Can self-promotion go to far?

[Patricia Ryan]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

My point, albeit not eloquently expressed, was that if an author provides a new book for free, either for a time span, but more likely a limited number of downloads, and as a proviso has stated that shis (is that gender neutral enough?) intention is to receive reader input on the material, then I can decide if I want to download it and provide that input, or pass on the offer.
To me it is a little like being a beta tester of new software. You get to test it before anyone else, with warts and all, and hopefully your discoveries will help make it a better product. Hence, I see the author's free download offer as a second draft, on the brink of being publishable, but in dire need of some extra eyes to kill of those last beloved darlings that need to go.

However, if I paid for the pleasure of reading the text, then I totally agree, I have absolutely no other obligation than to myself and my delectable interest in the text. Even to the extent that the book after five pages or so may find itself the dogged victim of the digital dustbin.

I am also someone who gives up on novels that aren't entertaining me rather than finishing them out of some misguided sense of duty or whatever. I know people who always finish a book no matter what, but my time is more precious than that, and there are plenty of great books out there. Don't get me started on my TBR piles, both print and electronic.

Your beta testing idea is actually pretty interesting, but my issue with the concept of offering a free download of a published book in exchange for it is that this kind of thing will only add to the already growing pool of of crappy ebook originals out there. (Before anyone jumps down my throat for this comment, please know that I was the first kid on the block with an e-reader, I've been buying and enjoying ebook originals for a long time, and I may very well publish some of my own if my backlist ebooks continue to sell well. But we all know it's a crap shoot in terms of quality. Of course, it is with traditionally published books as well, but the proportion of drek is lower there.)

Whenever ebooks, free or not, are published without having been thoroughly edited first, it reflects poorly on e-publishing as a whole. We need to be encouraging quality, authorial pride, and a professional approach to self-publishing. Inviting people to publish second drafts isn't the way to do it.

However, it is an interesting concept. Novelists often have beta readers--trusted friends and colleagues or even readers we've come to know and respect--who read our manuscripts before we send them off to the publisher. Writers who are self-publishing ebook originals may not have access to these kinds of people, in which case a beta-reading clearinghouse might serve that function--an online venue where beta readers could be matched up with authors. They get free books and the authors get guaranteed feedback. Kind of like your idea, but without presenting the book as a "published novel."

Pat

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

... as a proviso has stated that shis (is that gender neutral enough?) intention is to receive reader input on the material, ...

Yuck! How about:

... as a proviso has stated that their intention is to receive reader input on the material, ...

The use of "singular their" has a good pedigree - including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen ...

[Patricia Ryan]

Originally Posted by queentess

A thousand times THIS. Take, for instance, my recent experience with a traditionally published author. I'd heard about his work from some other people, so I bought the first in the series and read it. I immediately purchased the other two books in the series and read them right away. After that, I bought two more complete series to give to my brother and my dad, and my brother has since bought a set to give to one of his friends. If you write a book really well, it will spread organically.

That's exactly it! That's the way it works. My own experience with my e-published backlist has been very much the same. I self-published 12 books last month at $2.99 (I was going to make them $1.99, but Kindle's royalty rate jumps from 35% to 70% at $2.99, so...) in large part to grow my audience; the cheaper the books, the more people will buy them. What's been happening is that someone will buy the first book in my mystery series, or the first medieval, then a few days later, they'll buy the other five. I see this time and again (Smashwords makes it easy to track this kind of thing.) Sometimes people will just buy all six at once, I assume after reading an excerpt. My hope is that these new readers will recommend me to other readers, and so on, so that when my new work is published, my reader base will be that much more robust.

I could have priced the books higher, bought advertising (now, that's a waste of money), launched a big, time-consuming promotional campaign... but all of that wouldn't have had nearly the same effect as just making it easy and inexpensive for new readers to discover me.

This is the wave of the near future, BTW, print-published authors e-publishing their backlist. Expect to see lots more soon. Methinks the self-promo threads are going to be pretty busy!

Pat

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Vintage Season

Somewhere along the way, I started doing less talking and more writing... and the more I shut my self-promotional yapper, and simply focused on being a good wordsmith and storyteller, the better that first story did. It was a simple lesson, but a valuable one: word of someone else's mouth works far better than my own, as a promotional tool.

We have to know it's out there, but yeah, once the word is out, it should spread from person to person.

Originally Posted by Patricia Ryan

Whenever ebooks, free or not, are published without having been thoroughly edited first, it reflects poorly on e-publishing as a whole. We need to be encouraging quality, authorial pride, and a professional approach to self-publishing. Inviting people to publish second drafts isn't the way to do it.

[...]Kind of like your idea, but without presenting the book as a "published novel."

Yeah, I can understand why authors need feedback, but that's what family and friends and professional editors are for. I could even see pushing it out there in a New Writer's Forum somewhere (not sure mobileread is the right place for that) and asking for feedback. But to offer it as a free download, it better be VERY CLEARLY labeled as a beta version of the book that you are requesting proofreading help on. Because that's exactly the reason I don't much self-published stuff. I don't want to read someone's rough draft; I want a finished work. And if I like the book and the writing, I'll pass it along to my friends and I'll probably even buy more of your work.

[Patricia Ryan]

Originally Posted by queentess

Yeah, I can understand why authors need feedback, but that's what family and friends and professional editors are for. I could even see pushing it out there in a New Writer's Forum somewhere (not sure mobileread is the right place for that) and asking for feedback. But to offer it as a free download, it better be VERY CLEARLY labeled as a beta version of the book that you are requesting proofreading help on. Because that's exactly the reason I don't much self-published stuff. I don't want to read someone's rough draft; I want a finished work. And if I like the book and the writing, I'll pass it along to my friends and I'll probably even buy more of your work.

