• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

What's the difference between spam and self promotion?

R

robert eggleton

Member
A writer who is running a contests nominated my novel for entry. We chatted a little by email and she raised the above title that I rephrased into a question. She said that there was a fine line between the two. I've thought about it and have no answer. So, my introduction is to ask you this question.

I'm a psychotherapist in a children's mental health program for poor children. My project (notice that I didn't mention the name of my novel or web site) was created to raise money for the prevention of child abuse. Half of author proceeds are donated to a nonprofit agency (tax receipts avaialable) and the other half goes in a special fund to pay for advertising the sequel. (Also notice that one is never called spam if one pays to advertise.)

Since I'm inexperienced, I followed the then available directions: write, submit to publishers, get profesional reviews, resist self-publishing no matter how long it takes, and try to make friends in cyberspace. I was great at everything except the last part. I was excellent with professional reviews, especially from once famous science fiction authors and even The Missouri Review. I am poor at making friends. Frankly, I don't want to make friends on the internet. That's probably why I'm so bad at it. I feel like I'm pretending to be your friend just so you will buy my book.

So, as an intoduction I'm calling for volunteers. What would make this project work would be a bunch of people who want to help stop child abuse in West Virginia selling my novel. Our child abuse rates come close to third world countries. The version of the novel that was published is adult (I had three versions saved: children's, mature, and adult. I shut my eyes and clicked. So, volunteers should not be children, survivors of abuse that could be triggered by the domestic violence that is in the first chapters (the novel was reviewed as "laugh out loud" in parts, and as "satirical" and funny in another review), but the first part is horror. And, Piers Anthony advised that my novel is "not for the prudish...." This leaves out members of the Christian right as potential volunteers.

Please consider this worthwhile cause as you chat with your friends on this forum and elsewhere. The project is easy to find. Google my name. Thanks.

And, if you find out the answer to the above question, please post it so I can avoid being called the new "n word" for my labors. It's discouraging and I usually come home from work emotionally drained. Being called a bad name just makes me want to quit and take a nap.
 
If you were not associated with this forum, would you answer the question differently. It was originally raised by an influential person in the publishing industry who encouraged me to continue to self promote after I became discouraged by being called a spammer. I still don't know what she meant.
 
Self-promotion = advertising one's own product
Spam = unsolicited advertising

Also, self-promotion on a site would be paid for by the poster (such as posting one's product in a site's banner or in Google Ads).
Spam is posted without compensation to the site's owner.
 
robert eggleton said:
If you were not associated with this forum, would you answer the question differently. It was originally raised by an influential person in the publishing industry who encouraged me to continue to self promote after I became discouraged by being called a spammer. I still don't know what she meant.
Click to expand...

Just because someone's in the publishing industry doesn't necessarily mean they know how to promote something on the internet - see this article for instance. I don't know what your situation is, but if a publisher doesn't have the budget or know-how to promote their books themselves, it's very easy to tell their writers to "do self promoting" on the web and shift the responsibility for that to the writer; but actually doing it, and doing it well, is a lot more complicated. There are university courses in this for a reason.

I'm pretty sure, though, that they'd agree that posting links on a forum that gets a few dozen visitors per week isn't the best way to do it.
 
Thanks for the article. I'll read it more carefully when I'm not so tired from work. Based on my glance-over and sparkchasers' definitions, it seems to all boil down to money.

Each week, a bunch of grocerty store coupons are placed in my mailbox (unsolicited advertising = spam). I don't pay for them., but I appreciate them because I save money by using them at the store (= self-promotion). The big store paid for the advertising (Major Publishers). The canned food would be the same at a big advertiser or a little store with no advertising budget -- the same old brands (well known authors and redundant themes like vapires, Star Wars, etc., or low quality cheaper canned goods like swords and sorcery). The produce may be much better at the little store because it may not be hydroponic and fake (i.e. Kroger tomatoes), but locally grown or more personally selected.

