by Anne R. Allen
This week I’ve been hit hard by signs that publishing industry bloggers are disappearing into the Substack world of “become a paid subscriber to continue reading this article.”
But it’s also obvious the publishing world still needs us!
How do I know? This week, I’ve been buried in emails from book marketing people. It’s so overwhelming I sometimes feel I’m the only blogger left standing. Some emails are obvious scams, but others look pretty legit. But there are so many, I feel like I’m under attack.
There apparently aren’t enough bloggers to go around anymore, so those of us who are left are being hit by everything the scammers and marketers have got. Every minute of every hour. Over and over again.
Instead of the usual 10 queries per week from people who want to guest post on this blog on topics they “know your audience will love” like men’s sexual health, pet hygiene, and dating in Mumbai, I’m getting 20+ pitches an hour.
And every publicist in the world seems to think Ruth and I write book reviews and do author interviews. (We don’t.)
Plus the blog spam has quintupled in one week. I used to get a few spam comments a day from tech services and porn sites, but now I get dozens, advertising everything from airport transportation services in Port-au-Prince, to putting a spell on your ex. But most are indecipherable to me (and probably most of you) because they’re written in Cyrillic or Japanese.
The point is I’ve had well over a hundred of these pitches and at least 300 spam comments in the last week. So publishing people apparently still need bloggers. I guess we still must have some power to move things along in the business.
Book Trailer Creators are Multiplying like Bunnies on Crack
Then of course there are the book trailer* people. They are legion. I’ve heard from well over a two hundred in the last week — sometimes 10 an hour. Some want me to advertise their services and give them backlinks and free recommendations.
But mostly they want me to hire them to provide a trailer for my “book” (always assuming I’ve only written one, of course) which they LOVE.
So can’t I just send these solicitors and their bots to spam and hope for the best? Sure. But they follow up 4 hours later — before the spam elves have got the memo — whining about the fact I haven’t responded yet. How dare I eat or sleep or have a family? Don’t I know I’m the source of free labor the book marketing world counts on?
They may mostly be bots, but they’re clever bots that don’t get caught by the spam elves or the blocking algorithms.
This is brute force attacking. It’s like the brute force hacking attempts that have shut down this blog many times in the past few months. It’s enough that I think of giving up the blog and maybe giving up the Internet entirely and moving to a Unabomber cabin somewhere in the deep woods.
*BTW, I know readers are supposed to be influenced by non-verbal advertising on TikTok and Instagram, because readers hate — you know — reading. But how many sales are really generated by book trailers? This is how many books I’ve bought because of a book trailer: ZERO.
Bloggers Make the Book Marketing World Go Round
I think the very first thing they teach in marketing school is that bloggers are like fat bottom girls. We make the world go round. Here are some of the remarkable things marketers seem to believe about bloggers.
Bloggers are a Free Labor Force
Many people in the business believe we are magical minions who will do anything you ask — for absolutely no compensation — as long as you act rude and entitled.
Bloggers will Review Any Book
Some bloggers write book reviews, so marketers in need of reviews send queries to a bunch of random bloggers — not bothering to find out if that blogger reviews romantasy or erotica or whether they write reviews at all. Who cares? The point is to let those bloggers know who’s boss.
Bloggers Love to Promote Your Products and Services
Some bloggers recommend products and services, so marketers of those products and services expect ALL bloggers to recommend their products and services. Out of the goodness of our hearts.
Bloggers’ Guidelines Should be Ignored
Marketers must be taught that they’ll get cooties if they ever read guidelines on a blog. It is up to the unpaid blogger to copy and paste their guidelines into an email so the highly paid marketer doesn’t waste any of their precious time doing homework.
Bloggers are Mind Readers
I put this blog on hiatus for six months last year after I got pushed too far by a marketer who not only refused to send me copy for her guest post on time, but refused to tell me what book she wanted me to spotlight — although I asked several times. Then she had a temper tantrum because I spotlighted the wrong book! How dare I not read her teeny, tiny mind?
Does this Stuff Happen on Substack?
This is why bloggers are disappearing, folks. I don’t know what it’s like on Substack, but I suspect authors aren’t expected to do all this stuff over there. On the other hand, I suppose it’s exciting to know we have so much power that all these people want to get publicity through our blogs.
