Banned by social networking sites everywhere?

The trouble with promoting a book yourself is that you don't really have a budget. Mine's been stretched to the limit with the postcards, promotional copies and press packs I've sent, or am sending, out.

So, there's always the social networking route, right? Potentially millions of people stumbling over your creation... virtual buzz on forums everywhere...

Well, I've tried hard to use social networking as a promotional tool for Drive to Nowhere, and I'm having little joy after receiving warnings lately from various companies!

First there was Bebo, the social networking site that's popular with my demographic -- the 13 to 24s. Bebo has a section called Authors. It allows you to share your works in progress, add fans and create a special page dedicated to your story/novel/poem/whatever.

I spent three hours creating a customised skin for the page, which basically means the page's theme is all Drive To Nowhere-related stuff. I also posted three free chapters of my novel on the page, and on the blog I mentioned that the book was now ready to purchase on Lulu.com (I saw another profile mentioning their Lulu book, too!). I submitted the page for possible inclusion on the Authors homepage.

I told a few people about the site, but only about six people visited it. Next time I tried to visit, the page was broken. Thinking it was a temporary error, I left it for the day but the problem still persisted. I could log in and see my Author profile, but when I clicked through to the page there was an error message.

Frustrated, I emailed Bebo to ask them what was wrong. I later received the response:

You have been reported due to inappropriate content or conduct. We are unable to enter into detailed discussions regarding this, but we do evaluate each case ourselves before sending a conduct warning or cancelling a membership and regret that we have need to resort to this course of action. You were in violation of our Terms of Use, please read the abstract below. You can access our full Terms of Use by clicking on the following link or copy and pasting it into a browser window: http://www.bebo.com/TermsOfUse.jsp.

Excuse me? I was reported? This reminded me of when I was kicked out of the university library in 1996 for 'chatting' online.

I clicked on the Terms of Use link and was still flummoxed. I still am, although I figure they may have considered my measly link to my Lulu shopfront as 'disseminating unsolicited advertising'. I wouldn't think that was grounds for deletion, and even if it was, I would have appreciated being told what I'd done wrong, and given a chance to delete the links. After I'd conducted a social networking investigation on Bebo and other websites in 2006, the amount of stuff I'd seen on Bebo (bullying, porn, spam, drug use etc) was by far greater grounds for deletion than my piddly little website. And when I reported the pages to Bebo back then, it took them a long time to get rid of them. Even the Google Ads at the time were inappropriate. Bebo has stepped up its game since then but had it now become almost too vigilant?

Undeterred, I boycotted Bebo and moved on to Facebook. As I'd joined the London network, I thought I'd take a look at the Marketplace where you could list items for sale. I had a few books in my possession and an Amazon link now, so I could try and sell books direct or send them to my Amazon site where I might make a sale.

I looked at the other advertisements on the Facebook Marketplace. These included get rich quick schemes, 'work from home' modelling solicitations, £5 Nintendo Wiis and other general detritus. Surely my ad about my book was in no way violating their terms of use?

So, I proceeded to list the item. Then yesterday, I get this:

You posted a Marketplace listing that violated our Terms of Use, and this listing has been removed. We do not allow spam, nudity, drug use, attacks on an individual or group, or other obscene content. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your account being disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact us at warning@facebook.com from your login email address. The Facebook Team

Hmm. My book is for teenagers. Spam? No. Nudity? No. Drug use? No. Attacks on others? Er, no. Obscene content? No.

I logged in to Facebook and above the News Feed I was greeted the warning message that repeats the content of the email I received. I'm supposed to tick a box and 'acknowledge' that I have read the information. I refuse to tick and acknowledge this unless I get answers from Facebook about why my posting was deleted when, again, there are all these other spammy posts being chucked on there.

So, each time I log into Facebook, I'm going to see that message. And I'm leaving it there.

Update: 24 hours later, I received a response which said:

Your listing was removed because we do not allow users to advertise services or businesses using the Marketplace feature. If you would like to advertise your business in the future, please consider using our Facebook Ads system. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Hmm. I don't think it was a service or business, but the second part of the paragraph proves what I thought. They just want me to buy their ads.

I'm almost thankful for Murdoch and MySpace. Despite the chaos, the site is so crammed with ads and people promoting themselves, it's almost as if they've given up and let us get on with sorting it out ourselves! Don't get me wrong, if something is genuinely violating the Terms, then I'm all for taking it down -- and quickly -- but I just don't see how my tentative attempts at promoting a self-published novel have been greeted with such dismay. I guess they just want to see the money.

Stranger than fiction

One of the main characters in Drive to Nowhere is Captain Epic Kindred, rock star extraordinaire and father of Eeare Kindred, the feisty teen heroine.

Now, I did start a MySpace page about Eeare and mentioned that she is a fictitious character. But I've since received communication from people who are interested in hearing Captain Epic's music "but the only things I found on Google have been references to the book". My friend Sean who's written a music industry satire called University of Death (the name of the rock band) also has MySpace people contacting him thinking the band is real (he has created a music track for them, so at least there is some kind of plausibility, but still).

All this is highly ironic as there are actual real artists out there who would pay to get complete strangers to listen to their music. But I've got a fictitious character with no back catalogue that people are willing to look up on the internet. How postmodern!

Marketing Drive to Nowhere

Marketing a book when you have just self-published a novel is hard work.

Two weeks ago, I:

• Wrote a press release using PrLeap which was made available on Google News, Moreover and other outlets to help increase search engine traffic and visibility for key word searches.
• Sent out around 25 press packs to UK and Australian magazines, newspapers and booksellers. This included the press release; some included a colour illustration of the main protagonist. I also included a see-through envelope containing a selection of glow-in-the-dark stars. Some lucky (random) people may have also received glow-in-the-dark planets and even an ammonite or piece of obsidian (volcanic glass)!
• Did some social networking - created a MySpace page for Eeare and linked to my press release on Facebook. Actually, Eeare's picture has been subconsciously seen by dozens of journalists all around the country in a screen shot of her MySpace page this week and by about 150,000 other magazine readers - let's hope subliminal 'advertising' does work!
• Sent my book to the British Library's legal deposit office to make it official.
• Sent a few emails to family and friends to encourage them to buy the book.
• Donated a copy of the book to my local library. They might want to sell it off, but so long as someone reads it, I'll be happy.
• Checked how my Distribution went. Now, my books are available on Amazon, Play.com, Lulu.com, The Book Depository and more, with more to come. Images and meta-info now need updating.