This isn’t a rant. I swear it’s not. It’s more like I’m throwing my hands in the air and wondering why post.

I’ve been getting these “shared links” posted on my wall by writers I don’t know and have never met even in a general sense, like through an e-mail or through a blog comment.

And to me, this is like someone stepping into my home, pulling out my pots and pans, and cooking in my kitchen without permission. It’s a passive aggressive form of intellectual invasion and it’s not something that’s going to help sell a book. When I see these things, I go the my wall and delete the entire post without thinking twice. And I don’t feel bad about this. I have never, not once, even thought about posting links to my books on a stranger’s facebook wall. That takes a certain kind of audacity and makes me wonder on many different levels.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about friends and people I know fairly well. If I know you and we’ve talked and exchanged e-mails even slightly, I’m fine with sharing my wall with your link. But if I don’t know you, and you’ve never taken the time to at least introduce yourself to me with a short e-mail, you’re going to come off as rude and pushy instead of warm and endearing.

And I’m not the only one who feels this way. I have one writer friend who not only removes the shared link, she removes the pushy author from her friend list. I don’t take it that far. But with all the noise out there and so many hawking their books day and night, the most obnoxious and aggressive approach is the least likely book I’m going to buy and read. For those of you who have hired these quasi online PR firms to give you bad advice, I hope you think twice before you do something that’s going to irritate a lot of people before your book has even gotten off the ground.