I’d love to hear from bloggers who are sticking it out. Or the ones who have quit or moved to friendlier waters. Did this kind of stuff happen to you? Do marketers expect you to do their work for them? Did you simply have enough?
Do let me know in the comments.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen and annerallen.bsky.social) July 20, 2025
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I’m still at it over at Writer’s Fun Zone, but mostly others write for it. I’m still having fun so onward and forward.
Beth–Hi there! (waves) I’m glad to know you’re still sharing your great writing advice via blog. I think people need us!
First, thanks for the informative article about your blog and all the people who want to connect with you.
I had no idea all this was happeining. It’s crazy stuff!
I have been reading various blogs about writing and publishing for years. I noticed a gradual decline in the popularity to blogs over the years.
I would imagine there are a number of reasons including search engines such as Google going away from organic seaches to sponsored links appearing instead of anything of value.
Which leads to another reason in the decline of blogs. A number of bloggers were making good money from the affiliate links on their blogs. The income from this has been declining quite dramatically in recent years because the readership of the blogs has been declining.
One of the blogs I used to read regularly was the “Retire by 40” blog by Joe Udo because I have written three books about retirement. Joe does monthly and yearly reviews about his income and his net worth. Joe used to make thousands of dollars a month from affiliate income on his blog. But I noticed that it was declining.
I hadn’t read Joe’s blog for about a year or two. Your blog post inspired me to check his latest blog post where he talks about his June income.
https://retireby40.org/june-2025-fire-update/
WOW: Even I am surprised: This is what he said:
“Online income: $177. Blogging income is approaching zero quickly. Maybe it’s time to move on to something else.”
I would suspect that this happened with a number of the blogs about writing and publishing.
In short, as Bob Dylan sang in his 1964 song:
“The Times They Are A-Changin’ “
Ernie–I always recommend that authors use non-monetized blogs to reach readers. I figure we want readers to buy our books, not pay for our blogs. But I think you’re right that the decline of monetized business blogging has also caused decline in author blogging. Those are pretty solid statistics showing the decline in monetized blogging. That may be why so many people are now turning to non-monetized author blogs to advertise their products and services. What they don’t realize is that authors who are not getting any money out of the deal don’t like to be bossed around.
So, is this a WordPress blog? Is there another way to blog? Sorry I am so ignorant.
Julia–Yes. This is a WordPress blog. WP is the most popular blogging platform. Good old Blogger (blogspot.com) is still going strong, although its parent, Google doesn’t support it any more. Wix is another free blogging platform I can recommend. Tumblr has had something of a renaissance in recent years.
I’m still blogging, and haven’t been subject to these ’email bombs’. I think I would definitely give up if I were receiving as many as you are.
V.M. I’m glad to hear you’re still keeping up your blog, and you haven’t been targeted. The non-stop email demands have been pretty unpleasant for the past few weeks, especially since I had family visiting and had no time to send all those people to spam. But they’re mostly going to spam now. I’m hoping they’ll give up and move on.
You get hit with a lot of email crap!
Substack just isn’t as friendly. I have several blogger friends who are there now but it’s not as user-friendly.
I do like to promote books by my author friends. Not a friend with a new book? Hit the road, Bucky!
Alex–Thanks for putting it so well: Substack doesn’t feel friendly. I always feel like the pitiable poor relation who can’t afford a subscription. If you have the Substack to promote your books, I think it’s a bad idea to charge for it. I know it’s possible to have a non-monetized Substack, but the company keeps up the pressure to pay to subscribe.
Ugh, the email crap is absurd. If it isn’t the fake United Nations offering me $$$ it’s a bot wanting to fix my website/Instagram/book sales/dating life! I had to turn off comments on my site after being hit by a spambot. It was a tech nightmare to clean up and I don’t even earn from the blog; it’s just for book news and such.
Bloggers are finding that free platforms like Substack and Medium, where you can blog but don’t have to charge readers, are safer harbors–someone else deals with hackers, spam comments, and the cost of maintaining the website. Eventually, the sheer volume of non-human created content and bad actors will funnel us onto group platforms where human-produced content will prevail. Different hosting situation, same challenge of visibility.
