Bernie pic

Bernie pic
Bernie

Monday 22 December 2014

My Xmasbelly-ache by Charles Dorkins

Don't look: this image is EVIL!!

CHRISTMAS is not a good time to be #belly-aching BUT . . . You know what’s coming next, don’t you? My #Xmasbelly-ache is about the witch-hunt on self-promotion.

The final straw was today on a site with a thread promoting new releases books from a certain country.
As some of you know, I have a publishing hut Bent Banana Books. I have promoted two BBB titles in December on the new-release thread.
I tried to promote a third BBB, the new release at the top of this blog. (Don’t look. Avert your eyes. It’s disgusting. O! No! It’s self-promotion. )
But no. My book met every criterion for being on the thread but it was barred because I wrote it. “Bernie, you gotta use the tradies’ entrance,” the mod said.
“That’s the entrance to the place no readers go because it’s full of self-promotion,” I clarify.
“That’s the one,” the mod says.
A couple of days ago a kind person from net info/ opinion exchange Reddit Australia was kind enough to re-tweet my 12 days of Christmas promotion. I had spent a far bit of time and a little money putting it together and I think it comes up all right. (It is at the bottom of this blog. But don’t look. It’s worse than pornography. It’s self-promotion.)
I have been working in journalism a long time and I figured it might be able to get some free ink – unpaid editorial – so I sent it to the main Reddit website. After the event, I saw it was pretty cut and dried that it was ineligible. I gave up reading rules on the internet ages ago so I did not know before I posted it.
At face value the Reddit rules seem fair enough. Take a closer look.
Copy is not being selected on quality or public interest. It is being selected on some vague notion that copy without self-interest is better. A former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating said you should always bet on self-interest. "It's always trying," Keating said.
Many website mods  also find self-interest trying.
Why is an exclusionary clause needed? Well, it’s not.
In the case of the book thread, my book should have been included, in edited form, at the very least.
On the case of Reddit, the mod could have applied the criteria of quality and perceived public interest. Instead we have the producers of books as the pariahs of book sites. Strange days, indeed.
Happy holidays,


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