How to Write a 'Buy my Book' Post in a Facebook Group

Actual 'buy my book' post.

For many of us who use Facebook groups, forums, Yahoo groups and such, this post title probably makes you cringe. "Someone's encouraging people to post more bookspam in our groups!" you are exclaiming. "Awful! More spammed-to-death groups are sure to result!"

Don't worry, folks. Bookspam in groups is a pet peeve of mine, too. Not to mention a moral issue since our host, Facebook, also sells advertising at quite reasonable rates. Trying to get free advertising in the Facebook groups feels a bit like swiping a candy bar from the mini-mart.

But the one thing that strikes me about most bookspam self-promotion of books in groups and forums is how ineffective they are. If people would only take the time to learn how to be more effective before they post those self-promos, they would have a skill that they could use in more ethical self-promotion.

Here are some of the common flaws in buy-my-book posts:

1. Bare links, with no comment or intro. They are demanding that their potential book-buyer follow the link to discover what the book is about. Fix: always post a tagline--- a one-sentence summary of the book--- along with the link.
2. Abstract tagline. You know, as in 'This book is about the struggle of man vs nature.' What man? What nature? The tagline should read more like this: An accountant wakes up to discover he's been transformed into a cockroach, making it more difficult to get to work on time.'
3. Blatantly ignoring posted rules. If the group that is being exposed to the book promo has a sticky post at the top of the group's page stating no self-promotion allowed, or no off-topic posts, and the buy-my-booker self-promotes anyway, it shows contempt for the group and its members.
4. Promo and run. This is when a person joins the group, posts his promo, and then doesn't participate in the group until he feels it's time for his next promo. Fix: follow the rule of thumb by posting ten comments or posts on stuff that ISN'T related to you or your book before you even mention your book.
5. Miss Speling. If you misspell words in your self-promo, everyone who catches your mistake will presume you are a hopelessly bad amateur writer and warn their friends against buying your book. Fix: Learn. To. Spell. Spellcheck is not enough. If you want to call yourself a writer, you need to at least learn the most basic tools of the craft.
6. The Christian obligation ploy. Found in Christian fiction groups, this is when a writer insists that if group members are REAL Christians, they will show their Christian charity by allowing him to promote his book as often and as clumsily as he wants. Similar guilt trips can be inflicted by Amway or Avon sellers. The extreme is when it is insisted that the group members must show their Christian charity by actually making a purchase. Other groups, both religious and other, may suffer from similar unfair appeals to group loyalty. Fix: Never, ever do this. 
7. The hundred-group campaign. This is when the misguided would-be author joins and promos in a hundred or more different Facebook groups. With such large numbers it is impossible to participate in these groups in any meaningful way. So the buy-my-booker is essentially a stranger to the group who visits only to 'advertise'.
8. The aggressive group member. This is the person who makes a point of saying sarcastic or harsh things to other group members to get noticed. And then posts a book promo. Fix: don't alienate group members and then expect to sell them books.

Of course, all misuse of groups and forums is an amateurish mistake. When you read about using social media to build a writer-platform for yourself, this is NOT what they mean. Social media is useful when you use it to build up relationships with people. And the only was to build up a relationship is to take your focus OFF what the other person can do for you--- buy your book, review your book, promote your book--- and focus on what you can do for the other person.

If you participate in a group or forum, let it be because you are interested in the discussions that the group is about. Participate politely--- treat people as you would if you were there with them in person. In many forums, you can put a signature with your blog's link in it. In Facebook, every post leads to your personal Facebook page. In both of these instances, other group members are able to get more closely connected to you if they want to do so. You don't have to do any buy-my-book stuff that will just offend people.




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How to Support an Author’s New Book: 11 Ideas For You | Writers In The Storm Blog

How to Support an Author’s New Book: 11 Ideas For You | Writers In The Storm Blog

A great blog post by Chuck Sambuchino on how to support an author-friend's new book. Please visit and read the post for some great suggestions.

I have writer-friends now, all with new books to usher into the world. I met them through this blog and through the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour.

I met Amanda Borenstadt when she offered me a review copy of her book, Syzygy. I remember I had low expectations, it being a self-published book, but in the end I was quite impressed. And I made a friend.

I think I first heard of Karina Fabian through Amanda Borenstadt's blog. She, like Amanda, is a Catholic, and so I was pleased to see some Catholics writing SF and Fantasy--- since I already knew a lot of Evangelical Christian SF and Fantasy writers through the blog tour. I read a few of Karina's books, and then with her 'Live and Let Fly' I became a HUGE Karina Fabian fan. You know, like Annie Wilkes in that Stephen King book. ;)

I've since made other writing friends, Tony Breeden, Declan Finn, Kellie Hill, Krisi Kelley, and others. And sometimes I feel a little swamped. Gotta read this, gotta review that, is there something I can do to help so-and-so with the other thing.....

