All the thousands of hours of work I put into DROP OUT and it's off to the formatter and done forever. Yeah! So, I've decided to devote myself to marketing this week because I have the time and I was going to give AFTER one more blast before I started rewriting INSECTLAND and marketing and promoting DROP OUT. Okay, all is well and good. I've done my usual postings on Kindle forums and my various writers sites that I belong to. But the other day I discovered something unique and promising. My friends on the website Goodreads. Since I've been a member I've slowly friended people who first friended me. And before you know it, I've got almost 100 friends. Yeah, again! Now about three weeks ago I decided to use my Goodreads friends and promote AFTER. Nothing too harsh, just a little blurb and a link, only once, no spam. Well, that resulted in a pretty big jump in sales. Yeah, a third time! So the other day I started exploring Goodreads and discovered a way to announce that I was looking for friends to a large (several hundred) group of like-minded writers and readers. Within an hour I had more than 100 friend acceptances. I started replying personally, like I do on Twitter, to all my request. As usual, it's a small intro with a link to my site on Author's Den. All was going great. I had many replies to my thank you, and people were checking out my site and commenting to me how much they like it. Until this one note I just read. This person who I don't even know totally wrote me a page long rag-session about how authors shouldn't promote like this and how I was wasting everyone's time by placing a link to my site.
Well, first of all, this woman probably has no life if she took that much effort in replying. And she even friended me so she could do it. Second, I checked her profile, she is a reader and not a writer. Hey honey, put yourself in the writers shoes. We're all struggling here to keep literature alive. How else are we going to expose people to our work. We're not forcing anyone to do anything. And lastly, before I end this rant. Why does this one negative comment bother me so much? I guess, it's because readers like this woman are going to keep anything that is new and experimental from reaching people who may be interested in reading it. Thank you.
Well, first of all, this woman probably has no life if she took that much effort in replying. And she even friended me so she could do it. Second, I checked her profile, she is a reader and not a writer. Hey honey, put yourself in the writers shoes. We're all struggling here to keep literature alive. How else are we going to expose people to our work. We're not forcing anyone to do anything. And lastly, before I end this rant. Why does this one negative comment bother me so much? I guess, it's because readers like this woman are going to keep anything that is new and experimental from reaching people who may be interested in reading it. Thank you.
You should read this post. Getting negative reviews or comments means you are really an author. Chalk it up to experience, bro. It's better than getting angry. This blog post might help you:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/07/how-to-deal-with-negativity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NathanBransford+%28Nathan+Bransford%2C+Author%29
I'm with Michele. And the link is terrific. "It hurts when someone says something truly mean about you, particularly when it contains a grain of truth that has been blown up, distorted, or turned around." I'm betting that some where deep down, justified or not, you felt uneasy about your subtle promotion. Madame Reader's long-winded rant made you questions yourself. Again.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, getting under people's skin is Job #1 for a writer. Don't let one comment get you down. The positives of your post balance out the one negative and then some.
Deep breaths and, as they say in French, Courage!