It was my birthday recently and with that day came a perfect case study on how to not promote a book.

In this post, I am going to break down three things: What the author did wrong, why it was a bad idea, and a few suggested changes that should make for better book promotion. I’ve annotated the screenshot so you can follow

The case study is a comment that looks highly spammy (the first mistake). Here it is with all personally identifying information hidden. Let’s focus on the how and not the who.

I don’t want to direct vigilantism towards the author. So if you figure out who they are, please leave them alone. This is a case study, not a character attack.

The example

Overview of this example

If it looks like spam…

…It probably is spam.

Generally, anything that looks spammy probably is spam. Which is a problem for this approach. Here’s a breakdown of the problem.

This comment is massively larger than the others. This makes it stand out. It’s a dense block of text that is (1) off-topic and (2) all about the person posting the message which is rather inappropriate.

The text itself takes quite a long time to get to the point (see (c)). This is a bad look for an author promoting a book. It suggests that (1) they do not understand social media and (2) they might spend just as long getting to the point in their book – which would be boring to read.

My friends noticed it and all comments were of the form, “who was that hijacking your birthday thread to promote their book?”

Let’s fix it

This text needs to reduce down to about 25 words. In note (c) I give an example of how to reduce the text.

If the book is any good, the offer by itself should be enough. If you have to sell the idea of the book AND your qualifications for writing it, this suggests that the author lacks confidence that the birthday boy (me) or his friends will be interested. Demonstrate confidence in the book with brevity in its mention.

(a) Who am I?

What went wrong?

This first part fails for two reasons.

First, it looks like the author needs to introduce themselves to someone they are supposed to be socially connected with.

Second, it makes it look like the personal message is actually thinly disguised advertising as the author feels they have to introduce themselves to anyone else who might see the happy birthday messages.

After all, who starts a happy birthday message with, “before I retired I was a [job title]. I have written a book called [long old book title that is almost an essay in itself] and spammy spammy spam-de-spam….”?

This serves to make the post look more spammy. Which is only going to make the text less likely to be read by anyone.

Let’s fix it

This is a surplus preamble. Such information should be found on a person’s profile if it matters.

In this case, the author should make sure this information is obvious on their profile and remove it from the message.

(b) The stop reading point

What went wrong?

The problem with this section is that it is already way off-topic and spammy looking. This creates a perfect stop reading point. I think even I was just scanning past this because I missed the offer that followed it too.

Some of this information is stuff that should be commonly known if a social relationship exists. The rest is, again, a preamble that hinders more than helps.

Also, the amount of explaining what the book is about is a red flag. It suggests to me that the title was not sufficiently self-explanatory.

Let’s fix it

If it must be included it should be at the end. More likely than not, this is also information that should be found on the author’s social profile.

I can’t get into redoing the book title without revealing the author and my aim is to share insights not embarrass anyone.

(c) you buried the lead

What went wrong?

This, finally, is the point of the message. It is hidden under the “read more” link which reduces audience exposure.

Always get your main point above the “read more” link. Only a small fraction of people seeing this post will click the “read more” link.

At a guess, I would say at most one of my friends on Facebook chose to read more and even that one I am uncertain about.

After making the offer, the author keeps going and seems to assume disinterest. “Hey, I have a book but you probably don’t want that so there is the summary, ah… Can I interest you in a single page summary?”

Let’s fix it

This can be said with fewer words. “Happy birthday. As a birthday present, I’d like to offer you a free PDF of my book. I can also send you some condensed materials too. Drop me a line at [email address here]. Have a great day.“

If there is more to say, I would add a message like “More information about my book can be found on Amazon [link to book]“. If not Amazon, then (and this might be better) a page on the author’s website summarising the book. This is where all that supplementary information should be to begin with.

Conclusions

Looking spammy – even if making a kind offer – only serves to damage an author’s reputation. Reputation is everything in the world of books. You need to foster a good reputation with your potential readers if you want any chance of converting them into book-buying readers.

Here is a whole article about how to run the worst ever author Twitter account mostly by being spammy.

To be honest, this is not a great promotion technique. It is very easy to write something that looks and smells like spam. It is, however, very hard to write something that promotes a book and offers a free copy.

If you want to offer free copies of your book as gifts, I suggest a private message to which a secret link or PDF attachment can be added.

How would you improve this Facebook comment? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comment section below.