I’m writing here today because I’m a little bit frustrated and am getting sick of all the damn robocalls I’m getting calls and emails from people begging me for “exclusive” rights to my books or “marketing” deals to increase my readership.
I’m frustrated on Twitter because of all the so called “authors” who are doing #writerslift stuff and other techniques to give authors a feeling of security or that they are indeed being “heard.”
I’m also here to talk about publishing scams.
Let’s use me for example. I’ve written three books. Not one of them really got the time-of-day. I don’t care. I still think they are good books.
I don’t want some stupid publisher telling me what I can and cannot say in a book, so, I self-publish. If others read my stuff or not, I really don’t care. It would be nice. But I’m not exactly going to automagically make it to the top of some best-sellers list without selling a little bit of my soul.
That being said, I’m still a sucker for attention. Someone emailed me and said, “Hey, I saw your book. I’d like to know more about your background.”
I was like, “Cool, here it is.”
The next day I was featured on some “writing” website. And the next day after that, someone magically got my phone number and gave me a call.
Call me a sucker, but I was actually glad someone gave a shit. They agreed to market me for $5,000. And I was like, no! I’ve already put $3,000 in this one book. I’m not about to throw another $5K on top of that.
They said they could bill it in installments. And I was like, what the hell, I guess what’s another $5K on my credit card. So I paid the first installment and then changed my credit card number in case it was a scam.
And guess what? Sadly, as Internet and marketing savvy as I pretend to be, it was a scam.
They wanted into my Twitter account. Hell no. They wanted into my Facebook account. Again, hell no. If I have something to say, I will say it.
I stopped replying to their emails, and I feel like I added a bunch of 470 area code numbers to my cellphone block list. I hope nobody from Atlanta is trying to legitimately call me.
“But they need to care about the author.” they would tell me.
Fuck that. Twitter is not a popularity contest. And frankly, regarding Facebook, my family “cares” about me and they still have not ready any of my stuff. So there 😛
To end this rant, I suppose I have to just say this. Don’t fall for the bullshit. Don’t let other people tell you what you can and cannot say, or can or cannot publish. And don’t fall for the scams when people actually give you the attention you think you deserve.
Cheers.
