(cross-posted on FB page and blog)
Heya, everybody,
It's a new beginning for me. I made quite some mistakes on "promoting my books" (a.k.a. spamming the hell out of my FB and Twitter accounts; sorry, guys) over the years.
I took some wrong advice. (It seems most indie authors on the web have done the same--lots of self-promoting social media posts which give nothing to the READER. I am guilty guilty guilty of this myself.)
Well, I'm starting afresh.
The truth is, I don't really "get" Facebook. I don't use it personally. Someone said to me once, "Oh, you HAVE to have a Facebook account if you want to sell books! You MUST!"
(cough)
Dunno. I think my real fans have either signed up for my newsletter or reached out to me by email (my email address is at the back of every one of my books; also in the newsletter itself).
Wow.
What a ride.
Well, I'm going to do things differently from now on.
Basically, I'm NOT going to promote my books anymore. I had a look at my Twitter account this morning and it gave me shudders. I couldn't believe how USELESS every single one of those tweets was.
Utterly...useless to my fans, my Constant Readers, or anyone else for that matter.
I deleted all the old tweets--not because I'm ashamed of them. There was simply nothing to be ashamed of--they were all just hot air crap automated posting from FB, Google, Goodreads...snore snore snore--no use to my followers AT ALL.
I'm starting again. I hope to connect from now on--to connect for real.
Many of you have sent me mails in the past, giving me your views, your opinions, good and bad. I'm old school. I grew up in a time when there was no internet, and then suddenly there was email, and us old-school folk are kind of used to email. All this Social Media stuff is--wow. It's new territory. And I failed at exploring it.
I had a look at my FB page. Oh, holy crap--SHUDDERS.
Self-promoting bullshit.
I'm sorry about this.
I thought I was doing the right thing. And I was also trying to give a nod to the awesome blogs who were promoting my books. I did it by sharing their stuff on my page, and resharing...oh man, it became such a mess. By giving each one of them a nod, I basically glutted my own FB page with self-promoting bullshit when... I think you get the point here.
I did a cover-reveal of
TAKEN last year already. I never released that book. I just... I didn't release it because I knew I was doing something wrong with my fans and I didn't know WHAT.
I think I know it now. I think. I hope.
So, anyway, for those of you who have stuck around, I thank you, and here is my solemn, heartfelt promise to you, made in blood and stone:
I promise I won't shove my books down your throats ever again.
Ever.
Never, ever again.
I have to clean out a lot of the old crap. I'll probably nuke all the old FB posts as well. What's the point of keeping them? They're useful to nobody.
My blog is a MESS. I need to clean it up, make it more useful for FANS. Sure, I'll have my books displayed on here. Sure, I'll send out news of whenever I write a new book, and maybe even do a few small
small posts on release-week--just a few to make sure I reach most of you.
But, really, those of you who like my books would probably find out that I'd written a new one, anyway.
So, the blog will change. I'll let you know what I do with FB. I might just nuke the entire thing.
Factually, I'll probably be hanging out at Twitter more than anything else, just chatting, getting to know people. I'd love it if you connected with me on there. Here's the link:
https://twitter.com/RachelDAuthor
I'll do better this time round.
