Q&A: Can authors really build an audience on MySpace?

QUESTION: I'm getting sick and tired of all the junk that I see on MySpace. I'm there to market my book. But it's devolved into a place to say, "happy birthday," "good morning," or "have a great weekend."

Pleeeze! I am very protective of MySpace. My purpose in being there is to exchange information about the written word. And if I get a request to add a friend, I go to that person's profile and check out their friends. If I see a naked body or a person with a limited vocabulary (can't get above 4 letter words), I deny their request.

Authors on MySpace should remember, we need to market to our base -- our particular readers. I try to stay as close to literary work as possible. I don't market to urban lit, chick lit, and don't buy into the fad-du-jour. Yes, I'm a snob, I can't afford trash.

ANSWER: There's no denying it, there's a lot of frivolity on social networks, especially MySpace. Like you, I go through my friend invitations and try to screen out the ones that are clearly inappropriate. It takes time, but considering how many readers MySpace has brought me, it's well worth it.

Plugging your book on social networks is a chore, and no matter how you try to manage it, it's still going to be a chore. For example, after I'd been using MySpace several weeks, I grew tired of the several friend requests I got every day from bands and musicians. These weren't legitimate friend requests in my opinion. There was no interest in my writings on MySpace, these were bulk invites. So I changed my MySpace preferences to block invites from MySpace Music accounts.

But this brought me a new problem. Almost immediately, I got a message from a songwriter/author who was very irritated that I had blocked her invitation. So I changed my preferences back to the default. I didn't want to snub people with MySpace music accounts who were truly interested in my work -- I'm trying to make friends, not enemies.

So I agree, whether you're writing a blog or networking on MySpace, you need to walk a fine line. Inundate your audience with too much fluff, and they will delete you, unsubscribe, stop paying attention.

One big improvement I've noticed recently on MySpace: A dramatic reduction in the amount of spam friend invitations that are advertisements for pornography. These had been getting more prevalent throughout the spring, to the point where I was receiving one or two dozen a day. But thanks to a new option in the in-box allowing members to flag incoming invites as "spam," these porn spammers have been nearly eradicated.

Now, back to our original question of where we draw the lines between purposefulness vs. frivolity, and commercial use versus pure education ... I'm afraid it's simply a matter of taste. Choose your friends wisely. And don't forget to visit my profile here and add me as a friend.

Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors