I am not a joiner. I’m the girl who always feels like if I try to join people are going to be like, Shut up stupid girl and go sit over there in the dirt.
Ok, so no one has ACTUALLY said something like that. I was once told a a writer event that everyone in the group standing there was invited to dinner but me… yeah, that stung. Of course, 1/2 the group was like, Sorry, we have plans with Caitie.
My point? We all feel that way (probably) when it’s nothing personal… and we’ve all had it be personal at times too.
So, being a joiner can be difficult. The first thing you hear as soon as you indie publish is, “Have you joined….”
I’m working on it. I’m also going digest after the first month to everything.
Here’s the thing though… You can be a joiner and earn sales, or you can be a joiner and completely annihilate any chance of me every buying anything you do up to and including selling me a blood transfusion if I”m dying.
I’ve seen just this week someone arguing with people trying to be kind. The word stupid was used. Someone attacking an entire loop for not tagging her when she’d tagged “everyone” (oddly, the day she said she did it I looked and *my* number didn’t go up, so wow you magically tagged me invisibly. go you.) And someone who guilted a thread into buying her books since she was the one with the least sales….
It may make people jump and do what you want right then, but it’s going to give them a bad taste in their writer’s mouths. No one like someone who is aggressive, rude, pushy or self-centered.
Remember, writers are readers. They buy a lot of books. If your book link is in your signature, you’re marketing.
I have writers who are huge who I don’t buy because they’ve been added to the not-so-elite group of Authors Behaving Badly. In this day and age there’s zero reason to buy a book just to read it. Keep that in mind.
Be a joiner just to join. For the info, the community and the sanity-keeping…. Not for the numbers… And you’ll have a much better time and be more successful.
Speak Your Mind