But it's nice to be able to help a writing friend, when you can.

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How Writers and Bloggers Can Use the Rule of 5 To Become Discoverable

How Writers and Bloggers Can Use the Rule of 5 To Become Discoverable

The above post, over at How to Blog a Book, is very inspirational. Do you have a book--- or an author blog--- that seems to be invisible? The Rule of 5 is sound advice to help you make your book and/or blog more visible.

I'm not going to repeat what is found over at How to Blog a Book. I want you to go there and read the original for yourself. Right now.

Yes, right now.




OK, what did you think of the article? How will you use what you learned from it?

The first thing I learned is that I need to 'show up' more often here by writing blog posts. OK, I pretty much already knew that. The chronic writer's block which plagues my fiction writing has also extended into my blogging life--- perhaps because the instant gratification to be had on Facebook makes it all seem to be too much effort. But lately on my 'controversial' Facebook page I've had some lessons on the down-side of that instant gratification--- others can gratify themselves instantly at my expense, as in the left-wing racialist page that not only posted a picture of me and called me ugly, but posted a picture of my sweet little disabled kitten Therese having a bath, and said she was ugly, too. Which was so unfair because she wasn't looking her best scared out of her wits in a plastic tub of water! So I had to work on a blog I have that duplicates the content of my 'controversial' page, where I have more control over the ability of stray commenters to be abusive.

So--- I've got to blog more. The problem is, blog about what?

I once read the blog of a fine Christian gentleman who had written a self-published novel. His blog posted about the various steps on the way to self-publication. And then the book was out, and he had nothing to blog about. I suppose he was too modest a gentleman to put himself forward by blogging about himself.

But as writers, our selves are what we own. Our writing--- good or bad--- is the product of those selves. Sharing about ourselves to some extend is something that builds interest in a writer and his work.

I happen to be a Christian, and so I believe in the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. So the second topic to blog about is others. Sharing the blog posts of others, as I am doing now, helps spread the reach of their blog. And if some of those others are checking their stats regularly and see they are getting new readers coming at them from your blog, they might be grateful.

'Trending topics' is another thing to blog about, but that must be personalized. Most 'hot topics' don't thrill me. Either they are about allegedly famous people I've never heard of, or they are about people doing evil things and make me want to look the other way rather than spread the news. Rather than blog about the top trending item, I will want to blog about something that is a hot topic among people who share my interests and ideals. For example, many people I know and respect are concerned about the rise in hate-crime murders of Christians in Africa and the Middle East, which are not being reported. That might be something to blog about.

One last thought, though. It does little good to 'show up' if you are metaphorically showing up in your pajama top, with unbrushed hair, and no pants. Many young self-published writers write blog posts that are misspelled, ungrammatical, and sometimes verge on being incomprehensible. These young writers send a message with every such post: 'I'm no good at writing.' Work on these basic skills first before starting a blog--- or self-publishing a book.

Nick Thacker's Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan

Kitten Aerobics Instructor

While wandering around the social media sites for no real reason this morning, I came across a marketing plan for the self-published book, which you can find at the link below:

The Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan - LiveHacked

I read through the whole plan, which runs to about 4000 words. It seems like a sound plan, very well organized. I am planning a launch of the ebook edition of Where the Opium Cactus Grows, and it gave me some ideas.

Mind you, launching a poetry ebook isn't quite the same thing, particularly when the real-book form has been on the market, unlaunched and largely unnoticed, for two years. But I think I shall make up a modest marketing plan based on this one.

To find blogs where I might guest post I might start mentioning the possibility on my Sunday poetry posts which are shared on Poetry Pantry. I'm not sure any of those poetry blogs has reach, though. More than just mine alone though.

Another thing I shall do is I intend to make a shorter version of the book--- perhaps call it 'Opium Cactus Greatest Hits Album which shall be made available for free. It will contain the poems from Opium Cactus I've designated as 'shareable'--- the ones on even-numbered pages of my book. I set that policy so I'd have plenty of poems from the book to share, and plenty of poems that the purchaser of the book alone would have access to.

Of course, many enthusiastic would-be indie authors will try the book marketing plan and complain that it doesn't work. Here is why:

1. Spelling errors. Authors who can't be bothered to learn spelling or good English usage will not impress in their social media and blog work. And if they have not paid to have their book corrected before publication, that will scream out 'bad writing!' as well.

2. Clumsy hard-sell book-spam based marketing. Like the sad fellows who join Facebook groups, post a book spam post, and move on to the next group, and then get upset when their post is removed for not following the rules, saying they are so busy with their 'book launch' they can't be bothered to learn the rules of each group they are spamming.

