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A Pitfall of Promoting on Social Media

Arranah

Troubadour
I joined a forum with peers that are of my age group. I figured I'd get to know them a little before I published my book and when it was ready, let them know about it. In a political year a lot of unkind words were being exchanged. I made a few "friends" with my posts, found those of like mind and those who were 180 degrees away from me.

The first book I shared with them was a true story and a tragedy - they felt sorry for me, but weren't interested in the book. Next book was light fantasy. Directly after I posted stuff about the fantasy, I started getting positive responses, and some bought it. Then came the b.s.. One of the people on the site whom I had befriended, unbeknownst to me was being attacked by a woman scorned. A romance had developed between my friend and a guy on the site, but this other woman thought the guy was hers. So the scorned woman, who had been banned from the site, was lurking in the back corner. She saw my post, bought my book. I am notified when someone buys it and when someone posts a review. Two minutes after the purchase there was a review saying the book sucked. (This was the second book I sold and I knew who bought the first one.) The banned person posted the review using the username part of my friend's email address - they had been friends. The banned person said she had wasted her money.

Now there's no reason for her to do that, because a person can download 20 percent of the book for free, to see if it's for them. I contacted my friend, learned of the war going on between her and this banned person. My friend told me that this banned person had also trashed the book that my friend's fiance had for sale on Amazon. I posted some of what the banned person said on the forum revealing the username, and then the banned person made further negative comments about my work above her review. In the meantime I received a 5 star review from someone else who purchased my book - yea!

It took me eleven days and four emails exchanges with Support through the publisher to get it straightened out. At my request they refunded the person's money and removed the review. It was resolved finally today. What a pain in the backside. How does a person avoid this kind of hassle and still sell their work through social media?
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
It's tough to be a writer, especially today, when we are responsible for creating some of our own marketing (or all of it). We all make friends and derive a lot of support from communities, but let's just say that not everyone on a public forum is interested in the welfare of others.

I'm really fortunate to have so many friends here, and I've never had a falling-out with anyone, so I would hope that the people interested in my books would do their best to leave honest reviews whether they liked them or not. But, I don't think it's possible to avoid pettiness entirely (I've often worried that people in my personal life, people I maybe wasn't that kind to in the distant past, would trash me in some way). This particular forum is a friendly place, and it's too bad the other forum had some personal issues between members. I'm not sure why the banned user took her frustrations out on you, but it was unfair and childish.

However, with writers, sometimes there is jealousy. I've heard of people who were in critique groups or writing groups, who became jealous and stopped being supportive because someone found success. Anne Lamott talks about this a bit in Bird by Bird.

I'd say move on and keep doing what you're doing. There will be negative reviews, and one would hope they were honest and not posted as retribution of for petty reasons, but odds are, it'll happen anyways. At least you got it taken down before it did any real damage. That's something, and it doesn't always happen.

I think the person who opened my eyes to this was TW Ervin, here on our site. Terry posted a link to his blog, where a book reviewer gave him a bit of tough criticism. When asked why he left the negative review on his personal blog, he said that it was honest and he'd rather have readers know what his book is about and whether it's for them or not, than keep only positive reviews and give a skewed perspective.

While that's not what happened in your case, his words have always stuck with me and given me hope that even if some people hate what I write about, their negative feedback will help steer folks away from books they'll dislike, and bring in folks who will like them.

What this person did to you was mean-spirited and dishonest. However, it sounds like your reaction was appropriate and you got it sorted out. There is no way to completely eliminate negative reviews that are unfair, at least you can limit the damage by being vigilant and aware, as you were.

When dealing with this journey as a writer, there exists a delicate balance between social life and anonymity. I think it's common to make friends and get involved with them personally, and sometimes that can have a negative result. I have several writer friends I call on the phone and talk for hours with, and I have a very supportive husband who never asks questions, but I tell him about my friends, regardless. I don't ever want there to be a question of who I'm chatting with at 1am or who I talk to three times a week, sometimes. It's the same on forums. We develop close relationships with folks and sometimes those people have a hard time maintaining relationships with other writers or forum members, or people in their personal lives. And it can unfortunately come back to bit us on the backside.

I think for me, the absolute bottom line is that I'm myself on this forum, in my personal life, on Facebook and other social media, on youtube, etc. and I never falsely represent myself as anyone other than who I am. To me, that's the best you can do. Be a friend to whomever you want, but remember that whomever you are on a forum, people may judge you, be offended by you, or whatever else, and you can only control yourself, what you say and do, and how you react to it. You cannot control other people's actions or reactions, and sometimes you just have to be the bigger person.

Represent yourself and your work with pride, and don't let the haters get you down. And whatever you do, don't argue with haters (so I've heard) because it just makes you look petty when you respond with excuses publicly to a review that was left. You did the right thing in getting the refund and the review taken down, and hopefully this person will leave it at that.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
I'm sorry this happened to you and am glad it was resolved. You can't avoid it though. People are going to 1 star bomb you and review the heck out of your book regardless of your feelings. That's the way this business is. One easy solution? Don't read your reviews. But if you must, just realize there are a lot of crazies out there who want to make life miserable for others. And as for jealousy, it comes from the closest people around. This is why I keep my writing circle buddies so tiny tiny tiny. Because I don't have time for that shizz.
 

Arranah

Troubadour
Thanks both of you. I've been writing for a long time. Two of my agents died. When the last one died recently I decided to publish my work digitally, and found a way to do that that didn't cost anything. I'm also an artist, so I am designing my own cover art. In this case, my friend who was being trashed had just tried to kill herself. She's a therapist for war vets who have severe PTSD. Her childhood was the most abusive childhood I've ever heard of - sex trafficking instigated by her aunt. She made her way out of it. Was supportive of everyone on the site. Then her fiance nearly died, and that did it. She tried to kill herself. This banned person spred it around on several sites that my friend was faking it. This banned person was trying to take the support out from under my friend. She was trying to turn me against her. Not gonna happen.

If the review had been honest, I would accept it. Not all books are for all people. Then of course as mentioned in another thread on this site, when I opened a FB page about one of my books, the FB page froze up and eventually was disabled. I could get no one to help me with it. Ah, the trials of the writer. Like I said I've been doing this a long time, and sometimes Murphy's Law rules, but I keep on keeping on.

I remember going to a writers conference years back and one of the presenters said, "If you can do anything else, do it. But if you must write...," and then he set out to inspire us.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I wouldn't worry about it. This sort of thing went on prior to social media, but the author rarely knew about it, unless s/he lived in NYC or something, and haunted literary circles. At least now there's a kind of recourse, whereas in the old days there was little you could do about it.
 

Arranah

Troubadour
Thanks, I'm not worried about it. I just don't plan to repeat my mistake. I'll find another way.
 
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