Carmen–I think author blogs should be like yours: a place to communicate with readers of your books. If you start monetizing with ads, the ads tend to drive readers away and often the advertisers think they’re the boss. Spambots are such a menace! I’ve never had to close down the blog, because my spam elves are very efficient, but it’s shocking to find 100 new pieces of spam in a day. There are still lots of ways to blog for free on WP, Tumblr, Wix and Blogger. But I think Medium is all behind a paywall now. You used to be able to designate a Medium piece as free, but I’m not sure you can anymore. At least I haven’t found any free Medium pieces for a long time, so I unsubscribed. With Substack, you can have a free newsletter, but I understand there’s pressure to monetize. But having somebody else deal with hackers, spammers, and scammers is very appealing.
Ever since WordPress stopped automatically sending new blog posts to my subscribers, traffic is zip squat. Guess I’m lucky spammers and bots haven’t found me. Of course, no one else has either!
Substack kind of intrigues me b/c it’s more long-form journalism than the flash-then-vanish of social media. However, I’m only a Substack reader at this point, not a contributor. One of these days I have to set up an account and get it moving.
Anne and Ruth, if you do decide to give up blogging, please keep us posted where you go next. I’ll follow you anywhere!
Debbie–Yeah. What’s up with WP and subscribers? I had to switch to MailChimp to send out notices to subscribers some time ago. But the old WP send was better. They sent the whole post, in a nice, readable format. I still get it, but most people don’t.
If I do move us to Substack, I promise I’ll do it with some fanfare, and I believe they allow you to move your subscriber list. Thanks for the encouraging words!
Medium does charge to read I believe. I knew of a blogger who moved over to Medium around the time of the pandemic once he released a new book Medium allows five free articles before you have to pay for a subscription to continue reading.
G.B. I think you’re right. An author used to be able to designate a Medium post as free or not. Now we don’t have that option. Everything is “subscribe to continue reading this article.” I found it so annoying I unsubscribed.
Been blogging at the same place since 2021 and I haven’t had the problems you’ve had, but then, the most I’ve had published are a few short stories. At my previous blog spam was a problem, but not at the levels you’re describing.
Rich–I’m glad to hear not all bloggers are under attack the way I am. It may have to do with our blog traffic history. I’m obviously on some list of high-traffic blogs, so everybody wants to be seen here.
Hi Anne,
Here’s another reason I should celebrate that my blog (of over 10 years now) hasn’t caught on all that much (especially when compared to yours). I’m still posting every Thursday (as you know), but I fly under the radar enough that nobody’s bugging me about doing things for them. Ah, the luxuries of being small potatoes.
CS–I think a good, solid blog like yours that is helpful and projects your writer personality is a great way for an author to keep a web presence. As long as the bots and whiners don’t find you, you’re fine.
I still blog and publish on Sundays. I also belong to a group of bloggers..we are still out there and good strong.
Beth–You have a good, solid blog like CS. It shows your personality and showcases your ideas. You don’t want it to get too big, or it will attract all the vermin. Just keep doing what you’re doing. I love your blog!
Those book trailer people are so obnoxious. And I agree with all your reasons why bloggers are helpful and necessary, and even though I’ve chosen Substack and allow paid options for a small handful who want to support, I treat it basically as a blog and all my content is free.
Sarah–Thanks for your helpful guest post about Substack. I linked to it here. I’m still contemplating the move, and your post helps.
I still publish a monthly blog post to highlight an author’s (other than my) work. I have noticed the site visits have diminished over time, but I intend to keep doing the same thing. I have a substack account, but haven’t done anything with it.
I’m getting some spam from marketers who want to sell my books, but not nearly as much as you’re dealing with. I love the ones who want to create a fabulous trailer for my “book” that they find fascinating. I’m tempted to ask which book they like so much, but I don’t want to get into a back-and-forth with a bot.
I agree with Debbie. If you decide to move to another platform, please let us know!
