As authors and bloggers, we’re sold a bit of a lie, I think. It seems like many authors get the message, “Build up a huge Facebook following and you’ll sell a million books!” or, “Create an active Facebook Page to build up your traffic.” Unfortunately, I have seen this lead to an unacceptable (in my opinion) sense of entitlement by some authors, even anger, towards social media fans.
Recently, an author in my same homesteading vertical released a book, and her frustration at the lack of sales to her Facebook fans came out in a conversation. She shared her frustration, (paraphrasing) “I hate my Facebook fans. I have spent two years coddling these people and building up this page to so many fans. Is it too much to ask that they all go buy my book!?”
Short answer? Yes. It is too much to ask and expect that they all go buy your book. I’m sure your book is great, and you worked really hard, and you know what you’re talking about, but maybe they liked your page and don’t want to buy your book. Maybe they have twenty books about growing tomatoes already and their husband has threatened to divorce them if they buy another. Maybe they liked your page because they aren’t allowed to homestead in their neighborhood. Maybe they are facing a foreclosure right now and literally cannot spare the $14 to pick up your book. Maybe they just liked your page during a giveaway a year ago and couldn’t care less about anything you have to say.
The bottom line is this: Your Facebook fans do not owe you anything. They aren’t there to line your pockets. In fact, they are living human beings who deserve to be treated and thought of as more than a stepping stone on your career path or a dollar to line your pocket.
I get the desire for a book to do well. I get it! Backyard Farming on an Acre (More or Less) was my first print book, and I wanted it to do well, of course. I hoped it would sell well. I knew that the platform I had built up with Untrained Housewife and my social networks would help boost initial sales and reviews. But I never for one second took that for granted.
Not one review. Not one share. Not one post linking to my book. Not one opportunity from a friend’s email introduction. Not one thing my friends and colleagues and readers did to promote my book was something I felt entitled to.
And I know there were people who couldn’t afford to buy the book during this season of life. I encouraged them to ask their local library to stock the book so they could still enjoy my message of empowerment and encouragement for free – and maybe bless others in their community as well. I had something important about food and lifestyle and cruelty and choices to say!
Yes, of course, I was glad to pay off some bills and take my family on vacation and attend a conference for professional development with money from the book. Yes, I worked strategically to promote the book and spread the word and write some magazine articles, etc. But was I entitled to think that all my newsletter subscribers or Facebook fans or Twitter followers would have to buy my book because “I’d invested three years of my life in them”? Never.
I encourage authors and bloggers to flip this around. Those are busy people with busy lives and a lot going on. Yet in their busy-ness, they have invested a week, or a month, or a year, in YOU. In your message. In your social platforms or visiting your blog. The fact that they took ten minutes from their busy schedule to read your post is an honor.
And if – IF – they are able to take $14 and put down on your book? That’s a true blessing and something you should feel humbly grateful for. Not entitled to.
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Bravo Angela! Thank you for putting it out there and right on target too.
I have been getting up the courage to do a blog for some time, although I do a great deal of networking on LinkedIn and Twitter in my fields of interest/work & passion!
I am always grateful to and for the folks who take time to answer my questions on the web. I also hope that the time I spend in answering questions and maybe helping others is also appreciated and when I do get paying gigs out of it… I know I am headed in the right direction.
Happy Holidays to you and your family,
John
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John, that’s certainly been true in my experience. I have plenty of paid gigs and people who see the value in my writing and teaching and that’s always cool to see.
HALLELUIAH! Someone finally has the guts to say it. Of course, it is extremely disappointing when your social media followers do not buy your book, or contribute to your cause, or even console you when you are having a really rough time, but it isn’t something that can be expected. I haven’t bought your book, not because I don’t love you dearly (which you know I do), but because I don’t need a book on homesteading and I don’t know anyone who does. I DID encourage my local library to buy a copy, but I don’t know if they did. If I wrote a book on growing flowers, I wouldn’t expect YOU to buy one, because you already know all about growing flowers. Besides, if I bought every book every one of my writer friends wrote, I would have to have a floor-to-ceiling library the size of the one at Biltmore Estate! This post reminds me of people who do not contribute anything to social media sites, do not get involved, yet get angry when no one follows their links and say social media is useless. People expect too much. If you can’t create/share/give for the joy of it, then you can’t expect people to create/share/give back. <3
Great example, Deborah! Certainly you’ve supported my efforts in other ways other than a direct purchase. Maybe that’s part of what bothered me so about the sentiment- there are many ways to support someone beyond/in addition to spending money.
I’m so very glad that you wrote this. It’s unfortunate but that’s why so many companies join social media. Should social media be a vertical in your marketing arsenal? Yes but you can’t expect or even assume that because you have hundreds of fans that they are all there to buy your products. I think if that’s the only reason that a company, author, business person joins social media – they are doing it for the wrong reasons and have no business being there.
Yes exactly! It is a tool, but sales cannot be your only motivation. I thought the example revealed how sometimes the same action can have very different motivations.
What a great piece! (And I hope that ebook writer friend of yours isn’t mad! ha ha)
You could take Facebook out and replace it with lots of words:
Google Plus
Twitter
Pinterest.
Or even replace Facebook fans with your blog readers or subscribers.
Of course, hitting the like button on your fan page is a very low level of commitment. We are kidding ourselves to think those are our true fans. You know your true fans. They leave comments, interact, and subscribe to your email list. Someone who clicked like may or may not be a fan.
You are spot on. We must earn what we get from our readers not expect it or demand it. They buy our products because they meet THEIR needs, not ours.
It was a print book, not just an ebook, so not a small chunk of change. You’re precisely on track re the level of commitment. Like is much less than newsletter subscription. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship and if you forget that, you’ll either kill your community or be a very frustrated person.
I couldn’t agree more. I would never expect my fans to buy my book and I certainly wouldn’t scold them for it.
I don’t think it was said publicly. But i wonder how long you can feel resentful towards a group of people before it starts to come out.
Thanks for sharing this, Ang. I really irritates me when I hear this kind of talk from authors and bloggers. It is nice when your readers support what you’re doing but we should never feel entitled to that support.
Have a great New Year!
Grateful – always grateful. 🙂 I am so small compared to many amazing writers I look up to – when someone takes the time to read my words and SHARE THEM…well that is always an honor.
I have only been “at” my blog for a little over a year now and while I have “followers” there and a mind boggling (to little old me) number of likes on Facebook….. I never started doing all this to earn a living…. I did it to share, encourage and inspire. I don’t get paid in dollars, I get paid in love. When someone takes the time to comment on a post calling me a “kitchen angel” because I shared how we made our own bacon, I smile and skip for days! LOL If I ever did write a book (slim chance with two little country kids) I would never expect people to buy it. It would be because, well I found time to hide in the bathroom and jot down some comical stories. And if people enjoyed it, like you said, even at a library, I would be tickled. I think the problem is people have stopped being themselves and are trying to hard to “make it.” Folks should do what they do for themselves and if others come along for the adventure, well it just makes it that much more fun.
Mindie, it’s interesting because I actually did start writing online to make money. I needed to make $250 a month to make up the difference between working out of the home and staying home with the kids. But selling someone an article for work done is different than building a relationship-based community and then, after two years of things being one way, suddenly changing the rules and expectations of that relationship.
I totally agree that a sudden change of the rules and expectations, well it is sad to think you are owed something. You started writing to make money (and you did, go you) I write to have sanity LOL Being a stay at home mom can really take a toll on the old brain sometimes 🙂 Would I like a few bucks from blogging, sure, will I demand it of my followers? Never. Not even if I wrote the next great american novel (which I doubt will happen!)
This article is right on…I love it! Thanks for sharing your heart on this issue. Yes, we want to sell our books and we want people to use our services, but building a following on social media is about meeting the needs of others by serving and ministering to them.
This same concept applies to the “entitlement generation.” Many of us have grown up believing life ‘owes’ us something and if we don’t change our thinking, we pass this faulty belief system on to our children.
Hurray for taking a stand and saying what needed to be said.
Susan, Good point re generational culture. I think it’s ok to want to see your hard work pay off – I certainly do. But it cannot be all about the money and be “social” media at the same time. Or you kinda miss the social part of the equation. hehehehehe
Thanks for writing this, Angela – it’s bang on the money and something that more authors need to read and understand. Just because you’ve built a great community does not immediately make them your concubines (for want of a better word).
They may be telling their friends and colleagues about you. They may like you, the person, but not sold on book reading. They may simply be too busy (wow, you mean people outside of your social media community need to raise families and put that money that didn’t go to your book to use).
The sense of entitlement in the SoMe space, especially when it comes to authors, bugs the bejeezus out of me. Thank you for restoring sanity – have a wonderful 2014!
Danny.
