Writing How-To: What NOT to do for promotions.

Today's post is prompted by the fact that on one of the email loops I'm on, a writer has apparently gone on vacation to the South Pacific with her handsome hubby to do book research.

How do I know this?

Because before Clueless Writer left on vacation, she set up an auto-responder to her email account.

Meaning EVERY FRICKING PERSON who posts to the loop now gets an auto-response from her telling us about her.

She is now going to my spam filter.

She's also managed to piss off quite a few writers, because it's a fairly active loop that a lot of us post to on a frequent basis.

I can only imagine how many readers she's currently blissfully unaware she's pissing off on other email loops.

She might need to enter the witness protection program for her pen name when she finally returns.

Rule One: DO NOT USE AN AUTO-RESPONDER! I don't give a crap about your arguments that oh, you use it for work. Whatever. It's one thing if it's for a critical account, like you work software support and have managers and programmers who have to contact you, and you don't have email loops that will be REBROADCASTING the message to members.

The author will be lucky if she can get herself off half the spam lists she's now flagged on.

Rule Two: DO NOT ADD PEOPLE TO FACEBOOK GROUPS WITHOUT ASKING THEM FIRST! No, the invite feature does NOT invite them. It ADDS them. And it royally pisses people off.

Rule Three: DO NOT ADVERTISE YOUR BOOK/WEBSITE/ETC ON SOMEONE'S FACEBOOK WALL WITHOUT PERMISSION. Don't post it as a link in your, "Thanks for the add!" message. Do not private message them the information. Do not post it as a link in someone else's promo thread without asking privately first. DO. NOT. DO. IT. It's the same as if someone came up and plastered bumper stickers all over your car or house without asking you first. Would that piss you off? I know it would piss off a majority of people. Treat virtual real estate just like real real estate.

There are more rules, but those are the three biggies I see right now that hit my mind.

What things, as a reader or a writer, piss you off? Vent your spleen here and let's educate newbie authors so they can quit shooting themselves in the foot. Don't name offenders, please, just spleen vent about the offenses. :)