The Six Reasons Why You Should Not Spam in the Self Publishing World

There is a lot of spamming in self publishing. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t receive an e-mail, a direct message, a tweet, a message on a group or in private message about someone wanting to sell me something. It can be anything from editing services and cover art to their own book. But it is best not to sell in such methods. Here are six reasons why it is a bad idea to spam people about any product in the self publishing world.

1.       It creates negative emotions in most people

Marketing strategies that include spamming are normally only 1% effective. At most spamming is only about 3-4% effective. The rest are either neutral or negative. In a world where negative word of mouth can spread like wildfire it is often best to avoid methods which will garner any kind of negative emotion.

2.       It loses you connections

This is the major one. If you DM me or PM me I am likely to block you. Doing so will lose you any chance of letting me know about your book or services in the future. Losing one customer may not seem bad but remember it is future long term relationships that you want to build. You may lose one sale immediately, but you could have lost dozens of sales from one customer by being pushing.

3.       Publishing isn’t about being pushy

The publishing industry has never been about pushy salesmen. Think about it. Do you walk into a shop and suddenly a group of customer assistants jump on you to buy a book? No normally you left alone to wonder the shelves and choose the book yourself. That is because reading a book is personal it should be totally up to you.

4.       You destroys your creditability

The funniest thing I think I’ve ever had was an e-mail from a person trying to sell me a book on how to make money from selling without spamming. Now if you are spamming me about a book on how not to spam how serious am I going to take it? But if you have to spam to get sales anyway what does it say about your book? Is that it is so bad you have to rely on throwing people at your book and hoping some of them will stick? Creditability is important in publishing – make sure you have it.

5.       You should concentrate more on fans than on sales

A simple line I like to say – a sale is for a day, a fan is for life. Sales are only worth 30-70% of the list price for that one book. A fan is worth a lot more. They will market your book for you, they will buy all your books, they will make you feel successful. Concentrate on getting fans not sales.

6.       There are more cost effective, time efficient methods

Spamming is time consuming. Posting hundreds of e-mails, tweets, direct messages and such is time consuming. You have to identify the targets, write the messages and send. Whereas you could spend the same amount of time writing a good content rich blog post that will encourage people to look at your services.

So here I wish to ask about what you think. What are the best methods of promotion? What do you think of spamming?

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