible, it's also easy to cross, even without intending to. I schedule Current Projects posts; make Inchworm Girl posts once a week at max; and try to do sales announcements and convention announcements when it will have the greatest impact. It is thus possible—not likely, but possible—that all three of these things could happen on the same day. That would seem a little spammy, and take away from all three. It would also still be confined to my space, which you can read at your leisure, if you read it at all.
The same goes for Twitter. On and around book release day, I get very "OMG BOOK" for about, oh, 80% of my Tweets. I lose a few followers every time I have a book come out, since the rest of the time, my Twitter is very much "here are pictures of my cats and snarky comments about my doll collection." (Most of those followers come back again about a week later, when the book stuff dies down.) And that's fine! I am shouting and running around within my own space, they aren't interested, they go to the corner store for some milk and bread and come back when things are back to normal. This is all totally awesome.
The trouble, for me, comes when self-promotion begins going into other peoples' spaces without being invited. An example:
Last week I tweeted about how my sister is a nervous flier. Within twenty minutes I had received an unsolicited tweet from a retired commercial pilot who does not normally follow me, with a link to his book on calming fears of flying. Now, this may seem like he's just being helpful, but again, he does not follow me, and I did not ask for advice. This is a stranger who clearly has some standard searches coming across my comment and deciding that he can use it to profit.
I told him that what he was doing was spamming, and he asked why I was making such a fuss. The reason is simple: because he came into my space, without my asking him to, and tried to sell me something I had not asked for. He was spamming.
Something I see with much more frequency, although also on Twitter (and, in a modified form, on Facebook), is people @-checking random groups of authors/fans/whatever with "Hey, think about it, Soviet steampunk [link to book]." Again, this is not encouraging me to buy your book, or even to look at it. This is spamming.
It's different when you're doing it in your own space, or when you've been solicited. If I Tweet "What should I be reading?" and you give me a link to your awesome Shakespearean detective erotica, we're all good. If I click over to your feed and it's two-thirds self-promo, that's cool too. But once you come into my space, you'd best be sure you were invited. By the same token, if I'm coming into your space, I'd best be sure that I was invited.
Anything else is likely to turn my serious message into a piece of unwanted lunch meat.
Maybe it's social media updates. Maybe it's occasional blog posts. Maybe it's setting up a mailing list. There are a lot of ways to do self-promotion, and since I consider sincerity to be the most important thing of all, there's really no wrong way. As long as you're comfortable and happy and not drowning in your update links, you're probably okay.
But here's the thing. There is a line between "self-promotion" and "spam," and while that line is usually pretty visible, it's also easy to cross, even without intending to. I schedule Current Projects posts; make Inchworm Girl posts once a week at max; and try to do sales announcements and convention announcements when it will have the greatest impact. It is thus possible—not likely, but possible—that all three of these things could happen on the same day. That would seem a little spammy, and take away from all three. It would also still be confined to my space, which you can read at your leisure, if you read it at all.
The same goes for Twitter. On and around book release day, I get very "OMG BOOK" for about, oh, 80% of my Tweets. I lose a few followers every time I have a book come out, since the rest of the time, my Twitter is very much "here are pictures of my cats and snarky comments about my doll collection." (Most of those followers come back again about a week later, when the book stuff dies down.) And that's fine! I am shouting and running around within my own space, they aren't interested, they go to the corner store for some milk and bread and come back when things are back to normal. This is all totally awesome.
The trouble, for me, comes when self-promotion begins going into other peoples' spaces without being invited. An example:
Last week I tweeted about how my sister is a nervous flier. Within twenty minutes I had received an unsolicited tweet from a retired commercial pilot who does not normally follow me, with a link to his book on calming fears of flying. Now, this may seem like he's just being helpful, but again, he does not follow me, and I did not ask for advice. This is a stranger who clearly has some standard searches coming across my comment and deciding that he can use it to profit.
I told him that what he was doing was spamming, and he asked why I was making such a fuss. The reason is simple: because he came into my space, without my asking him to, and tried to sell me something I had not asked for. He was spamming.
Something I see with much more frequency, although also on Twitter (and, in a modified form, on Facebook), is people @-checking random groups of authors/fans/whatever with "Hey, think about it, Soviet steampunk [link to book]." Again, this is not encouraging me to buy your book, or even to look at it. This is spamming.
It's different when you're doing it in your own space, or when you've been solicited. If I Tweet "What should I be reading?" and you give me a link to your awesome Shakespearean detective erotica, we're all good. If I click over to your feed and it's two-thirds self-promo, that's cool too. But once you come into my space, you'd best be sure you were invited. By the same token, if I'm coming into your space, I'd best be sure that I was invited.