Kay–I think it’s wonderful you still use your blog to promote other writers! Aren’t the book trailer people hilarious? Like the marketing people who are going to make you a star by Tweeting your book title to their army of bots. They always assume you’ve only written one book. Bestseller Catherine Ryan Hyde, who has written 45 books, got an offer like that a few years ago. It wasn’t even for Pay it Forward, her most famous book. It was for a collection of short stories from the 1990s. They assumed she hadn’t written anything since. I wonder if they contact Stephen King and offer to promote Carrie?
Hi Anne – I’m still blogging at Sleuthsayers (and copying some of those over to my own website). BUT – I’ve cut off comments on my own site. Like you, I’ve been inundated in the last six months. I guess 15 years of blogging might attract attention we don’t want, sigh.
Melodie–Aha! You’re a bestseller with a pretty high profile. And you’ve had to cut off comments. I think you’re not alone in that. But your group blog is still going strong. I wonder if they leave the group blogs alone?
It sounds like your inbox is like mine… but on steroids. That said, you’ve been blogging and publishing for longer than I have. Though my 12 years of blogging has managed to garnish some inventive scams.
As for myself, I’ve elected to continue blogging to my own site because of the SEO factor. Let’s ignore the fact that I’ve been blogging since 2013 and have amassed a massive collection of evergreen content. I’m not convinced that “blogging” by way of Substack will generate the site traffic that blogging on my own site will. And I also feel that the posts on Substack are growing a specific expectation that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to meet. (I’ve always been one to follow my own rules and my own instincts, finding that my instincts were right all along.)
I have looked into Substack, but there is something about the environment that doesn’t sit right with me. I can’t explain it. And I’ve recently encountered a writer who has decided that using Substack for her newsletter was not such a good idea after all.
As for the scams… Well, you don’t need to be blogging to get those. You just need to have a name that some bot somewhere recognizes and need to be writing and publishing. They then assume that you’re a sucker and will fall for whatever scam comes your way. And I laugh at every pathetic attempt.
I’m not looking forward to the day when my emails accumulates 100+ a day, but I know it is likely coming. As my name gains more and more recognition, there will be more and more scammers out there. (And I 100% agree about the book trailer infestation. If I wanted a book trailer, I would seek out a consultant, and it certainly wouldn’t be anyone who is sending me emails using a gmail.)
Judy–Thanks. You’ve brought up some important points. One big factor is certainly SEO. I’ve got awards for my SEO advice, and I think I’ve been pretty savvy about getting traffic through Google. But AI is changing everything, and we’re not getting the traffic we used to with SEO. Still, I’ll bet the reason I’m on the radar of so many scammers and spammers is the high profile SEO. And time is probably a factor too, as you say. If you’ve been blogging a long time, you’re going to have name recognition with readers, but also scammers.
You’re not alone in your feelings about Substack. I’ve heard the same from several people. It’s interesting that your friend decided to give up a Substack newsletter. And I’ve always worried about the traffic factor. If SEO doesn’t work on Substack, how do we get new readers? Isn’t that the whole point?
As far as book trailers–yeah. Why would you hire somebody who approaches you out of the blue? They’d probably take the money and run. Hiring somebody with a good track record–that you find after doing some research–is the only way to go with any marketing help.
I’ve seen a significant uptick in spammers recently. Demanding multiple times that I confirm that I received the spam I deleted and respond to it is getting really annoying. The new bot wrinkle seems to be bots that are written by AI from scraped internet content about one of my books. They sound personal and very convincing, but when I search for them online there is no such person or site.
Liz–I guess the spammers have really upped their game. And I agree the most annoying thing they do is complain that you haven’t responded to the piece of crap you sent to spam. But I hadn’t put it together that the increase is due to AI. But I think you’re right! It makes those things sound so much more convincing that you spend a little longer deciding whether to send them to spam, unsubscribe, or block them permanently. (Blocking is the only thing that works for me.)
I didn’t know there was a problem with WP getting posts emailed to subscribers! Every time I post it says it’s sending it to my 11.4K subscribers (who knows how many are bots!) So I didn’t think I needed another newsletter service like MailChimp. I started my blog in 2012 because everyone said I needed a platform if I wanted to publish novels. But it’s taken me this long (after going through the traditional route with a top-tier agent but not offer) to decide to go Indie and just get the book out there. It’s up for pre-order now and will be published in September, so now I’m trying to find ways to promote my novel to my subscribers without sounding like I’m marketing, and keeping up the other kinds of posts that brought readers to me who’ve stayed the course. Still I have seen a downturn in engagement on my blog over the past year or so. Not sure why. Is it b/c my subscribers aren’t getting my emails???
