How Not to Promote Your Self-Published Book, Part ... Oh, I Forget
Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Friday, February 12, 2010
Today's piece of self-promotional spam arrived from a listserv I'd never signed up for. How did I know it was a listserv? I didn't, until I dug into the headers and found the unsubscribe address.
The title was vaguely SF, and the opening paragraph promised the book might "relate to my interest." Actually, it didn't.
English apparently is not the author's first language, as evidenced by the grammar and spelling errors and syntax. I don't hold that against anyone, but if you're going to promote a product in a language that you don't speak or write with native fluency, you need a copyeditor. Apparently, the book had a copyeditor. I checked it out on Amazon, and the syntax, grammar, and spelling of the random pages I read were excellent.
Mistake #1: Spam.
Mistake #2: Grammar, spelling, and syntax issues in said spam.
Mistake #3: Not offering the reader an opt-out mechanism.
I typed the title into Google and found page after page of reviews and comments that were nearly identical to the glowing reviews on the Amazon page.
Mistake #4: Promotion via comment spam.
I found the author's web site and clicked on the publisher link which took me to - a dead site. Back at Amazon, the publisher is listed as BookSurge. Well, there you go.
Judging from the reviews at Amazon, this author has spammed a fair number of people.
Mistake #4: Alienating your potential readers.
For all I know this could be a very good book, but the author has blown it by using the same promotional techniques as people pushing blue pills and gambling sites. Don't let this happen to you!
Tags: Publishing
Filed under: Publishing
Comments are closed
|