Us authors talk a lot about promotion and what works and what doesn’t. In fact, we are sometimes a little obsessed. I’ve had the “How much it too much?” conversation with writer friends of mine every now and then, and it can get pretty heated. LOL It’s become an ongoing debate so I thought I’d ask you readers here what you think.

The question of the debate is…how much exposure for us, as authors, is too much? When does ‘putting yourself out there’ become harmful to a career by over sharing, blogging too much, or making ourselves too available to readers?

Let’s face it, sure blogging and group chats can be fun, but it’s really all about promotion. We figure if we show you us, the person behind the book, you’ll like us enough to run out and buy our book on it’s release day. But really, are we hurting ourselves? Do you, as readers, start to think of us too much as friends, and then fall into the mentality of “Friends don’t make friends buy their books”.

Then there are the giveaways. We do so many, on blogs, on guest blogs, in chats, monthly or seasonal contests. The idea is two-fold. Draw the reader to your site/chat with a giveaway, and hopefully they’ll surf the site and read the excerpts and run right out and buy one (or all) of your books. Give them a free book and they’ll love it so much they’ll run right out and buy your others. But do they work?

I know myself I’ve given out many books, and sometimes I even recognize the address of the winner and know I’ve sent them a book before. Should I take this to mean they won a book, read it, and didn’t like it enough to go buy my others? Or is it just a “Hey, it’s another free book so I’ll try to win it” thing? Or maybe they just want a signed copy, maybe they’ll give the other copy to a friend, or library and spread the word?

You’ll occasionally see big name authors like Nora Roberts or Sandra Brown put together things for charity auctions and such, but they don’t seem to do giveaways weekly, monthly or with any amount of regularly. Yet each new release of theirs sells more and more.

So the question is, are those of us who are trying to build a name, a readership, and a career, hurting ourselves by being so available, or giving away too much? Have you ever received a free book, and then continued to buy that authors books because you enjoyed the first one? Have you ever bought a book because you read an authors blog and thought they were cool, or interesting, or funny? What about at a chat?

Or do you prefer your favorite authors remain mysterious and almost iconic, only available at the occasional book signing?

Or does it matter either way? Is a good book a good book no matter how you found it, or how much you know about the author?