This is my own personal 10 steps on how NOT to get noticed by other writers, agents, various other publishing types, and assorted book junkies. These tips, of course, are in no particular order. Failure to follow any one or more might risk exposing yourself to being (gulp) noticed.
Step 1 – Don’t be funny. Seriously, humor brings smiles, which then bring good feelings. Humor, smiles, and warm fuzzy feelings breed a sense of familiarity. If someone in any way feels that familiarity towards you, you feel like a friend to them and you have been noticed.
Step 2 – Don’t follow blogs and other websites. You never know when the author might peek to see who is following.
Step 3 – Don’t use a memorable picture. We don’t all like the idea of pasting pictures of ourselves online for the whole world to see. Sometimes we’d prefer a photo of something else, like your cat or an apple, or better yet that generic silhouette default picture a few billion other users are using. Best to stick with the generic silhouette, everybody is sick to death of looking at the Grumpy Cat and all those other over-used images. If you use a memorable picture of something interesting, you risk being noticed. Worse, use a good picture of yourself and you might be recognized across more than one social media site. Then you would feel like a real person to others instead one of the multitude of online semi-anonymous acquaintances.
Step 4 – Don’t bop around blogs leaving comments. Sometimes those comments actually get read. You never know when someone might decide to follow the link back to your own blog, and then, you got it, chances are you’ve been noticed, and maybe even a few more followers.
Step 5 – Don’t blog regularly about writing, being a writer, your hobbies and passions, family, cooking recipes, or the thousands on thousands of other things people blog on. A regular blog gets followers.
Step 6 – Multi social media. This is a definite ‘no’. Sharing and posting your own blog posts, links to others’ blog posts and book reviews and reviews on their books, and general sharing across multiple social media sites is a recipe for disaster if you want to stay entirely anonymous.
Step 7 – Don’t follow other writers and publishing world peeps in sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, et al with wild abandon. They have a tendency to follow back and even re-tweet/repost your posts to their own followers if you do the same for them. That will only build your online presence, instead of keeping you in that obscurity it is so easy to hide behind.
Step 9 – Be selfish. Don’t do favors for others without the expectation of a return on your investment of time. Hosting other authors in the forms of interviews, guest blogs, and posting links to reviews on their books or reviewing their books for nothing more than the exchange of a free copy of their book, these are all recipes for disaster when you want no one to notice you. Not only will those people share your posts with their own followers, they might even be grateful, appreciate your kindness, and even return the favor some time.
Step 10 – This one is maybe the most important. Don’t keep writing and writing and writing. The more you write, stories, blogs, and anything else you publish for free download or for sale, the more likely it is that you will develop a fan base.
Now let’s get serious about why you really read this article.
When you feel rejected, dejected, and let down that no one seems to be noticing you … stop it. This isn’t high school; it only feels like it is. Everyone out there is trying so hard to get you and everyone else to notice them, that they might not even see you. Yes Virginia, it is a popularity contest, and the winners are the ones with publishing contracts and large book sale counts.
We all want the same thing, to be writers; and not just that, but to be published writers and have someone love our books. In order for that to happen, you have to be noticed. People have to find your book and actually buy it, read it, and rave to their friends about it. The hard part is getting your book noticed in the sea of books out there.
Don’t let yourself feel down about that when it doesn’t happen. Even some of the most popular authors struggled in the beginning to be discovered by their fans. We are all struggling for the same thing, so you are not alone. Getting discovered has as much to do with luck and it does putting yourself out there and working hard.
And, as a final word, don’t assume that breaking any or all of the rules above will get you noticed. Sometimes you just have to be at the right place at the right time, and sometimes you have to do something very noticeable to get noticed. The World Wide Web is a vast dark and dusty weaving of emptiness filled with the intangible beyond your computer screen. Sometimes, you just can’t get noticed sitting in a room by yourself no matter how hard you wave your arms. And other times, you might hit on that one magic stroke of luck and you are made.
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