What I really came here to tell you was about my experience on Substack. I’ve been there 2-3 years now and traction has been slow, only 200 subscribers, all but two are free. Which I don’t mind. I agree with you about keeping my blog free and hoping to sell books instead. There are a lot of people on SS who like me aren’t trying to monetize. But the number of stacks I’ve subscribed to who put their best stuff behind paywalls is growing, and I’m finding that annoying and dropping them. I can understand them wanting to make money as writers, but I can’t afford to pay for every essay I want to read! So thank you for keeping your blog here a free resource for all these years.
Deborah–Don’t worry if you’re still getting subscribers via WP. My problems showed up about 5 years ago, and my then-webmaster moved me to MailChimp. But MailChimp isn’t all that reliable either, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 🙂 The downturn in blog engagement is happening to all of us. It’s mostly fashion. Blogs aren’t a new, shiny thing anymore.
Congrats on publishing your book! I wish you a big, successful launch. If you can reach new people with Substack, it’s worth it. That’s what we all want. But I share your annoyance at all the paywalls. 🙁
I’ve moved my site posts to Substack, and I like it. It’s very clean and visual, which is important to me as a writer/designer. Although my blog/site posts are infrequent, I also do a weekly newsletter for local swimmers, and it’s very efficient doing it through Substack. It’s true that they pressure you to monetize, but I ignore them. The way Medium has moved in that direction is irksome.
Harald–If you’re able to ignore the pressure to monetize, it sounds as if Substack can be a good choice, especially if you already have an established mailing list.
I hope blogging survivies. I keep thinking about moving to Substack. It’s so exhausting to try and keep up. Twitter was great until it wasn’t. Facebook was the place to promote until it wasn’t. Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky.
The number of spams I get seem to come in waves. A lot and then a little and then a lot.
I’ll follow you too.
Susan–I agree 100%! It’s all so exhausting. I think some tech people just spend all day thinking of ways to annoy their established customers. Maybe they think they work too hard so they need to get rid of us? 🙂 Thanks. It’s good to know people like you would follow us.
I’m still here on Tuesdays. I’m finding less traffic out there. I didn’t know WP stopped sending the emails out. I’m trying to figure where to start a newsletter service. I don’t want to go Substack’s way but not sure if WP will grow my subscriber’s list at this point. Was hoping that’d last. But it’s like what’s been said, just when you figure one thing out: another comes along and you have to adjust.
Traci–I don’t know that WP has stopped sending all emails. They just stopped sending ours. Maybe we went over the subscriber limit or something. And that was years ago. WP can have glitches that only apply to one blog or one theme. Ask your peeps if they’re getting notices before you do anything drastic. Growing your list is tough on any platform. Because Substack is only available to members, blogs are likely to get more random visitors. But with AI, we’re not getting the Google love we used to have.
I’m still blogging, once a week, on a Monday, because (a) I enjoy blogging (b) I like sharing what I’ve learned about the indie author world with people new to the fold, so repaying all those who helped me when I was brand new to the business (c) it helps me organise my own thoughts on topics (d) it keeps up my writing habit, even when time isn’t available for my fiction writing (e) it keeps me connected to online friends I’ve made over my 12 years of blogging, and helps me to make new ones (f) it keeps me on the outlook for new wrinkles in the publishing world, be that changes at Amazon, or the latest scams (touchy subject for my blog!)
I don’t foresee giving it up any time soon – its the hub of my author business, and my stats haven’t changed much, new subscribers included.
I am getting tons of emails (5-10 a day) from book marketers, I’ve just got used to scanning and deleting, annoying waste of time though it is, though not so many about the blog. Hoping not to have to deal with that one as well!
