Hi, recently I have been reading a lot of original novels and have consistently seen a user called GoldenTigerMonk constantly spam one comment message "Read Supreme System Devourer"
Now, I am a guy that doesn't really care for shameless advertising (although I believe that being such a annoying prick to get people to read stuff you want them to is not the way to go), but this is getting overkill.
This guy, literally posted 15 comments on one chapter of Legend of the Empyrean Blacksmith (chapter 149). I don't see the point in there being a forum for novel suggestions when all the shameless pricks simply spam copy-pasted comments. That is NOT HOW YOU GET PEOPLE TO READ A BOOK!!! In fact, this kind of shit generally makes me remember the name so I ignore when trying to find books to read. If a reader of my web novel ever did so for my book and I noticed, I would actually make him delete the comment since I would never want to being such irritation on others that I have to deal with too.
Ok, I have to admit I have not read the book this guy is trying to promote, but tickle my anus and call me Samantha if the synopsis isn't the most generic Eastern Fantasy +System thing in existence.
And before some 'tard comes complaining like "but you have probably promoted books in comments. Stop being hypocritical!" I will say I have. However, those were during conversations about both the author (who had multiple works in which I suggested reading other ones in series due to being same universe and reference each other) and about aspects of Eastern Fantasy in which I said "yeah, book name does Xianxia term quite well in my opinion".
I have never overtly promoted my own book (ok, I have mentioned that I was writing a book ONCE and talked to an author about cool ideas for Eastern Fantasy stuff in general that I have used or altered in my own writing a couple times) in comments or shamelessly spammed the forums like "READ MY BOOK!" in discussions that aren't explicitly "book recommendation" discussions.
I have promoted an author's book/books on a forum for a site that does book ratings since they hadn't done said author's books before, but that is not any form of shameless, irritating and spammy pleas for attention on their book that some authors do proactively (generally the ones who do this actually have shit books honestly).
HOW TO ACTUALLY PROMOTE A BOOK!
If you post you book in a book swap or book suggestion dicussion, then please be normal about it. Ask politely, post the Name, Genre, Chapter Count, Rough Upload Rate, Link to Book Page and Synopsis in one neat format (like new line for each one not all on one line). Maybe even post cover photo above the aforementioned information.
This isn't required but generally will be received kindly because you make readers able to:
1. Easily see if the book is to their tastes through name, genre, synopsis and cover photo.
Easily get relevant information like chapter count, upload rate and general effort put into book (cover photo helps with this).
Get a feel for writing style, grammar and pique their interest through the synopsis.
IF they are interested, the browser can easily right-click, open in new tab and then wazam! They have another tab of a book (your book or one you gave a recommendation for) that they will check out once they have finished browing that discussion.
Another positive effect of such a polite, concise and well structured recommendation is that people will actually see you have spent the time to do this and view you as more sincere in your request.
Don't ask them to leave a review or a rating, people will generally do that anyway if they enjoy it enough (I review on two conditions, it would get over 3.5 stars and it has at least 25 chapters).
There you go, sorry if i went on a rant earlier. Do note, this is not a discussion to actually recommend novels and I will delete any such posts/replies (if I can) if they are not relevant to the conversation.
Also, I really request that if you ever see shameless promotion/advertising on chapter comments, report it. It ruins the atmosphere of the comments section ahen you have to scroll past 15 repeats of the same message that has some random and very shameless book suggestion. Plus, I have never seen any shameless commenter actually ask if people can read. They always pasive-aggressive demand like "Read my book!".
