I'm not really here; I gave myself maternity leave from being an author online for a little while (last night I slept for one whole hour! The joys of parenthood!). But despite the no new content happening on my social media, the army of instagram-based book reviewers knows no rest and I continue to get message requests from people asking me to pay them to promote my book.
This one is especially good. I love how they just throw it in there in the third paragraph. "Interestingly, this is my job and not a casual request".
Not to sound super bitter (again, one hour of sleep), but part of me always wants to answer as if I don't understand the subtext that this is a service I would pay for, like "great I'm so glad you're interested! Go ahead and promote my book!" It makes me appreciate the few people who actually put their prices in the message. At the same time, though, it's just kind of a sad reflection on where we are in the publishing industry. Most publishers don't/can't afford to promote most books, with the big ones being the exception, and even then it's mostly established authors or authors who already have a big following online. So this whole market of promotion has sprung up, because authors are not actually advertisers (see my social media for further evidence). But for some reason, people don't just say that's what's going on, they couch it in flattery/interest that comes off as fake, and it leaves me with the weird feeling that a) I'm being hoodwinked, and b) I am part of the product being sold.
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