My new novel comes out in ten days. How do I promote it without being a jerk? Everything has changed in the marketing world and there is a fine line between agressive self promotion and acting like an ass. If you look at the ultimate tale of internet marketing, look at the story of Tila Tequila.
Remember Myspace? I started blogging on Myspace when Myspace was cool. At one time, I had three or four thousand people a day reading my little musings about law, love and lust. I would get comments from all over the world. Several of my readers also read Tila Tequila's blogs, and somehowMyspaceTom suggested that I add her as a friend. I did.
She blogged everyday with short pithy gramatically incorrect stories of her adventures. Even if you were living in Albuquerque, you got a feel that you were part of the glamorous LA nightclub scene. She then did one of the most brilliant internet marketing moves of all time. My memory is a little rusty, but she told all her followers that you could hang out with her at "It's a Small World after All" in Disneyland. Days later she posted pictures of normal looking guys posing with her chastely in front of the ride. I think that move single handedly pushed her to the next level--from 5,000 friends to over a million in a matter of days. No, I was NOT one of the people who went to Disneyland.
At one time she held the record of having the most internet friends in the world. For Tila, it truly was a small world after all. She had made her fans think that she was truly connected to each and everyone of them.
I moved from Myspace to Facebook, and did not stay connected to her. I do remember that she was pelted with feces at an Insane Clown Posse event, and then it was clear that perhaps she didn't have as many friends as she thought.
On the one hand, I would like to get to the point, where I have millions of followers, and I can post buy my book, and a great percentage of people will buy it. On the other hand, I don't want to end up covered with feces.
As I say, in the next ten days, I will walk that line. Hopefully, it truly is a small world after all.
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