Spam, Spam, Spam, who doesn't like Spam? Personally, I just eat it out of the can, but, of course, it isn't the tasty precooked meat product that I'm going to write about in this post. After self publishing a book for the first time, the immediate next thought (or actually, what you should be thinking before you even publish the damn thing), is: how the hell am I going to convince anyone to buy it? Which brings me to spam.
Having a limited budget, which really means having no budget at all, I had to search for ways to promote my lovable book for free. There are some places that let you list your book with a brief description for free (bless these people), and there are many forums that let you post and mention your book. Seems simple enough, right? However, do this too often or in the wrong thread and you'll be labeled as a SPAMMER. A forum spammer is someone who annoyingly advertises his products in inappropriate places to people who could give a flying you-know-what about it.
I, personally, have never hijacked a thread with a post about my book. I've just posted in multiple "Promote your book here" threads in many different forums around the internet. And I've tried not to go overboard and mention my book in every single thread. I've also tried to write something different for each post. Yeah, the gist of it is pretty much the same: "My book is great, funny, hilarious, blah, blah, blah, please buy it," but I don't repeat the same thing verbatim every time.
So I don't think I've done anything wrong. Surely, I've done nothing to be accused of being a spammer. However, at certain forums, posting something about your book gets some of its members very testy. I guess even though these forums don't take the "Promote your book here" threads down, they're actually technically against their rules. I was unaware of this at the time, but just browsing some of the other posts, I saw many "senior" members getting bent out of shape at "newbies" posting about their books. Anyone promoting their books on these threads gets labeled as a "loser" or an "idiot," or yes, as a lowly spammer. That doesn't bother me, after all, I've been called worse, though, it seems that people can get overboard with their anger. I guess I can understand, if you're part of a forum that isn't supposed to have promotional threads, and your forum ends up being bombarded by every damn person who has recently wrote a book, it can be quite annoying, and as the guy who wrote a whole book on his annoyances, I should sympathize, but still, man, some of their criticisms are pretty harsh. I was tempted to respond to some of these criticisms with a light hearted post apologizing for my own transgressions, but I don't think any of my "humor" would be accepted by these hardened book veterans. Yep, they're pretty grumpy. So, once I was aware that promoting my book in certain forums was frowned upon, I simply stopped promoting my book in these forums. I also learned that it's always good to read the official forum rules before posting anywhere, no matter how many "Promote your book here" threads a forum has. Ignorance should never be an excuse.
All this did get me thinking, "Does any of this ever actually work?" Does anyone just go to the "Promote your book here" threads looking for new books to read? Or, is it everyone who has just wrote a new book that's going there, posting something their book, and then leaving to find some other thread or forum to post into? I have to admit, that's all I was doing. I may have glanced at someone else's post, but only to see their method for promoting their book. I clicked on a couple of their links, but, once again, it was just to see how their covers looked, how they worded their description, and how high their sales rank was. Needless to say, none of their books were ranked that high, so, again, I have to ask, "Does this really work?" I guess if it gets just one person interested enough to hit your link and buy your book, it was worth it, especially if you're just starting out like I am. And it doesn't cost me a cent to do any of this, of course. At worst, it's a waste of my time, and if there is anything that I do have, is a lot of time. In fact, I had enough time to write a whole blog on this subject in the first place.
Also, now I have a huge craving for Spam.
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