Right, whether it's free or $25, a published book is supposed to be finished and ready to go. To "publish" anything less is insulting to the reader, IMO. As a reader, I feel offended when I start a novel and realize there's been no effort made to give the work a final polish.

You reminded me, there are freelance editors, in addition to beta readers, who can be hired to refine a manuscript--but be careful who you hire! Scam artists abound.

Pat

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Yuck! How about:The use of "singular their" has a good pedigree - including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen ...

[Lexi Revellian]

I think if your book is good enough, it's easy to pick up beta readers on sites like Authonomy and YouWriteOn; people who enjoy the extract and want to read the rest. They will contact you, in my experience, and are generally happy to let you know their thoughts about it. Some will even annotate the text and return it.

It's hugely helpful. One reader in Australia noticed two minor plot holes I was able to fix, and earned my undying gratitude.

[GraceKrispy]

I've reviewed (briefly, though honestly) every book I've read from smashwords so far (with a few exceptions- like books I received while free that now have a cost and I didn't "buy" them and therefore cannot review them). Recently, I saw a post that, to me, disparaged a "stingy" reviewer who gave only 4 stars. In looking at that person's review, he had an issue with a part of the book and I can see why there are 4 stars, in his eyes.

That sort of soured me on reviewing what I've read. If it's not honest feedback that authors are looking for, then what's the point?don't beg for reviews if you only want 5 stars. That really turned me off.

[MaggieScratch]

Authors, NEVER complain about bad reviews. That is called the Author's Big Mistake (A.B.M.) for a reason. Just suck it up. It's part of the job; admittedly an unpleasant one, but there you go.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Patricia Ryan

However, it is an interesting concept. Novelists often have beta readers--trusted friends and colleagues or even readers we've come to know and respect--who read our manuscripts before we send them off to the publisher. Writers who are self-publishing ebook originals may not have access to these kinds of people, in which case a beta-reading clearinghouse might serve that function--an online venue where beta readers could be matched up with authors. They get free books and the authors get guaranteed feedback. Kind of like your idea, but without presenting the book as a "published novel."

Pat

Already been done. It's called Authonomy (run by one of the ratbag publishing houses I seem to recall).

As to the OP's assertion, I agree, but I'd go one further and say: ALL PROMOTION GOES TOO FAR. I don't care if the book has rave reviews (I don't read reviews). I couldn't care less if you're having a sale or there's a coupon for money off or Odin himself has branded your work with his seal of approval. All of this is pointless noise, a vuvuzela horn to my senses.

Only a scant year or so ago we had a writers' corner that was for writers and the community, all being equal and involved (and fun times were had by all, or at least a few). Then the spammers came along sniffing money and ruined it with their sales pitches and their dead-eyed self-promotions (now it's little more than another dry technical forum for advice and now and again some obvious blogspam). So to alleviate that problem the spammers were given their own little corner to frolic in and spam to their hearts' content. But no, that's not enough, now we have flashing books as avatars, signatures with horribly designed covers in them and more text than War and Peace.

How about some discretion? How about if you're a writer you add a minimal link to your blog in your signature and no flashing books as an avatar? How about the authors who come here to peddle their wares start treating their art and craft with a little more dignity than those who hock Shamwow's on late-night television?

I know, of course, that this will fall on deaf ears and numb fingers. But what the hell, at least I gave it a shot.

[GA Russell]

I wonder if it is technically possible to have the Authors' Self-Promotions forum not show up when you click on "New Posts".

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I wonder if it is technically possible to have the Authors' Self-Promotions forum not show up when you click on "New Posts".

I believe it is, but members shouldn't have to be blocking every other part of the site to have a fulfilling experience. Seriously, authors should have a little more insight into the nature of other people, seeing as they're calling themselves authors. All they need to do is ask of themselves; would this piss me off if someone else were doing it? Think about it, authors, nobody likes advertising. Nobody likes sales pitches. Nobody likes having someone whine at them or chastise them in a public forum.

Besides all that, I believe author spam here is terrible marketing. The maximum number of people on the site at any one time was 1,500 (of which only a small percentage were actually registered) of a 70+ thousand membership . Discounting all those who come for technical help, those who come for specific help on their product and all the other forums and sub-forums, you're not exactly looking at a large conversion rate for the product you're offering. Even less when threads are bumped and obvious spam is obvious.

And to add to all this, the recent changes and the abundance of 'book spammers' is at least a part of why I no longer post my own work here at MR, or even include a link in my signature. Sometimes we stand on the shoulders of giants, but around here lately, it's more like standing in the shadows of Carnival barkers.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I wonder if it is technically possible to have the Authors' Self-Promotions forum not show up when you click on "New Posts".

Under your User CP, in the section Edit Option (<---linky), down the bottom, is a section called Forum Exclusion. Here you can exclude as many sub-forums as desired from the New Posts drop-down menu results.

Cheers,
Marc

[GA Russell]

Thanks Marc! Done.

[BexBits]

Gee, I like the self-promotion forum--it lets me very efficiently see what is being offered, all in one space that I use at my leisure. I've found some books I really enjoyed by browsing through there.

It's a bit hackneyed but true to say that if you don't want to read those threads, don't. It's not like they sneak up on you and force you to click on them.