Anything else is likely to turn my serious message into a piece of unwanted lunch meat.
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Date: 2014-12-09 02:01 am (UTC)SHARE.
Pretty please.
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Date: 2014-12-09 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 02:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-12-09 03:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-12-09 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 02:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-12-09 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 02:30 am (UTC)2) If you possibly can, do a 3:1 ration. 3 "this is neat" or "this is by someone else" for everyone 1 "check out my awesome shit."
3) Be mindful of the mental landscape you're occupying.
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Date: 2014-12-09 03:21 am (UTC)Aarrrgh, that behavior annoys me SO MUCH. That, and the variant of tagging people in photos on FB that have nothing to do with them.
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Date: 2014-12-09 07:24 am (UTC)If I am not in the picture/the picture is not immediately related to something YOU KNOW FOR A FACT I LIKE, do not tag me.
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Date: 2014-12-09 03:40 am (UTC)Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ (https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=303).
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Date: 2014-12-09 09:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-12-09 03:43 am (UTC)* Which can be problematic if you don't have the spoons to deal with your fear at the moment, and just want to know if buses or trains are a better way to see the West Coast, but isn't spam.
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Date: 2014-12-09 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 07:27 am (UTC)Spam
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Date: 2014-12-09 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 07:28 am (UTC)If I sign up for your newsletter, that's one thing; I have chosen to invite you to advertise to me. But if you just start sending endorsements? Nope.
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Date: 2014-12-09 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 06:15 am (UTC)Also, just because I took part in your kickstarter does not mean I want to receive updates about all of your future projects ever.
Also, if you come to my deviantart profile, and leave a comment with thumbnails of your stuff, or a "please visit my gallery", I consider that spam, even if I faved one of your images first.
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Date: 2014-12-09 07:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-12-09 07:48 am (UTC)It's nice too that Twitter makes it so easy to follow/unfollow people. Especially folks who participate in those big hashtag days.
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Date: 2014-12-10 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 12:22 pm (UTC)Then I tweeted about the post. I got a response suggesting I read this random tweeter's book--that had those checklist options for a plot.
I face palmed. Like, awww nice you at least thought it was relevant, but you either didn't read the linked post, or your amazon description really doesn't do your book credit if you don't think it applies.....
*Tangentially, usually you have to save the kingdom for environmentalist reasons through the power of mystic woo. I would 120% read this book if the mermaids wanted to recruit her for their ecoterrorist collective. Alas, no one's done it possibly because it's too obvious a solution to a real problem/too hard compared to mystic woo/too morally complex compared to the "everyone but the bad guys can agree" factor of mystic woo, so I may have to write it myself. /grumble
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Date: 2014-12-09 10:12 pm (UTC)(and, just in a "share the O_O" way, have you seen http://www.amazon.com/Mermaids-Ransom-Joey-W-Hill/dp/0425230686/ ? ...it's, ah, not YA... And at least I don't think it hits the checklist? *ducks and runs and hides*)
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Date: 2014-12-09 03:06 pm (UTC)Which is a good thing, because there are a LOT of cat photos.
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Date: 2014-12-10 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-10 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-09 07:51 pm (UTC)Now, I know they're not actively pushing their books at me, since I don't have to follow them back, but it still feels a bit creepy.
Mind you, I was also once followed by a dry cleaner I'd never heard of, because I'd followed a pub nearby...
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Date: 2014-12-10 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-10 02:35 am (UTC)BTW, maybe Shakespeare detective erotica could be a side project?
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Date: 2014-12-10 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-10 02:40 pm (UTC)www.thepassivevoice.com/12/2014/spam-self-promotion-and-the-thin-jellyfish-covered-line-between/
To be honest my own take-away lesson here is that different online communities have different standards as to what constitutes acceptable self promotion behavior. In the places I've spent the most time online over the past four or five years, what this pilot did would be fine. But then, I've never spent much time on twitter, and this is the very first time I've ever used live journal.
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Date: 2014-12-10 09:48 pm (UTC)If he'd asked if she wanted help, gotten a positive response, and THEN said "I wrote a book about this," or even led off with something other than a link, it would have been different.
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From:NaNo Extended: Plot Lines
Date: 2014-12-11 02:02 am (UTC)Interesting blog posts about writing – w/e December 12th 2014
Date: 2014-12-12 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-12 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-22 06:40 pm (UTC)Interesting blog posts about writing: Jon's Pick of 2014
Date: 2015-01-02 03:59 pm (UTC)