Marketers

A long time ago I friended my first marketer not knowing their entire game. Nowadays I know that the marketer's job starts with complimenting you, on a comment or by invading your dm box, and then friending you, and then peddling their marketing services. It's all part of a process and life is as difficult for them as it is for us.

As I put more ads on the facebook sites around, I got hit by more friend requests and random compliments. Some gushed about my writing but asked me where my books could be found. A little peeved, I'd ask them how they knew I was so great if they couldn't even find my books. More often they'd ask obvious questions, like how many I'd published, but how could it be that they don't know how to find that information if they're a book marketer? All in all I had no reason to trust them and especially no reason to give them my money which is ultimately what they wanted. It is still going on today. I have trouble doing mass ignoring every time I put out an ad.

I am friending each one, though. The first one I friended went through personal trials, which I saw on facebook, then lost her kids and had to move out onto the streets of Detroit. It was, is, scary to follow her & reminds me that these folks are real people who like books, at least for a short period of their lives, and have to make it the same way we do. it's a rough world, least I can do is show some sympathy. Of course I tell them right off the top, I have no money for marketers.

So I've picked up a couple dozen "friends" on both fb and twitter, and some will undoubtedly drop me the minute I tell them I'm not in the market. To some, it's all business. But I figure that since I do my own marketing, I'm in the same business they are and therefore it's good to have a few contacts in their world. They probably would increase my sales if I paid them for it, and I can't claim huge success in that field as it is.

My prayers go out to the 80 or 90% who don't make it, including all the authors who simply have to give up because they need to make a living and can't. I've been there, and now I'm doing Door Dash. And I'm lucky I have a running car, and don't have to sleep in it.