Hi --

I just found this place while self-promoting my first novel. While there is a diversity of opinion on proper protocol for this behavior, I testify that some people who think it's spam can be downright mean.

Others have been very nice, and helpful. A few, however, act like an unknown writer telling people about a new piece outside of mainstream market profits is the same as trying to sell fake Viagra. The worst was a newsgroup whose members actually posted fake negative book reviews on the Mobipocket site, one of the two places that sells my novel, as revenge.

I was following an exchange on the Chonicles (science fiction) forum (I've been banned) at work today. It's a good thing that Specfic didn't say he'd written anything, or he may have been banned too.

I'm a 56 year old therapist in a children's mental health program. My novel was published in July, 2006, and was just named as one of the best fifteen releases under the Noble (not Nobel) Prize criteria. I've become so cautious about posting self-promotion, that I'm not saying any more.

If this is a place where writers won't get bashed for not having traditional advertising dollars, its existence is justified.