Deborah–I’m glad your blog is still going strong, and you list some very good reasons to keep on blogging. Especially making new friends. Blogs are free and available to anybody, so new people show up all the time. It’s one of my top reasons for sticking it out. I know you’ve had to deal with legal threats from scammers you’ve exposed. I hope they’ll leave you alone now. What prompted this post was that the book marketers, random guest post queries, and spam has reached critical mass. But now I’m teaching the spam elves to send most of them to spam, things are starting to calm down. I still get a few “explain why you haven’t responded to my scam email” every hour or so, but I think I’ve blocked the worst offenders.
I’ve been blogging for nearly 12 years and have only ever used WordPress for my blog. They’ve made some significant updates recently, allowing users to switch on certain settings to avoid seeing the majority of spam comments. Where I used to see hundreds of spam comments a day, I now see only around five a week.
However, being contacted by spammers and bots who claim they’ve been reading my blog for years, love what I write, and would like to guest post remains a persistent issue. I had one last week which I almost fell for. I changed my ‘Contact Hugh’ form to say that anyone contacting me must begin their message with ‘Dear Hugh.’ Sure enough, somebody did just that. But it was only when I sent a reply asking that they write a post that would interest my audience that I knew it was a bot I was dealing with when their reply was ‘you are asking too much money to guest post on your blog. Can we negotiate?’ The responses were almost immediate after I emailed them back, and I had mentioned in my previous emails that I do not charge for guest posting.
I should add that I’m not a book blogger. In the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve written about four book reviews. So maybe I don’t get the spam emails that you get, Anne?
Hugh–I need to repeat what I said in this piece: This blog NEVER publishes book reviews. I’m in awe of book reviewers, but I’m not one of them. That’s a whole different kind of blog. In 15 years, we’ve never reviewed a book on this blog, but just this morning, I got three requests to review books–all by men. Ruth and I write women’s fiction and cozy mysteries. How we get on these lists is a major mystery. Your interchange with the “guest post” bot is so typical. “You charge too much” when you don’t charge at all. AI may be magic and all that, but robots are really stupid.
Oof, that’s a lot of spam to deal with. My blog hasn’t been hit by the same numbers, but even the few I get drive me nuts. The numbers of misguided requests from real people have gone down since I’ve become much more “in your face” about where my pitch request guidelines are, but my blog somehow made it on to some spam directory years ago as a “lifestyle blog”, I think, and I often get requests that are out to lunch. I just delete those, and if they follow up, I block them. I do have a quick email template set up in Gmail for people who seem like real people but who just didn’t do their homework, pointing them toward my pitch guidelines. That way, I feel less guilty about deleting and only use a few clicks to politely let them know they were wasting both our time. Hopefully, they learn a lesson about doing their homework too.
I don’t think there’s a simple solution, and if I ever get bombed the way you are, I’ll definitely need to take more action to protect my sanity. Perhaps set up filters to send certain common phrases in the bot emails right to trash or something. They may think they’re entitled to our time and attention… But they’re wrong.
Talena–I wish I knew more about those spam directories. When your blog gets listed on them, you get walloped. For a while I think this blog must have been listed as a “real estate blog,” and I got dozens of requests a week from real estate people wanting to guest blog about how to stage a house and how to sell a “haunted” property, etc. I still get an occasional one, but now I also get lots of “wellness” people and “skin care product” offers. They always “love your blog” and claim to read it regularly. Sigh.
I’ve been blogging on writing and self-publishing for over ten years. I tried Substack for a short time, but wasn’t impressed. Now I post my blog to both my WP website and Medium (behind a paywall, but I always put in a link to the free version).
I hadn’t realized that my subscribers weren’t getting it in their inbox. I wonder if I should/could email them and see if they’re getting it and if they still want to.
Merry–Unless you hear from your people that they’re not getting notices, don’t worry about it. I heard from lots of people when the notices stopped going out. They weren’t happy. And that was five years ago. Probably something glitchy on this particular blog. I used to put my posts on Medium occasionally, but I had people complain about the paywall. Usually if there’s a problem people are pretty vocal about it. Sounds like you’ve got a great author blog.
Ah, yes. They totally love it… but you can see in your analytics that they’ve never been there before they hit up your contact page, lol. Yeah, I wish I knew how to get delisted on those directories, too. Sigh in return.
