Things Are Not Going Well

This hasn't been a good week. (OMG, I just realized it's only Tuesday!)  

Having exhausted all my other marketing routes, I finally decided to start paying closer attention to my Instagram messages. Really, I've always seen them as a pain in the ass. Someone follows me, so I follow them back (the polite move), but it's really unnecessary for them to establish contact with me. "Okay, hi to you, too, I guess." I mean, really.

Over the weekend, I received a DM from someone who passes himself off as a Booker Prize-winning author, which is irrelevant to me; in fact, I never even read his bio. He asked me friendly questions about what I write, etc,. and commiserated with me over my struggles; just seemed like a regular, friendly guy. Well, wrong. After about five back and forths, he said he never gained any traction until he hired a particular publicist. You see where this is going.

Nevertheless, I thanked him for her contact info and that was that. Suddenly, she popped up in my DM's. (They could be one and the same; probably are.) I ran into the same scheme when I joined LinkedIn ~ a friendly welcome from a "fellow author" who I chatted with, until she, too, referred me to her publicist. People who contact you on social media are not your friends! They're in fact mostly lowlifes who are intent on conning authors out of money. (So weird that "Paul" no longer wants to talk to me, now that I blocked his publicist.) Paul Flanagan, of course, is an actual author who won the Booker Prize. This just didn't happen to be him. (Why don't these authors report those people? I sure would.)

This exchange did no actual harm, except to my delusional "awareness". Maybe I keep hoping that just once I could have an actual conversation with a real person. 

So now I'm back to ignoring DM's on Instagram, just like I do on X.

Of course, prior to that resolve, I got involved with four bookstagrammers. Very little money exchanged hands, so unlike with Redheaded Book Lover, I'm not upset over the money. I still can't figure out, though, why none of the four has yet to purchase my book. Before you assume, I did do my research! Google's AI, in fact, almost glowed with positive recommendations for one of them, and listed the many reasons why. Maybe because I've been burned in the past, I really, really want to see book purchases on my sales report to prove I didn't just fall for another scheme.

But now I'm done. Whether these agreements pan out or not, I just can't do it anymore. I've thought about this a bit, and I think my problem is desperation. I'm not what you would call the most trusting person, ordinarily. I grew up having to be on the lookout for signals, to know whether I needed to engage my fight or flight impulses. So, I'm focused more on what people don't say than what they do; how they act or interact. That's difficult, but not impossible to do online, but I'm grasping at straws trying to get this novel to do anything. Thus, I want to believe; to trust. This needs to stop. The blatant scammers are easy to spot; it's the more sophisticated ones who tend to trip me up.

If I have any advice to give, it would be to ignore all direct messages. Delete them, in fact, unread. If you get a reputation for being a snob, so be it. At least you'd have a reputation. I've at times commented on a post I liked or a book that I admired the cover for, and I found it rude that the poster never acknowledged my comment. Now I know that they're just taking my newfound advice. Maybe I'm a scammer, too, they probably think. "What's her angle?" Sad, really.

Until proven otherwise, I'm chalking up my four "bookstagrammers" as another lost cause. 

I keep saying I won't explore any more options. It would be great if I stuck with that.