3. Not helping others. You want people to do you a favor and buy your book? What are you willing to do for others? The least you could do is be friendly and interact with them (as best you can, if you have an autism spectrum disorder like Asperger Syndrome).

4. Lousy writing. Nothing will make up for the clumsy, boring, wordy writing of the amateur who hasn't yet seriously studied the craft. The answer: DON'T self-publish until you have a good reason to believe you HAVE learned your craft, at least well enough to start being published. How do you know if you are ready? In my case, it was when my voracious reading gave me the discernment to start noticing really bad books, or bad elements in so-so book, and I was able to transfer this discernment into looking at what I wrote (which some people have a hard time doing.)

What do you think? Have you participated in a book launch--- your own or someone else's? How did that work out?

My Book: Where the Opium Cactus Grows

My Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Bestseller Labs blogs on Hugh Howey's Clever Book Promotion

During my morning check of the blogs I read I came across this at Bestseller Labs.
Hugh Howey's 'DUST': The Cleverest Book Promotion I've Seen In Years | Bestseller Labs

Hugh Howey, one of the most successful of the self-published fiction authors, has done some clever things to promote Dust, the final book in the Wool series.

Clever is good. Too many self-published authors are floundering around trying to figure out how to promote their books. Some, modest, do next to nothing to promote. Others, perhaps following bad book promotion advice, alienate potential readers by book-spamming all over social media--- not because they are egotistical, but because they have been made to believe that 'buy-my-book' spam is the right way to promote books.

The Wool series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which the survivors, fearing radiation, must live in massive shelters, forbidden to go outside. The radiation warning symbol--- the black-and-yellow symbol in the photo above--- is thus a powerful symbol of the series.

Howey created an item to give to those who would spread the word and create book-buzz for him--- a thumb drive with the radiation warning sign, which contained ebook versions of all three of the books in the Wool series. This thumb drive is still available on Howey's web site.

He also has incorporated a version of the three-triangles symbol in his signature. This is an example of 'book branding'--- a concept I admittedly don't fully understand.

I thought the Bestseller Labs article was very helpful, since I am already beginning to think about how I'm going to promote my novel-in-progress when things get so far. I couldn't afford expensive gestures like having a special thumb-drive created, but I could perhaps come up with something symbolic that I could use for 'book branding'.

I encourage you to follow the link above and read the article. What do you think of it? Would the methods Howey uses be effective in awaking your interest in his books? If you are an author, are you considering using ideas inspired by Howey's book promotion for your own work?

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How Holly Lisle gets her Books Reviewed

This is what Holly Lisle does to get some reviews of her books on venues like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

She asks, on her very lively and well-commented blog, for a group of reviewers who will receive a free PDF copy of her book. They read it and, Holly hopes, review it.

They send to Holly a link to the review and she checks it out. If they don't trash the book or indulge in personal vitriol against her, they are eligible for a free PDF copy the next time around.

She's hoping, in this way, to have a stable group of 25 reviewers to help her promote her books.

You can read more at: Nine Reviewer Openings for Warpaint. | Holly Lisle: Official Author Homepage. In fact, I recommend you stay and read a lot of things from Holly's blog, and become a regular reader of it, since Holly good at mentoring beginning writers through the information she provides there.

What is the lesson for the many of you out there who have a book out there--- self-published, traditionally published, small press, Lulu.com--- and need to get the word out?

Gather some reviewers by offering a free PDF copy of your book. I know that with my WP software, Open Office, it's pretty easy to make a PDF file.

Ask your readers, if they can, to post reviews in Amazon.com and like places. Ask them to contact you with the link to where they posted. Those who do can be the start of your own little inner circle of readers/reviewers.

One of my writer friends, Amanda Borenstadt, first contacted me when she found my blog, and she offered to let me have a free e-book copy of her book 'Syzygy' if I would review it. I accepted it, but I dreaded reading it because I was sure that a self-published book would be quite bad.

It turned out to be a great read and one I would recommend to others. And Amanda stayed on to be a regular reader of my blog and my number one commenter here. We've also become friends, which is kind of strange for me, since I have Asperger Syndrome, I don't have much experience with having friends.

Reading about Holly's reviewer-roundup method, it makes me wish I'd done that when my Lulu.com book came out. I may still do that, since I've long wanted to withdraw 'Opium Cactus' because of a few typos in it I didn't catch, and add some new poems, three short stories, and some articles on writing poetry from this blog.

I'm open to suggestions from my blog readers on what all will go in 'Opium Cactus: Bigger, Longer and Uncut' (or whatever I call it), and I'm also looking for a few volunteers who might like a free PDF copy and might be willing to write a review for me.