Great post, Anne, and I’m shocked that you’re inundated with so much spam. I’ve been maintaining my WordPress blog (Mystery Deb) for years, but I fly under the radar because I have less than 600 subscribers, which is fine with me. I have an active group of about 12 people who regularly comment on my posts. But I suspect you have many more subscribers than me. Several of my writing friends have gone over to Substack, but it’s getting annoying because Substack is constantly sending me recommendations and blogs from people I don’t recall subscribing to. And I’m not a fan of the pay to read more ploy. So, I’ll stay where I am for now, but change is always inevitable at some point.
Debra–One of the problems is that not all of these missives qualify as normal spam. They know my name and even may know the title of one of my books. Or they may post a link to one of my blogposts (usually from 10+ years ago.) But they do some homework. That keeps them from going automatically to spam. And yes, high traffic seems to attract them. If you can keep under the radar, that’s the sweet spot. Authors don’t need to have huge numbers. They just need to reach their readers and potential readers.
I agree about Substack’s constant “recommendations.” They just recommend some rando’s newsletter that has nothing to do with me or my interests. So signing up for just one Substack brings a barrage of emails. Sort of like signing a petition–10 minutes later 20 political groups hit you up for money. Email is taking most of my days now. When do we have time to write?
Wow, I guess I shouldn’t complain about the 5-10 emails I get daily offering to make my book a bestseller! But even that is a tenfold increase from what I would get a year ago. I don’t know if it was winning a big award that put me on the radar or it’s simply that, as Liz Gaffreau wrote above, AI is making it easy to bombard hundreds of authors at once. I can attest that AI is doing the writing though; it’s clear the marketers did not read or write up their effusive praise of the book. But a newbie author could be flattered and fall into their trap. One person claimed to have read my book (they don’t all make that lie) so, for fun, I asked them to tell me which character they most related to and which scene they liked best. Big surprise…they couldn’t!
SM–The more I think about it, the more I think Liz is right that AI is generating this tsunami of spammy emails. An award might get you on their radar too. (congrats!) I just got a bunch that pretended to be a reader interested in my novels. But they claimed they didn’t know any of my titles because they got my email off my FB author page. Where of course I list my titles…:-) Be prepared to get some of those next. They probably send out 10K for every sucker they catch, but those suckers can be conned out of heartbreakingly large amounts of money. Have you heard about the Page Turner scam that’s just been busted? They conned these newbie authors out of 100s of thousands.
I’m sticking to the blog I’ve built since 2013 — even though I’ve not yet published anything to flog to readers and have only been posting occasionally over the past year. Absolutely hate Substack, dislike the influx of newsletters and refuse to pay for what is essentially marketing content (no matter how good it is). And there is something about this blogging community that still feels like just that — a community. A note of sanity in a world gone increasingly mad about money. Thanks for keeping up the great work on your blog!
ME–I agree about the blogging community. We support each other. And I guess that’s even more important now that it’s shrinking. I agree with you that newsletters that expect you to pay for what it basically advertising are more than annoying. I’m going to keep offering free advice to authors as long as I can. Thanks for the kind words.
I forgot to add my two cents in about blogging. I still blog once a week, because that’s mostly what my brain can handle for originality these days (17 +/- years and counting). The majority of my posts are about random observations about my life and writing, with posts about everything else sprinkled in for fun.
On the upside, I haven’t gotten any spam e-mails regarding my blog in years, and I’m lucky if I get one spam comment every two months.
GB–Your blog is the kind I recommend for authors. Write about anything that might interest your readers. Don’t go for huge numbers–just the people you want to sell books to. If you stay under the radar, you can avoid a lot of this crap.
I blog twice a week on my blog (https://ptbradley.com ) that is a page on my website. On Tuesdays, I have a Mystery Question for my readers to guess the answer to, and on Fridays I review and recommend a book I’v read.
So far I have about 600 subscribers and around 25 comments on each blog that I always respond to–if someone takes the time to comment I can take the time to answer them. 🙂
Patricia–Sounds like you have exactly the kind of blog I recommend in my book The Author Blog. When you respond to all comments, more comments magically appear. Congrats!
