Thursdays with Amanda: Overly Aggressive Marketing Syndrome…do you have it?
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Wow, it feels like it’s been forever since I last posted here! As always, we’re going to talk marketing and platform-buidling, but since we haven’t done so in awhile, let’s ease into things with a fun post.
Have you ever thought that you’re doing the marketing thing right only to find out that your sales pitches and strategies are falling on deaf ears?
Have you ever been convinced that so-and-so was CERTAIN to buy your book only to discover that they walked away empty-handed?
Have you ever felt that people are lying to your face, acting interested when you tell them about your book but then completely forgetting it exists when you leave the room?
Have you ever wondered why no one retweets or shares your statuses with others?
If so, you may suffer from Overly Aggressive Marketing Syndrome. Here are its symptoms:
– Conversation domination. Test for this symptom by interacting with a potential reader, and then when finished ask yourself what you know about them. If you come away only knowing their name and where they’re from, chances are, you suffer from this symptom.
– Social media saturation. Test for this by looking at your recent Tweets, personal Facebook status updates, and blog posts. If multiple times per day your updates and Tweets focus on your book and/or career, chances are you’re either in the middle of a book release or you suffer from this symptom.
– Solitary administration. Test for this by looking through your correspondence for times in which fans, bloggers, friends and family have come to you, seeing how they can help. If you have very few instances in recent months in which others have taken the initiative or the lead…heck, if you feel alone in most of your marketing endeavors, you may suffer from this symptom.
– Unbalanced application. Test for this by noting the time you spend with family, the time you spend with yourself, and the time you spend with work/marketing your book. If you’re spending more time on your book than in the other areas of life, chances are you’re either in the middle of a book release, or you suffer from this symptom.
If any of the above symptoms fit you, you may have Overly Aggressive Marketing Syndrome.
If two of the above symptoms fit you, you definitely have Overly Aggressive Marketing Syndrome.
If three or more of the above symptoms fit you, stop. Stop now and seek help. You’re annoying people to death.
How do you treat these symptoms and find a cure for Overly Aggressive Marketing Syndrome? Stay tuned. The doctor will be in next Thursday.
We’ve all known an aggressive marketer or two…so what other symptoms have you noticed that are tied to this disease? I want to know!
15 Comments
Unfortunately for me, I have come across people suffering from this syndrome. Unfortunately for them, I no longer pay any attention to any messages they post to me…even if it would have benefited me in the long run. Life needs to be a happy balance and being overrun by marketing messages throws me out of sync with the world around me so I avoid it at all costs…;~)
Great post!
Donna L Martin
Thankkew, thankyou, thank you, for posting on this! Sigh. I know of one OAMS person who not only does all of the above, but also any interaction always refers to said book/characters, even if you’ve posted about your own dead mother. Sigh! And I got a private note chastising me for not writing more about said OAMS person’s book….I was ready to shut down all of my social media. And for the record, I’m a huge supporter of books, but there is a line to cross with even me. LOL. You are an angel for talking about this and giving practical helps for OAMS. 🙂
Anytime the focus is on me, me, me and not on helping others is a sure sign. Fun meeting you at Write to Publish!
Clever way to expose the underbelly of over marketing! Thanks
Great post!
I’m new to the writing side of books, but as a former English teacher and current librarian, I’m a pro at the reading side.
I’ve unfollowed several authors because every tweet is a promotion. Readers follow authors to get to know them in a different way, so we enjoy personal tweets mixed with info about their next book or the writing process.
I’ll have to keep that in mind as my first book releases.
However, I think I’ll have the opposite problem. When I worked at Bed, Bath, and Beyond in college, my boss said I was a fantastic employee but a horrible saleswoman. I don’t like “selling” stuff, and this marketing stuff has me nervous! I will probably have to make myself tweet links that promote instead of limiting myself. Is there help for us? 🙂
Is there help for you?!
How about this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Extroverted-Writer-Marketing-ebook/dp/B00BT5SW78/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371233246&sr=8-1&keywords=the+extroverted+writer
🙂
Thanks! I just downloaded it to my kindle. 🙂
Love this post!
How about the Tom Sawyer syndrome? That’s when the author tries to convince you that they’re doing you a favor by allowing you to buy their book or tell your friends about their books.
For instance: If you buy my book on how to comfort people dying of cancer, you can give it to the cancer center of your local hospital, You can have the news cameras rolling as you donate the book and you can tell how the book changed your life. If you provide links to “buy now” button for my book, I’ll go a step further and let you then write a guest post on my blog telling about the book you gave away and how the book changed this life. This will give you all kinds of experience in marketing which you will need one day down the line when you publish your own book. Win, win.
Ahahahahaha!
Love! LOL!
Fun post. As with most things in life, balance is the key. Trouble is, we don’t always know we’ve passed the tipping point until things start to slide.
Congrats on your book release!
Honestly, I avoid my Twitter feed. I follow writers and my feed is mainly advertisements for blog posts and books I don’t have time to read. 🙁 ** Over-saturation** is definitely an issue across the board, I’d say, particularly for indie writers.
I myself may suffer from ‘Solitary administration’. As a techie by day, I know how to tackle various challenges, but that doesn’t mean I *should* try to tackle them single-handedly. Improving my delegation and my co-marketing skills are both priorities at the moment.
The trick is to market in such a balanced way that people WANT to help! That way, delegation is easy 🙂
Links. Every other tweet/status/note contains links. More likely than not, to a book written by the same person.
Automated DM’s that, surprise surprise, contain links. Obviously, to a book written by the same user.
Inability to say something good about another author’s book — either silence (preferable) or negative comments (ugh, really now?)
A highly impersonal bio that tells me nothing about the user as a person. Likely loaded with links.
Robot-like correspondence (tweets, emails, fb messages) that will likely contain links as well.
Umm, yeah. I think this condition should be treated (that’s the psychology major in me talking).
Yes! So many good ones here.