Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
It's depressing that the Big Publishers now look at Social Media profiles of possible authors and now expect perfectly proofed MSS and that the author, if given an advance and contract, is expected to be active on Social Media.
Basically it's a LIE. Social Media only works if you are famous, or by luck, or you have cute kittens, or too much spare time. Maybe several of them.
Also if you join a forum or SM etc to ONLY promote your book, you are dead in the water. You have to be helpful, insightful, humorous etc and only mention the book when asked or in passing.
Most of the money the big publishers spend on promotion is wasted. A tiny proportion become mass market. The majority don't even make the advance in royalties (though some of those do make a profit). The big Publishers are letting Amazon and Social Media eat their lunch with poor websites, no POD, poor communication with bookshops (when will it be in print? --Dunno, they never tell us that), daft ebook and audio book pricing. Amazon ALSO dominates ebooks, over 90% world and via Audible has most of the audio book market.
So it's really really hard to write and polish a good book. It's many times harder to promote it. And pimp is the right word for SM.
|
I remember back in the days of dial-up when authors would put themselves out there. They would interact online with fans or potential fans. Because of this, I've read books by authors I've interacted with be it an online chat and/or a message board (precursor to the forum). Now we don't get this as much as we used to.