Another great post Anne. I am astounded at how much scam mail you receive. I do get plenty of ‘review my book’ emails by people I don’t know. And according to many blogger friends, they all admit they get the most action on their book from their blogs and blog tours. Better than social media. 😘
Debby–I’m astounded too. It only started a few weeks ago. I must have been put on some list of bloggers who will do anything they’re asked. I got one today that was super disturbing. Obviously from some mentally ill person off his meds. A 500 word one-paragraph rant about how everybody in Hollywood is stealing his ideas. I’m still not sure what he wanted me to do. except praise him for blogging 10,000 words a day on some unnamed blog.
But I think you are absolutely right that blogs and blog tours are way better than social media for getting your book in front of more eyeballs. (Probably not blogs with 10,000 incoherent words a day, though. 🙂 )
I maintain a couple of blogs, one since 2006, but other than occasional spam comments, no one ever contacts me. I know I have readers (according to my Google Analytics), but those could be bots, too, I guess.
Michelle–X used to be a great place to get new blog readers, but of course it’s not anymore. Now I get some from BluSky. And Facebook is pretty reliable. But I hear you. Traffic is way down for a lot of blogs. But keep blogging. The readers you do have will appreciate it.
Hi Anne,
I’m still here!! Since 2008 (can’t believe it) and while I don’t post as often as I used to, I still lilke to check in, post something I hope might be of interest to others, and check on blogs I follow, like yours. Many bloggers I used to follow have quit or gone to Substack. I thought of that but, nah, I love my blog and I’m sticking it out. I get spam comments once in a while but nothing like what you experience. I expect I’m flying under the radar. But the whole bot/AI thing gives me the heebie jeebies. Keep up the good work. I’m glad you are still here.
Yvonne–I’m so glad you’re still blogging. Flying under the radar is a great thing to do these days. You don’t want to attract people who aren’t going to read your books anyway. I think I’ve found out why I’ve been hit by such a barrage of spam. It is indeed AI. AI often “hallucinates”–a cool word to say it’s dead wrong. It seems to have decided that every woman in the world named Anne Allen (more common than “Jane Doe”) can be found at MY email address. Recently I’ve had scammers wanting to scam authors of books I’ve never heard of. But I looked them up, and all their authors are named Ann Allen, or some variation of it. It’s making me crazy!!
I missed the Page Turner debacle somehow – good to see the guilty were arrested! Wish we’d had similar results with my former publisher who still owes some of my author friends thousands of dollars. But that’s another story…
SM–Small presses have a hard time staying in business. My first publisher went under while publishing my second book. Some try to pay royalties, but some can’t. When they can’t, they can pretzel themselves with so many lies, they make everybody furious. Sorry that happened to you.
I’m in the service portion of indie publishing, from book cover design to editing, but plan on going ‘indie’ with my short stories and novels.
I’ve had similar issues with spammers, especially on my website. Some twenty to fifty every day. Akismet does a good job, though, and it doesn’t worm its way to my email inbox. But, after eleven years doing the social media gamut, I ended up receiving spam and attempts to have my business page flagged and shut down by scammers who were attracted to my (first-time use) of Facebook ads. While that was happening, Instagram suddenly suspended my account for being unsafe for the community. This was after having Facebook for eleven years and Instagram for seven. Zero help from them.
But, zero new clients gained from both platforms in that time. (and only one from ‘X’ when it was Twitter)
I quit them and decided to return to blogging and start a newsletter instead. That and just social media takes away all of your SEO. I’ve asked clients, “How did you find me?” Their number one answer: Google search. The rest has been word of mouth.
Which is how I found your blog on Substack. 😉
Regards,
Rebecca
Rebecca–What an ordeal! Great argument for not depending on Social Media. So you found this blog mentioned on Substack? Well, one of our followers must have shared it there. Thanks for letting me know!
This was a great post. I use Substack, but an starting a new blog. What would you recommend for email marketing? MailerLite?
Substack is great, but the social media pressure is real there. I love a good old-fashioned blog!
Aaron–I still use MailChimp, which had a lot of problems, but it seems to be working now. Lots of people prefer MailerLite, though. I’m glad to hear you’re going back to blogging. Others have complained about pressure to monetize on Substack. I’ve also read that Substack is suppressing some accounts, and even though Elon’s offer to buy it was rejected, that other billionaires are eyeing it, so it’s likely to be sold.