Doing It Wrong

You know, as surprising as this may seem, I have my pet peeves.

Yes, even a figure of Gandhian tolerance and understanding like myself, a shining example to children and recidivists alike, sometimes gets annoyed with stupid shit.

This time, it’s with asinine author marketing.

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NEWS: A new interview with Tim Knox at Interviewing Authors. Worth a listen.
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What do I mean? Well, I actually bothered to look at a bunch of my spam folder emails, and there are countless Goodreads book launches, .99 sales, and free book announcements. When I go to those authors’ Facebook pages, every post is a pitch for their books. Ditto their tweets.

Does anyone really believe that plastering the equivalent of “buy my book” all over the internet does anything but make you look like a desperate douche? I mean, really? Is it not obvious that 99.999% of the planet is resistant to hucksters trying to sell them crap, and thus if your communication stream is an unending series of advertisements for your book, you look not only clueless, but like the type of self-involved twat who tries to convert every statement or discussion into a pitch for their shitty screed? In other words, like exactly the type most want to avoid at all costs?

Guess what. Trad pub releases something like 300K books a year. Indies easily release double that. Which makes the fact that you wrote a book about as rare as people who have bought a cup of Starbucks coffee at some point in their lives. Contrary to what you might think, the fact that you were able to tap out a few thoughts, slap your slow cousin’s drawing from the refrigerator on it and figure out how to upload it to Amazon, does not make you interesting, and nobody’s going to buy your book if all you can manage for creativity is “5 Stars! Beaver Team Bravo a critic’s fave!” or “Now only .99 – Billionaire Werewolf Bondage!!!” as your communication strategy.

I believe that the only way social media works is if you interact with people. I was asked during an interview today what my social media mix is, and I said about 95% interaction, 5% alerting folks to sales or new releases. Why? Because I don’t believe anyone buys books because some blowhard tweeted in his stream about his own work (if others genuinely like a book and are recommending it, that’s different), or because they saw it on someone’s author blog, or because there’s a Facebook page dedicated to aphorisms about the author’s books, written by, you guessed it, the author. I especially hate the silliness wherein authors tweet a sentence from their own book with the wonder reserved for new parents posting photos of their ugly brat. Get. Over. It. Nobody cares.

Being a self-published author is about as rare as liars in Congress. Every third person has now published their memoir, or the WIP they had in a drawer for 15 years, or a collection of their thoughts on aging, or parenting, or breathing. There is ZERO barrier to being an author. If you can fall against the keyboard and claw out a few lines of sub-custodial drivel, presto, you’re an author. So it’s not fascinating to anyone but you. Honest. It takes more.

If you want to sell books using social media, here’s my suggestion: develop an interesting personality, blog, tweet and Facebook about things that genuinely interest you (that don’t involve you trying to sell someone your stupid book), and maybe, just maybe, if you demonstrate that you can write, are relevant, and have interesting things to say, some folks might think, “hey, maybe I should check out one of his/her books – they might not completely suck, like most of the rest of the dross clogging the drain these days!”

BTW, being as my interests run to writing, publishing, animals, and boozing, that’s what I blog and Facebook about. Actually, I don’t write about boozing, because it’s kind of like telling your mates about your night with a hot chick you met in a bar – they don’t care, and it’s really only interesting to you. So that leaves pets, publishing, and writing.

I’m pretty sure that few or no books have been sold as a result of my blogging. Mostly I’ve pissed off authors who want to believe that if you only slap a big sticker that says clueless sycophant on your forehead and follow some completely bogus three year old How To book’s misleading guidance, you’ll sell a bunch. No you won’t. I know exactly ZERO authors who have sold even reasonably well following the best known example of the How To ilk’s spurious advice. I said three years ago when I started, that if anyone could point to authors who have hit by writing heartfelt blogs about celebrities or declaring themselves to be, Joe Blow, Author, or any of the rest of the stupidity being advocated like penny stocks in a boiler room, I’d eat my bandana. So far, bandana’s intact.

If you’re an author, here’s your newsflash: everyone is lying to you so you’ll spend money on their course, book or whatnot. Exactly none of the How To books or guides I’ve seen will help you sell books. At best they encourage some harmless practices that amount to positive thinking mantras or advice that’s about as useful as, “pray.” At worst they fill your day with tripe, with meaningless activity and silliness, to make you feel like you’re doing something worthwhile. They are as false a god as if I scraped together a bundle of sticks and mud, formed a cow head out of it, and declared it to be Basamor, the creator of the known universe. They demean you because they assume you’re an idiot, and their authors should be hunted down and driven from the land on a rail. There should be a zero tolerance in the community for people who mislead in order to separate you from your money, especially peddling silliness that’s as realistic as a guide to unicorn hunting or a list of honest bankers and politicians.

I’ve told you everything I know about publishing, for free. I haven’t told you to manipulate people or view them as rubes or marks, I haven’t advised you to treat your potential readership as cretins, or any of the other mumpsimus that passes for wisdom. I’ve counseled you to improve your craft, spend much of your time writing or reading decent books, to write out of love rather than because you think you’ll make a dime at it, to package and polish your work professionally, to publish regularly, to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about your abilities and the quality of your work, and to hold your audience in the highest possible regard (unless you’re targeting idiots, in which case, never mind that last bit). I recognize that’s a kind of blasphemy to those who are looking for the yellow brick road to publishing success, but it’s the truth. Anything else is obliquity. Silliness. And a complete waste of your time.

I was also asked about my writing and rewrite process, so I’ll share my rewrite approach in a few words, because it should be yours, too: Assume everything you wrote is complete garbage, be extremely suspicious of every word, every sentence, every thought, simile, trope, observation, idea, and make it your mission to fix it. If it seems okay to you it’s because you’re either lazy, ignorant, or delusional. No it isn’t. Do the work, make it good, and if you think it is, learn more, come back, and you’ll see it ain’t by a long shot.

That’s my rewrite process in a nutshell. It’s not forgiving, but it does cut down on the output of complete crap (my work notwithstanding – do as I say, and all). It isn’t designed to make you feel good about yourself, or self-actualized, or talented or special. It’s designed to ensure you create readable prose your audience might actually like, and which might have a chance.

No charge. Although I’m pretty sure if I put this into a How To book nobody would want to buy it, so it’s worth what you paid for it.

There. I got that off my chest. Mr. Buzz Kill hard at work. Now back to the WIP, which is what you should be doing, too, instead of wasting your time with stupid blogs.

Hrmph.