I wouldn't advertise my novel / project if I had the money to do so. Authors seem to be in a bad position right now: submit a fake novel to a slush pile from which it will sink under the weight of other more recently submitted fake novels, or demean themselves by paying to advertise with no guarantee that anybody will pay attention anyway. Maybe the article that you linked me to will help educate me about alternatives to the above.
 
robert eggleton said:
Each week, a bunch of grocerty store coupons are placed in my mailbox (unsolicited advertising = spam). I don't pay for them., but I appreciate them because I save money by using them at the store (= self-promotion). The big store paid for the advertising (Major Publishers). The canned food would be the same at a big advertiser or a little store with no advertising budget -- the same old brands (well known authors and redundant themes like vapires, Star Wars, etc., or low quality cheaper canned goods like swords and sorcery). The produce may be much better at the little store because it may not be hydroponic and fake (i.e. Kroger tomatoes), but locally grown or more personally selected.
Click to expand...

A few points:

1. It's called junk mail for a reason. At my apartment complex, the Hausmeister has placed a trash bin at every building's mailbox for junk mail to go. I'd wager a good 90% of junk mail end up in there.

2. You can't really compare junk mail coupon circulars to someone spam promoting their book because in the second case, there is no savings associated. Granted, a few self-published authors will give away their works for a few days but that's not the norm.

3. Kroger ai5.photobucket.com_albums_y187_sparkchaser1998_smileys_buttrock.gif
 
At the risk of being slammed I would like to state my opinion. First I am a publisher but not in the traditional form. The way of the traditional publishing company has gone the way of the dinosaur. They give you royalties for your book and keep the lions share for themselves. The problem is they only understand the traditional forms of promotion. With the advent of the internet there is a whole new way to promote. Authors on the Amazon Kindle platform are making millions of dollars a year. Self published yes. Rich yes. My Question is do you want to be a popular author or a very rich one. Oh and by the way rich unpopular authors often become very popular.

In an answer to your question about spam and newbie. Each and every site or forum you visit has rules. Many fail to read those rules. If you are doing promotions for a product or service and the forum has rules that forbid that it's spam. If you have a worthy cause you would signup as a member and get permission to post your worthy cause. You may even ask a moderator to do the post for you which takes the big n calling out of the equation.

SPAM is really anything that is sent or posted that is not wanted. You have a very worthy cause Robert and I didn't consider your post to be SPAM to me. Because I understand the cause. Others may not feel the same way. Hope that helps with the question.
 
Free Speech in Cyberspace

I'm glad that you didn't consider my post to be spam. It is unknown how many people who saw the post will decide to check out Rarity from the Hollow, who was interested, or feel glad to have found out about the novel, and feel more worthwhile because they are contributing to a good cause, etc.

I occasionally get praise email about the novel. I'm easy to reach as there is a personal link on my half-baked web site. The only negative comments I've received have come from moderators or members of forums, etc., who hold a common belief that unwanted information should be deleted, sometimes because it is a brief interuption during a mostly social interaction. Two aspects of this situation are very apparent: (1) if I don't tell folks about my project nobody will find out; and, (2) some people don't want to receive information that does not please them. Unfortunately in life, such as an approaching hurricane Sandy, a lot of information in life is unwanted but may be important or even necessary.

There is a much larger issue to consider, however, than my post -- the applicability of free speech rights to interactive web sites and ownership of cyberspace. At this time, I agree with you that as a practical matter it is best to ask permission before posting in my situation, unless a forum has a self promotion thread. Otherwise, on some but not all forums, a post from me might be deleted or I might be banned from future posting. You put down the use of power in the traditional publishing industry, and I agree with you, but the power exercised by some moderators over free speech is unconstitutional in many situations and damages public interests -- the evolution of literature.

In my opinion, if an author owns an interactive forum and I post that I think that his or her novel sucks, it is unconstitutional for that post to be deleted. If an author creates a place in cyberspace to advertise a product and it is not interactive, I have no right to interfere, sabotage, such as sending it a virus, or comment on content. It is not subject to free speech protection because it is not interactive. However, a person cannot actually buy a piece of cyberspace -- they can only buy hardware, software, and pay staff. This limited "ownership" does not rise to a right to infringe on free speech. Sure, the moderator is just doing her or his job, but so is a gang banger, bank robber, drug dealer, or any other illegal professional.