Thanks Danny! I would never expect to write a book (or even a blog post) that fits the interest and needs of ALL my readers past and present at the same time. For example – I’ve published dozens of posts since the last time you commented. WHY HAVENT YOU BEEN TO MY BLOG!? *waaaaah*
Just kidding. 😉
It’s great to see your face again. I hope you’ve been well and have exciting things planned for the coming year! I think as more and more businesses and “experts” make Social Media a J-O-B it becomes too easy to analytic-report-strategize the “Social” out of the media. It must always, at it’s core, be social or you’ve missed the point completely.
Appreciate this. Nothing worse then an entitlement attitude. Too many people get mired in the building/writing/manufacturing that they forget the rules of the Field of Dreams Theory.
Now I definitely don’t think you can ONLY build it and drop it and walk away. But if you’re treating your Facebook page as a landing page you’re missing the opportunity to really HEAR what your readers are saying. And that’s just tragic! Thanks for stopping by my blog – it’s great to meet you.
Interesting read. As an author with a huge FB following who – if they ALL bought my book would allow my husband to retire and me to support our family! – I am frustrated at how difficult it has been to convert ‘fans’ or ‘followers’ to buyers. I agree with you in part, but there’s a flip side that we as page owners don’t ‘owe’ anything to our fans either. I have been berated on my page for not responding to a question quickly enough, or posting something someone takes offense to. I receive hundreds of personal email each week asking for (free) advice, yet get backlash when I post the link to buy my book on my page. I think the flip side is that fans seem to expect a constant flow of free information but when asked to open their pocket, they balk.
My way to combat my disappointment in a very low percentage of fb fans’ supporting my book sales is to offer less on FB and instead direct them to my blog to at least get them over there (to boost pages views/ value in a sponsor’s eyes) or (gasp) recommend they buy my book to answer their questions.
I think a good FB page involves give and take and if you’re always giving, then disappointment will set in when fans don’t jump in to line your pockets. By giving less, I hope to encourage fans to give a bit back.
I definitely agree with the strategy of moving the most engaged fans from a platform of distractions like Facebook, to something with better conversions or to your blog where page views/ad traffic is beneficial. I can relate to some of your frustrations but I do take the time to respond to personal emails, if only with a link to a post that answers their questions.
I’ve found most people more than willing to spend money on something that answers a pain point – something that falls within the “trifecta of brilliance” as I call it in my book-topic selection rants.
I commend you for saying this–and I agree with you 100%.
The problem with social media marketing now is, most people who’ve had any experience with social media on the consumer end *know* there’s some sort of sale the author is hoping for, somewhere, sometime. Maybe not in the form of a book they’ve written, but in the form of an affiliate link they use in their post, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I know how hard we work in writing/social media–and it’s not that I won’t make a purchase ever (I’ve bought your 30 days ebook and many other products from bloggers), but my point is, a lot of what I see out there is not genuine. It’s clear they’re only out there for the sale; and those are the ones I run from screaming.
As readers, we’re bombarded with media and sales pitches everywhere we turn; and we cling to those sources that provide the value we’re looking for, whether we’re looking to purchase anything or not.
As writers, we should identify with our fans, and understand where they’re coming from. Without that, sales will never happen.
I think when you have something of good value, and you are able to share that message on a variety of channels, the people who need what you are offering are happy to pay for it. Thank you for buying my ebook! That means a lot to me! I’m getting ready to launch a huge course as an update/expansion of the book to cover more of the modern developments in the self-publishing field. Exciting times we live in, when anyone with a clear message and valuable offering can share it with the world! I’m a simple person with simple encouragement and a small group of people who support me but I serve the work – the message – as best I can.
“As readers, we’re bombarded with media and sales pitches everywhere we turn; and we cling to those sources that provide the value we’re looking for, whether we’re looking to purchase anything or not.” Agree 100%
Thank you so much. You speak the truth here. Whoever chooses to come an read what we have to say, we should be honored to have them.
I have found my life is much less stressful when I adopt a give what I can, where I can mentality.
Great post Angela! I totally agree. I also love that you point out that purchases – even $14 – can be out of someone’s budget. We don’t know what is going on in people’s lives and it is narcissistic of us to want someone to spend money that isn’t on their “needs” list just because we wrote it. If they can afford it, if they need it, if it is meant for them, then they will buy. No hurt taken.
Thanks Janice! Yes it’s so true….obviously I want to help people with something I’ve written. But I am also realistic to know that isn’t always with my book at this time. 🙂