One of my blogs is Book Marketing Floozy, a compendium of articles I collected to help authors learn how to market their books. Every time I see good information, I ask the writer for permission to post their article on the blog. (If you’ve written an article about some facet of book marketing, please let me know. I’ll be glad to post it on the site.) The articles all credit the writers and provide whatever links the writers wish. It’s one of my efforts to help promote other authors.
A month ago, a promoter contacted me asking for my help in promotion. This promoter owns a word of mouth marketing company that connects businesses with consumers and consumers with businesses. I thought you might appreciate the irony of our emailed conversation. I’ve deleted names to protect . . . me.
Dec. 27 — Pat, Your website & blog came across my search today — excellent recommendations on here for a niche marketing in the literary world! How long have you been blogging?
I was curious to know if you might be interested in linking to an online degree program. I work in affiliation with (deleted) College and I wanted to make a recommendation to include the (deleted) College Marketing Management degree in your link list.
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Dec. 30 — Dear (Deleted): thank you for your interest in Book Marketing Floozy. I’ve been blogging for three years, and Floozy is just one of the blogs I run (though it isn’t a blog so much as a resource — I post articles sporadically, and most are written by other authors.)
If you’d like to write an article for me to post on the site about some facet of marketing, I’ll be glad to include any links you want. The only condition is that the article has to be informative and helpful — a how-to — rather than simply self-promotion. –Pat
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Jan 5 — Pat, We can certainly provide some content for a post. If that’s the case, ideally would like to provide a link in the post content as well as have a sidebar text link on your homepage or blogroll. Is this possible? Let me know your thoughts. When would this post?
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Jan 5 –Dear (Deleted), I can give you whatever links you want in the content, but I don’t have a blogroll on that site, just a list of my blogs.
If the content is acceptable (helpful rather than self-promoting) I can post it whenever you want me to. –Pat
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(Jan 20) Pat, Apologies for the delay in responding:
Attached is good solid information about the course program we discussed. It’s factual, so hopefully this is acceptable for your blog.
(What she sent was a list of courses along with a list of possible careers.)
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Jan 20 — Dear (Deleted), I’m sorry, I didn’t make myself clear. The article has to be a how-to of some facet of promoting. I will then include links for people to get further information about your program. What you sent me is nothing more than an advertisement. Free promotion for you. Book Marketing Floozy is (at least up front) a compendium of articles to help people learn about promotion. The back end, of course, is promotion for you, but you have to give them something to attract their interest. –Pat
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Jan 21 — Pat, Below is an informational document about a career in Marketing. Let me know your thoughts on this – hopefully this is something you can incorporate into your blog!
(This time she sent an expanded version of the course syllabus, explaining the career paths that will be open to students once they have their degree. A very expensive degree, I might add — tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.)
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Jan 21 — Dear (Deleted), This article is still a promotion for your program. It doesn’t tell the blog readers how to market their books. That is the whole point of Book Marketing Floozy. To tell people how to do some facet of promotion. Once they see the wisdom in your how-to article, they might click on information about your program, but you have to give them something to get something. You of all people should know that.
Please read the articles at book marketing floozy to see what I mean. http://bookmarketingfloozy.wordpress.com. I really would like to help you, but Marketing Floozy is a compendium of how-to articles. –Pat
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Jan 24 — Pat, Thanks for the opportunity of posting on your website. However, the whole point of us placing a link is for some type of promotion. The article was written with the intent of being informational about various marketing careers. We will pass on this opportunity then. Best wishes to you in the new year!
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That was the end of the conversation.
So, there you have it: a marketing company trying to promote a marketing program on Book Marketing Floozy, and the marketer hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. But then, maybe I’m the one who doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
Bertram's Blog 
Feeling Like a Celebrity
September 23, 2013 — Pat BertramHave you ever met one of those lonely old people who are willing to talk to anyone who happens to wander into their life? They don’t care if you had the wrong address and knocked on their door by mistake. They still ask you to come in, stay and chat awhile, have a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade or a plate of homemade cookies.
Even better than having people stop by to read something I wrote is when they leave a comment. Getting comments from strangers makes me feel like a celebrity. A person I had never met read what I wrote, and liked it enough to tell me so. Wow!
In the end isn’t that what we’re all looking for, whether we’re young or old, lonely or befriended? Aren’t we all looking for someone to acknowledge us? Someone to see us as apart from all the other billions of people in the world, even if only for a moment? We writers and bloggers spew out billions, trillions of sentences each day, and every single one of them says the same thing: “Notice ME.”
Well, when someone leaves a comment, it tells me that for a single blip of time, I was noticed.
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.