I’ve been following more authors on Twitter lately, and I’ve noticed something that has me a bit concerned. The constant deluge of advertisement and self-promotion to the point of annoyance.

I’m not going to point fingers and name names, but there are a few people that I’ve recently followed who seem to have a series of targeted tweets set to auto-post every single day. I’ll load up Twitter, reading tweets and catching up on my echo-chamber of news that has been deemed important enough to mention, when out of the blue, I’ll see a familiar post… one with a picture chosen specifically to capture an emotion that said poster hopes to evoke from the viewer/reader. Then, invariably, there will be the exact same selection of tweets to follow… each one with a book cover or image, that are very indelibly inked upon my brain… in the exact same order that I’ve seen them tweeted every day since the day I followed that person.

This isn’t an isolated case, either. Sometimes it’s the same 12 tweets in a row. Sometimes it’s a variation of a tweet… sometimes a snippet or a book cover from a selection of 20… and while it may cycle through a few choices, they’re always the same. One particular author has posted the same 5 snippets… at least a couple times a day… every day… for over a month. I recognize them immediately, and seem to be able to finish the snippet in my head by looking at the first few words.

First of all, I recognize the NEED to get information out on the internet… but I also have a website for the ‘permanent’ stuff. On Twitter, you can see that I’m an author. You can also see that I have a website. Want to know what I’ve written and how to get it? Go to the website. Think I’m writing something new for you to enjoy? Check the website. Need to get a hold of me to ask me a question about my writing? Website. Will I post snippets of my WIP on Twitter? Heck yeah… but not the same snippet, day after day, for months, until the book is published.

The big question I have is, WHY? We are inundated with advertising in every aspect of our lives. In the store, on the roads, on television, on the internet, in our mail, on our phones… even my Kindle has advertisements on it. You can’t get away from it. So, why would you drag that into your Twitter feed?

I’m not against the author who’s weeks away from publication, drumming up interest in the release every other day for a fortnight… it eventually ends, and honestly, I can get caught up in the excitement. But (and this is a huge caveat, here) I’m only okay with it when the posts are different. Maybe a snippet one day… followed by a slowly revealing cover over the next few days. Then, a few posts with comments by ARC readers. Anything but the same ad, every day, for over a month, with no end in sight.

Is this what it’s going to take? Am I going to have to succumb to lazy advertising? Is it going to be ‘normal’ to ‘set it and forget it’ when it comes to running an author platform on Twitter? I sure hope not.

I wanted to connect with other writers… get their opinions on things… learn from them… possibly use the social platform to be… social? I don’t want to just stop following other authors, but I also don’t want to be slammed by the same books and requests for my eyeballs to check out the same thing I’ve seen every day for the last few months.

What do you think I should do? Mute? Block? Drop ’em like a bad habit? Let me know in the comments below.