Edible Spam

When I was growing up in 1980’s England (yes, I’m showing my age now) Spam was a kind of compressed ham that came out of a tin. It was incredibly cheap and a British staple in our diets. Other kids loved it, my sister included but I didn't. You knew your mum was struggling that week when you peeled open your sandwiches at school and it smiled up at you, complete with jellified goop poorly disguised by a slice or two of cucumber.  My heart sank and it was the one week I didn’t eat my lunch at morning tea.

Just to get this straight, I had
friends who loved this stuff
and still do. 

 

Internet spam has the same effect on me. I post on social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and am a member of online writing and reviewing forums. There is very little more sick-making than the BUY MY BOOK brigade and in the same way that I slapped the bread down over the sandwich so that I couldn’t see it, I exercise my right to press the ‘Delete’ button. I just don’t read them.

 

Now I’ve had discussions with several authors and sales people, who truly believe that it works and that their sales are generated through the 

***FREE***CHEAP***BUY NOW*** 

posts and good on them. If it’s working for you, go for it. But you won’t have quality relationships with readers or other authors and will remain little more than a decorative, automated billboard for your product.

 

Where I was raised in Lincoln, England we had a street market every Saturday. Mum would go down for her fruit and veg because it was cheaper there and it had a good atmosphere. Traders wearing fingerless gloves against the cold would bag up their produce and stow the hard-earned cash in pouches around their waist. The area was a hustle and bustle of noise and chatter and over the top of that would come the sound of shouting.

“Get your lovely fruit and veg here. Carrots a pound for a pound!”

Now that was disconcerting if you happened to be standing right next to them when they yelled it. I am hugely noise intolerant as my four quiet, non-shouty adult children can vouch for. Shouting gets you nowhere with me and the minute the volume goes up, I will either be nowhere to be seen or reacting completely out of character. We did calm talking in our family and if they raised the volume and the stakes, what they got was not worth the effort. I used to think I was weird. I am, but I have encountered many other weirdos like me in my 45 years on earth.

 

In the markets, it was bearable. Mum did the trading and I carried the bags laden with the week’s supplies. It was outside, it was loud but my mother used the voices as a beacon to lead her to the stalls she wanted.

 

When authors screech ***BUY MY BOOK*** online, they are competing in a vast and cacophonous marketplace .

But they are yelling into my face, out of my laptop and in the peace and quiet of my home. 

I hate it.

 

I hate it like the telephone sales people that ring up to sell you a vacuum cleaner just as you’re dishing tea up for children who are gnawing on the table edge.

I hate it like the people in malls, who approach you with outstretched arms, wanting to slap some innocuous cream onto your face without permission in the hope that you’ll buy their vastly overpriced product so that you can finish the rest of your face.

And I hate it like the salesmen who lie about their wonderful electrical product to my face, when they actually don’t know what they’re talking about and it doesn’t do what they say.

 

I got chatting to an author on Twitter once. He asked me what he had to do to get me to buy his book. He seemed successful, spouting figures and stats like a pro and I was just starting out. I bought his book for 99c and told him in a private message. I never heard from him again. He didn’t want a friendship, he wanted the sale and review. It was very short-sighted of him because the book is sitting on my Kindle unread and he never got a review. I frequently consider deleting it even though I paid for it and would never review it even if I did read it.

 

What that tells me about myself is that I read the books by people I like. I make a purchase and pay money because the product is good and I like the look of it, but also because I like you, the author. 

So, author is important.

 

I’ve read all of Demelza Carlton’s books because they are quality products and I like her as a person. She has never yelled at me in capital letters and always responds to my fangirl gushing with good grace and appreciation.

 

I’ve read some awesome novels by authors who don’t shout at me, Terry Maggert, Tom Tinney, Jada Ryker and so many others. They tell me that their books are free or on a deal in a calm, informative way as part of a conversation in an ongoing relationship setting. 

All in lower case.

 

I don’t think I’m unusual anymore. I am beginning to think that I am more like the usual kind of reader, who wants to fangirl a bit, name drop a bit and read lots.

 

When I first started publishing and my book plummeted to the bottom of the 900,000 others on the Amazon database once my mum had bought it and a few loyal friends, I too was consumed with the same panic about marketing my work in order to get sales. It became all about the sales. I quickly worked out on Goodreads, Book Review Depot and other forums that nobody likes a spammer and I watched many authors come and go, shown the door after an automated ***BUY THIS*** appeared momentarily in my news feed. Many sites ban spam in a big way, preferring instead to have meaningful discussions about relevant issues without the popping up of book covers and capital letters on pre-set autobots. The other thing I’ve become more relaxed about is reviews. That doesn’t happen from shouting either, at least not effectively.

 

***REVIEWS NEEDED*** doesn’t work, not with me anyway. I have had some lovely messages in social media from people who will never review anything. That has to be ok. I know they enjoyed my work because they said so. The review is just where they tell everyone else. It’s great when they do but it’s not life threatening when they don’t. If something is around long enough, it will get reviews but it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t have to happen in the first week or even year.

 

In short, if you want to garner a sale or a review from me, talk to me, don’t shout. And in the same way that I balked at the edible spam in my sandwich all those years ago, I will react in the same way today to the internet stuff. Only now I’m an adult and have the option of not starving to death.

 

     I will not eat it and I will not read it.

 

Just so you know, this blog was inspired by the 82 Spam posts on my Twitter feed when I woke up this morning. If that was you, you might find yourself 

                                     ***UNFRIENDED***