My Encounter With The Crazy Book Lady

Throughout my writing journey, I’ve met plenty of inspiring people, including Jeanine Frost. She probably doesn’t remember me, but she had a huge impact on my writing journey. I’ve also met a handful of ‘crazies’ along the way. While the ‘crazies’ were annoying, they provide great material to write about. I met the crazy I’m writing about today during the research phase of my writing career, back when I was still deciding what I wanted to do with my book.

During my writing journey, I decided I couldn’t sell books without social media, so I set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page. I attempted to connect with anyone whose bio proudly displayed anything to do with writing. I also tweeted about things that mattered to me, such as The Walking Dead. Some actors replied to my tweets, and a few followed me, which resulted in more people checking out my profile. My growing presence on social media began attracting people, and that’s how I found the self-proclaimed ‘goddess of self-publishing’. No, it wasn’t Kristen Martin, Amanda Hocking, or HP Mallory. It was someone I’d never heard of before. It was a woman with a heavily filtered profile picture and a bio that bragged about being on the Amazon best-sellers list. She also claimed to have won a ton of awards that I’d never heard of, like the orange peel award.

She regularly tweeted writing advice, but her tone was very demanding. She was also interacting with me on a personal level, and I began to feel like she cared about my writing career. She’d give me advice when I posted something about writing, so (at the time) I believed she wanted me to succeed. I learned some important things from her, like which hashtags attracted the most readers and which days of the week were the best for book sales. She seemed to know it all, and that’s why I decided to check her out.

To my surprise, she only had one book that wasn’t about marketing or writing. It was a poetry book, and while I love poetry, I recognize that it isn’t for everyone. Her poems were also unique to her life, so the average person wouldn’t have been interested. How could this woman know so much about the marketing process if she only had one book for sale? She couldn’t have sold that many copies with her debut book, but there she was selling writing and marketing advice. As I dug further, I noticed her poetry book wasn’t her debut book. No, her debut book is about writing. Who would buy writing advice from someone who didn’t have any other books?

During my exploration, I also noticed that her demanding tone had evolved. I sat back and watched as she’d start fights with anyone who dared to disagree with her. She would often claim they didn’t know what they were talking about because she’d sold millions of books, so that made her an expert. She’d often claim that people who didn’t see eye to eye with her were stalking her. She revealed more of her crazy side when she threatened to call the police on someone who’d left a negative review on her book.

I found out that her negative behavior transcended the writing community when one of my gaming buddies asked me if I know the ‘crazy book lady’. When I asked who he was referring to, he described the lady with the heavily filtered photos and made mention of her hair color (which she was also used as a marketing tool).

It was because of this behavior that I further investigated what she was selling. One poetry book, and about four writing and marketing books. I noticed she had more reviews on the books about writing/marketing, and that’s when I realized that she wasn’t trying to sell her poetry book. Well, she was trying to sell the poetry book, but she was trying to sell the marketing advice to a bigger audience.

She was using a technique that I’ve now seen hundreds of times, especially on author tube. A writer will lure you in with writing advice, even though their book isn’t ready yet. You’ll gain a relationship through their advice and decide to pick up their book or buy one of their writing courses. Either way, you’re putting money in their pockets when you shouldn’t be. There isn’t a single piece of writing advice that you can’t find for free on the internet. The only thing these people are doing is feeding you information they found and putting their spin on it. The only reason you should pay for writing advice is if you’re interested in the writer’s experiences.