It's not you, Facebook, it's me. Well, actually it IS you...

As I sit here waiting most IMpatiently for the final results of the World's Best Story Contest. (I'm in the Top Ten, as is the awesome Joe Hickey)

Nail biting suspense, to be sure!

I figured that I'd pass some of the time by doing this here 'Blog' thing for a bit. Today's topic? Well, that's kind of hard to nail down, but it's mainly going to involve a decision I made last night, and have been slowly working my way through ever since (barring 5.5 hours of sleep, of course.)
In short, I have been systematically leaving and/or 'Unliking' a LOT of Facebook pages, for a few reasons.

Are we on a theme? Perhaps.

Let's start with why I'm 'Unliking' a bunch of these pages, shall we? There was a time not so long ago, where certain pages would have 'Like' parties, doesn't that sound like fun?
The point of these 'parties' was to boost 'Likes' for your Facebook Fanpage, and all you'd have to do is 'Like' everyone else's page, and 'hopefully', they'd all return the favor! Great way to boost your numbers, right?
Too bad, it's rather pointless. Unless, of course you are actively interested in everyone you've given a 'Like' to, and chances are, you're not. You're just going to have a cluttered newsfeed until you've had enough and 'Unlike' them, thus negating those boosts. And even if you don't, they'll drop YOU just the same, and for the same reason.
I will say that after dumping a bunch of 'irrelevant to me' pages, a bunch more will crop up that I don't recall 'Liking' in the first place.

C-C-C-C-Combo Breaker!!!

Next, we'll discuss why I'm leaving Facebook groups like a rat from a sinking ship. (I like analogies, you knew this when we started this relationship, don't you dare judge me.)
The VAST majority of Facebook Groups that I was involved with started out as (what I believed) to be a good way to market my books, and sometimes OTHER people's books. Hell, some of these groups have tens of thousands of members! I'll reach a wide number of readers in no time, right?

The problem is that the other thousands strong members are doing the same thing that you are, resulting in a tidal wave of spam posts. Your measly little book promo just got tsunamied. With all the other members posting at about (generous guesstimate here) one post per minute, you're not going to be noticed, and even if you are, the chances of someone picking your card out of the deck are minuscule at best. But, you might say, if I post on a shit-ton of pages, my chances of being seen rise exponentially, right?

All you're really going to accomplish is carpet bombing the ever-loving hell out of your 'Friend's' newsfeed, probably resulting in them getting pretty sick of it, and you. They may already have your book, and if they don't, 'scorching the Earth' of their newsfeed is NOT going to convince them. You could seriously lose friendships over this, so please restrain yourself.

Right now, you're probably wondering, 'What the hell are we supposed to do now?', (Sorry, I couldn't find a GIF for that one.) There are ways to promote yourself effectively without using Facebook, but as of yet, I'm still trying to figure them out, but when I do, I'll be sure to let you know.