I’ll be honest. I’m reluctant to spend money on self-published books if the author isn’t a professional writer of some type — say, an employee newsletter writer at a corporation or a magazine article writer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s why: I spend a lot of time participating in online discussions among self-published authors so that I can learn as much as possible about their book marketing challenges and help them solve their problems. I’ve noticed that some people come off as knowledgeable, competent, and just plain smart while some do specific things that make me think, “I won’t buy anything written by that person.” Their online behavior makes me think\u00a0\u00a0that I won’t enjoy reading their books.<\/p>\n

The importance of a writerly social media persona<\/h3>\n

Think about it: I’m getting the information I need to accept or reject books sight unseen from social media personas.<\/p>\n

The rejections come from four author patterns I’ve noticed in social networks. Perhaps these behaviors don’t influence anyone but me — but I doubt it. I can’t be the only reader who wants an author to use their\/they’re\/there correctly on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n

The influencers for me don’t relate to foul language or political preferences (although I will admit to disconnecting from people who make racist statements).\u00a0They’re specific to an author’s ability to craft a book that meets conventional publishing standards.<\/p>\n

Are any of these four behaviors interfering with your self-publishing success?<\/p>\n

1. Arrogance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you act like you know everything there is to know about just about everything, I’m going to think that you haven’t bothered to research your topic or craft. If you’re writing nonfiction based on your own knowledge only, your book won’t be thorough enough for me. If you write fiction, I have the impression that you haven’t taken any courses on novel writing or haven’t been open to feedback on your manuscript. There’s a good chance that your book isn’t as good as it could be (or as good as you think it is).<\/p>\n

2. Consistent typos or spelling mistakes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most people make mistakes now and then and it’s no big deal. But if you’re somebody who consistently writes “your” instead of “you’re” or just plain can’t spell on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or anywhere else, you’re giving me the impression that your book will be riddled with those errors, too.<\/p>\n

This is less of an issue if you have a traditional publisher because that model includes professional editors who catch and eliminate those mistakes. But too many self-published authors skip that professional editing step, so what you see in social networks is also what you get in the finished product.\u00a0I know that some people can overlook these issues in a good story, but I can’t. There are many other books without those problems that will be less frustrating to read.<\/p>\n

3. Jack of All Trades Syndrome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps you truly are gifted, but most great writers are not great cover designers or manuscript editors. Pay for specialized help. If you don’t, your book won’t live up to your own expectations.<\/p>\n

4. No rules at all.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I suppose some people are just too busy to even use the shift key when posting on a social network, let alone try out a few commas or an occasional period. Sentences that have no capital letters at all and no punctuation give me the impression that the poster is either e e cummings or a lazy writer. Lazy writers don’t write good books (and e e cummings is long gone).<\/p>\n

Tips for presenting the most writerly social you<\/h3>\n

You can pay a copy editor to find and correct the misspellings and grammar errors in your book, but what can you do about those problems in social media?<\/span><\/p>\n

First, learn how to spell<\/strong>. This probably sounds petty, but it’s more important than you might think.\u00a0One of the best ways to learn how to spell is by reading articles and books. Not so coincidentally, the people who write those articles and books also read<\/em> a lot of articles and books — because they know that to be a better writer, they have to read a lot. You learn from the work of others. The best writers — and spellers — are typically big readers.<\/p>\n

You can also run everything through your word processing spell checker before posting it.<\/p>\n

Second, <\/span>proofread<\/strong> what you write before hitting the submit button. Honestly, when I forget to do this, I always regret it because I make mistakes when I type too fast. Even worse (quite frankly), sometimes my brain isn’t forming sentences that makes sense to anyone who isn’t in my brain! So I need to fix them. Proofreading gives me the chance to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you re-read your tweet, status update, or discussion comment just once before sharing it, you’ll not only find any mistakes, but you’ll have one more opportunity to ask yourself, “Is this what I really want to say about this topic to these people?”<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to buy your books, but I need you to show me that you’re a good writer before I do that.<\/p>\n

Am I being unfair? Does an author’s social media persona reflect what we’ll find in a self-published book, or not? What do you think?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I’ll be honest. I’m reluctant to spend money on self-published books if the author isn’t a professional writer of some type — say, an employee newsletter writer at a corporation or a magazine article writer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s why: I spend a lot of time participating in online discussions among self-published authors so that I can learn as much as possible about their book marketing challenges and help them solve their problems. I’ve noticed that some people come off as knowledgeable, competent, and just plain smart while some do specific things that make me think, “I won’t buy anything written by that person.” Their online behavior makes me think\u00a0\u00a0that I won’t enjoy reading their books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,157,11],"tags":[403,404],"class_list":["post-5362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stuff-that-annoys-me","category-tactics","tag-self-published","tag-social-media-persona"],"yoast_head":"\n