Spam or Commercials? Selling Books Through Social Media

I just finished a library tour of twenty libraries and one of the most popular topics I covered was selling books through social media. The way I usually start this presentation is this: How many people here sit through five beer commercials during a football game and think nothing of it? Most people raise their hands. Or how about pickup commercials? Or Viagra commercials? We literally get hit with the same commercials back to back. And we think nothing of it.

But on the internet a curious word was created...spam. What does that even mean? Ok. Now why would companies put on so many commercials of the same product back to back? Because they know that humans pick up on things through REPETITION. Sales 101. You have to keep repeating the same message and then people start to pick up. Or IMPRESSIONS. You need to have X amount of impressions before someone buys.

Our new television is the internet. Sorry but it is. And we are marketed to in the same way. Repetition. Commercials. But people cry out they are being spammed. Really. No you are being advertised to in the same way you are getting smacked over the head during your football games. The price of the internet with all that free content is the advertising. It always has been. So to all you book marketers I say this: Spam is something you eat.

Get to work.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher
 

The Authorial Spammer

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