Category Archives: Writing

Warning: This is a Rant.

So, I belong to numerous Yahoo groups that focus on various things. Some of them are just for fun, others I rely on for networking, industry news, and learning. Recently I have discovered that on a couple of them that claim to be for industry professionals, those professionals don’t seem to be able to stay on topic, focus, or acknowledge that someone other than them could know something. There are four in specific that I will not name.

So the first one is a genre group for readers. However, if you are an author and a reader you are not allowed to mention your books or the books of anyone you know personally as it is considered promoting and that is against the rules on the group. Um…WTF? When you go into a readers group and you talk about the books you are reading, you are pretty much promoting that book…just make sure it isn’t anyone you know or you are gonna get yelled at…every time!

The next one is a group for authors to learn about industry news and writing opportunities. However, if you are a publisher, you are not allowed to mention or promote your own company because it is considered biased and is not productive for the other members.

The third group is supposed to be an industry discussion group on a certain aspect of the industry. However, most of the people on this group lurk, another big portion use the group as a place to market their own work, and another large portion only post when they have something to argue about, which seems to be frequently. Now, this is the group I wanted to be most active on because the topic is very important to me. Problem is, my notes only seem to get through every so often. I recently posted something that could have been very helpful to almost everyone in the group at some point, and it managed to incorporate the actual topic that is supposed to be the focus of the group. Why was I censored? I have no idea.

The fourth group, my personal favorite, is a group that focuses on a specific item. However, you can only discuss that item if you don’t mention your direct connection to that item, the connection of anyone you know to that  item, or your actual opinions on that item. This is NOT a moderated group so all the notes go up, but there are people who are moderators who go through and if they think you have stepped over a line they delete the text of your post. I recently had every single thing I posted censored. When I asked why, I was told that it’s because I was blatantly promoting myself. When I explained that I had not written any of the books I had mentioned, I was told that they knew I had published 3 of the 10 books I posted about. Okay…still not my books. I was then told that I had a personal stake in those three books and I was not allowed to post about anything I had a stake in. Huh?

So my question is, why the hell do people start groups where you aren’t allowed to talk about anything that is of any value or relevance to the topic of the group?

That said, I have opened a new forum for authors, publishers, publicists. It is meant to be a place where authors gan go to brainstorm marketing, network, and give and get ideas and help wit marketing books. It is not a readers group, it is not a device group, it is not a genre group. The only rules are that there is no discussion of religion or politics (not the place and it always ends badly) and no flaming of fellow forum members. Simple enough.

If you fit into one of the three categories, feel free to join us. I would love to actually talk about marketing in an open forum. Marketing Masters: http://marketingmasters.proboards.com/index.cgi

How sad is that comment? As an author, I spend a fair amount of time searching the web for places to promote my books. I search and search, and search, and I find some. Lately, I have been finding some very cool and clever sites, but I won’t promote them or use them. Why not you ask?

My honest answer is snobbery–theirs, not mine.

There seems to be a rise in the number of promotional sites that will not promote your books unless you have a certain number of 5 star reviews. Really? Personally, I find this ridiculous, unfair, and discriminatory. It’s like saying that beautiful girls who are overweight cannot enter beauty pageants. What about this do I find so wrong? A few things.

1. If a book has 20 5-star reviews, it is already obviously doing pretty good and people are finding it and liking it. Yea, for them. If a book has no reviews, does that mean it is a bad book? Hell no! It could mean that no matter how many hundreds of FREE books the author sent out for review, the people who promised to post reviews have not bothered to back up their lip service to get the free books. And even the reviewers who said they MIGHT review never bothered (despite the fact that they have reviewed every Patterson, Grisham, blah blah blah books–even the reissues!).

2. By promoting only those books that have those reviews, these sites are taking away much-needed opportunities for possibly wonderful authors. The already known authors get the prime space and the other (not good enough) authors have no place to promote their books so they can become well-known and well-read. Kinda like collecting food and giving it to the millionaires who can afford to buy their own food, instead of feeding the less fortunate.

3. For me, this smacks of discrimination. By saying you are only going to promote the “Good” people, you are alienating the “Not good enough” people and systematically playing a crucial role in crushing their efforts to succeed.

Go get reviews and come back, you say? Where the hell do you propose we get those reviews when reviewers only want to review books by well-known authors and authors whose books they see promoted all over the place who already have good reviews?

Give away more free books so we don’t make enough money to actually offer to pay for the ad spots that we will be rejected for because we haven’t sold enough books to get more reviews?

This is really beginning to piss me off. I get so angry when I am referred to some promo site with high praise, only to discover that  I am not “good enough” to PAY THEM to help me promote my book. Really? Guess what, not only will I NOT promote your site to other readers, but I will whine and complain about your cruel and humiliating rejections and discrimination of me and my wonderfully talented and still un-reviewed fellow authors.

Too bad people have forgotten the golden rule. Some day you may need something from me…how will I react? hmmm