My recommendation until the Supreme Court eventually deals with this issue (not in my life time), is for all interactive forums to have a thread for welcomed or unwelcomed, solicited or ad hoc, positive and negative comments that are reasonably related to the site's broadly defined purpose for existence. If the forum only exists as a place to attract potential customers by offerring free social interaction, it must also accept unpaid advertising because cyberspace cannot be bought and persons, within limits, have a right to free speech. The standard (site rules) for the restriction of free speech must be reasonable and legal, or the site must become noninteractive or close down. There are many restrictions on free speech that are legal, as previously litigated and established, but to mention a new SF/F novel on a reading, writing, entertainment (etc.) forum without permission or paying for advertising simply does not come close to a justification to delete that post or to ban the poster because of 1st Amendment protections. Again, you can buy a server or pay a moderator, but one cannot buy or own cyberspace or restrict free speech within it absent compelling public interests.

There are already a couple of Supreme Court cases that support my opinion on this matter and cited in one of my short stories that was published. I hope that this post survives long enough for you to read it. Please help promote my project. It always looks better if someone other than the author mentions a new novel. Thanks again.
 
Robert, yay for your post! I'm always glad to see a stand for freedom.
May you withstand the Reklamer. :flowers:
 
Hi Robert, I'm not disagreeing with you but would like to give another side. If you go into a town and drive down the road you might come across the local Barnes and Nobel book store. Now you may have written a really great book but if you walk into the book store they won't sell it for you. They own the store and have a right to sell or not sell what the want. It's an ownership thing. Forums are also like a store in that the owner pays rent and they can allow what they want on there site or not.

Now is either side in this instance right. Is the bookstore owner squelching the writers freedom of speech?

Just food for though. I really enjoyed your reply by the way. Oh and to show my support I have a list of 5000 people I will put in a plea message for your cause.
 
barnent1,
That is of course the standard reply, and I'm sure we'll see it soon.
Nevertheless I like Robert's post.
 
Thanks. However, cyberspace is not a piece of real estate like a bookstore (or a farm or a horse). A site owner pays to register a name, only. Registration grants no authority to restrict free speech if the site is interactive.

Using your analogy, I have every right to walk into my bookstore and say to another customer browsing the shelves that I like or dislike this or that author; or, to tell the other cutomer that I wrote a novel named.... The owner of the bookstore has no right to restrict my speech and would not ban me from the store. On the other hand, I do not have a right to cause a commotion, curse loudly, pull the fire alarm, (or to mistreat my own horse) etc. Such behaviors would be outside of free speech protections.
 
About the First Amendment, censorship and your "right to free speech":
You may indeed have a right to free speech. However this forum is privately owned and requires members to abide by our guidelines and by the decisions of our moderators. If you cannot accept these guidelines we encourage you to contact one of the many good web hosting companies out there and exercise that right to your heart's content. Link
Click to expand...
robert eggleton said:
Sure, the moderator is just doing her or his job, but so is a gang banger, bank robber, drug dealer, or any other illegal professional.
Click to expand...
:lol: Hey, wanna buy some "bath salts"?
 
The protection of free speech as afforded to you in the Constitution (America's at least) is a protection from the Government creating laws that would infringe on your right and does not have any say while on personal property, such as this forum or any other forum.

It's as simple as No shirt, No shoes, No service. Our guidelines are just that and not absolute (speaking for this site) and we always leave the final decision on any action taken to remove content on this forum to the moderators.

Just for the record, software such as the forum you are using now is considered property.
 
Speaking of Bath Salts

Did you see McAfee on the news. He said that he had been accused of using bath salts and asked, "why, I (used to) live in a state filled with cocaine...." (or something like that). I don't intend to violate this site's rules or to use bath salts. Just "friendly" but highly significant and relevant conversation as far as I'm concerned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top