Authors are between a rock and a hard place now. They either are called spammers or they are called nothing at all. I just had a man ask if I would please quit spamming. Sure. Point taken. Spam can be defined as advertising anything and certainly advertising a book can be spam. But here is the new authors dilemma. Quietly publish your book and wait for reviews or the Gods to make sure people know about your book or let people know and be accused of laying spam all over the Internet. But first some history.
I came up through traditional publishing. I was given an advance with Bantam and went to New York and had dinner with my agent and publisher and sat back to wait for the two books to come out. I never spammed a thing. I never went online. Yes it was there I just didn't care. I depended on the Gods and publishing to do the work for me. Some would say that was stupid but that was the way it was. Well publishing has changed and if it is for the better remains to be seen but the days of sitting back are way over.
The author today has to all the work. All of it. They have to get out there and push and with the bookstores slowly disappearing there is only one place for this and that is the Internet. Now one might not be comfortable with this. I know I am not. But all you have to do is go online to see thousands of authors screaming from the rooftops; READ MY BOOK. And that would be spam but does it matter? I had a man say to me the other day he didn't know I wrote books. This after a hundred posts about my book on facebook.
So the authorial spammer is here to stay. Some would say no no go out and talk to people and that is the way to do it. Authors only have so much time to chat and so many end up just leaving a calling card as the authorial spammer. You always have a choice. Be the quiet literary author waiting for the Gods or start yelling from the rooftops. I did the first one for years and paid a price.
It's time to get the megaphone out.
www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher
I came up through traditional publishing. I was given an advance with Bantam and went to New York and had dinner with my agent and publisher and sat back to wait for the two books to come out. I never spammed a thing. I never went online. Yes it was there I just didn't care. I depended on the Gods and publishing to do the work for me. Some would say that was stupid but that was the way it was. Well publishing has changed and if it is for the better remains to be seen but the days of sitting back are way over.
The author today has to all the work. All of it. They have to get out there and push and with the bookstores slowly disappearing there is only one place for this and that is the Internet. Now one might not be comfortable with this. I know I am not. But all you have to do is go online to see thousands of authors screaming from the rooftops; READ MY BOOK. And that would be spam but does it matter? I had a man say to me the other day he didn't know I wrote books. This after a hundred posts about my book on facebook.
So the authorial spammer is here to stay. Some would say no no go out and talk to people and that is the way to do it. Authors only have so much time to chat and so many end up just leaving a calling card as the authorial spammer. You always have a choice. Be the quiet literary author waiting for the Gods or start yelling from the rooftops. I did the first one for years and paid a price.
It's time to get the megaphone out.
www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher
