Social Media and Internet Crushes

I may have mentioned this before a long time ago, but my biggest author-blogger crush is a capital-R Romance writer by the name of Tawna Fenske.

I do not really read in the Romance genre for fun, but she’s just so damn funny.  (I possibly have a slight weakness for sex jokes.) Plus, her blogging about her career is always interesting and rarely repetitive.

When I say “crush”, I don’t mean actual romantic feelings.  I just mean I think she’s hilarious and awesome, and if I had to pick one writing blog to have with me on a desert island it would be hers, even though I don’t read her genre, and she’s basically the opposite of me in every way: published, regular, and talks about herself which I will never, ever do, sorry, but it wouldn’t be fun to read about me anyway.

So if you’re a writer, or a reader, or a Romance fan, or just looking to have some fun, you should definitely go give her a quick once-over.

I looked for an author page on Facebook, but I could only find what seemed to be a personal page, and getting a random friend request from someone I’ve never heard of before would probably creep me out, so I suppose this is the limit of expressing my admiration.

 

ETA:  Also, she likes Allison Krauss?  So major points for that, too.

 

Does Social Media Affect Book Sales?

Fuck if I know.  I haven’t done any exhaustive research.  I don’t have published books and a well-known web presence to check with.  I just have my own personal habits.

Like a lot of readers, I have a long TBR list full of great books I wish I had the time to get around to reading.  A surprising number of those books I learned about online.  Many in forums, but an equally large, or perhaps larger number from reading blogs.  I can’t say for sure how many I learned about directly from the author’s own web presence.  I’m sure a large number were recommended by other members of the online writing community.

I think that the majority of books I learn about through social media I learn of through the community as a whole, which includes writers pimping other writers’ books, but not a lot of writers pimping their own books.  So it becomes hard to say whether web presence by a specific author has an influence on the sale of their books.  Even in terms of my own buying experience.

What I can tell you is that I’ve bought a lot more books of recommendations or browsing the bookstore than I’ve bought books off my TBR list recommended by social media.  There are plenty of books I’ve decided I want to read, but once I’m away from the internet, I forget titles or just am not exposed to enough immediate incentive to buy them, even if I loved them when reading about them on a blog or twitter feed.

In my experience social media definitely generates interest, but I can’t say that it’s actually gotten books out of the store and into my hands.

It’s something I greatly regret, and I always plan to make a stronger effort next time, but it does seem to be the reality that a strong web presence is not enough to generate actual sales.

 

Why Social Media are Dangerous to Writers

If you’ve spent any time in the authosphere, you know that the number one commandment to writers is : “Write!”  It’s not “Tweet!” or “Youtube!” or “Eat cupcakes!”

But reading blogs is okay, right?  There’s all this knowledge and information, and interaction with other writers and readers.  What could be better?

The truth is, blogs are the most insidious, conniving, malicious plague to ever be unleashed upon unsuspecting authors.

“Wait,” you say.  “You’re exaggerating.  It’s just fifteen minutes a day or so.”

Well, I have story for you.  Over the past few months, I’ve been working on other projects besides writing, and that means I confined what writing time I did have, I confined to actually putting words on the page.  That means a whole bunch of blog posts to get caught up on.  And here’s the problem:  If it was just me going to various addresses in my favorites bar, I wouldn’t have an issue.  I’d just have given up on most of the old posts.  But I have this wonderful little thing called Google Reader, which keeps track of my blog subscriptions.  When I opened it this morning, it listed 432 unread blog posts.  432.  I decided to take Anne Lamott’s advice and get through them post by post.  Instead of doing any writing today whatsoever, I read around 300 blogs posts in 4 hours.  And tomorrow, thanks to links and “round-up” posts, I have about 300 more.

And most of them have been very interesting.  I’m glad I read them.  But it did take up 4 hours I could have used for actual writing.  Things like this have happened before, and I know they’ll happen again.

Maybe I’m just obsessive.  I didn’t have to read all those posts, right?  But Google made it so easy.  Just point and click.  That 432 just sitting there, taunting me.  “You can’t read all these.  No way.  As if.  You’re weak.  You can read a 600 page novel in a few hours, but you’ll never be able to catch up on your blogroll.  You’ll just have to look at me every day and know what a failure you are.  Go eat some chocolate cheesecake.  Come back in a few hours.  I’ll be here.  I’ll always be here.

 

Things I Wish SF(F) Had More Of

So, after thinking about my last post on education, I’ve come to some conclusions. I’ve been reading less and less science fiction lately, and I haven’t been able to figure out why. But now I think I know. It’s because I’ve been seeing a lot of the same things recently. Here’s a list of recent sub-genres I’ve become disillusioned with lately, and some ideas I think could infuse them with new life:

1. Space Opera–Don’t get me wrong, I love this sub-genre, but we’ve been harping on post-humanism and alien combat quite a lot lately. How about we try something new? Like some new thoughts on STL travel, or Near-Earth Space exploration.

2. Near-future SF–Love this genre as well. (Futurismic, here’s to you!)  But we’ve been seeing a lot of the same thing, lately.  Nano-tech, cyberpunk, bio-punk.  I’d love to see some more stories on information technology pre-singularity.  VR’s been a common theme, but very few books out there seem to be addressing Augmented Reality(AR), which–for those who don’t know–is the mapping of virtual information, such as audio and video, onto the real world.  The more well-known application here is the good old “heads-up display”, or HUD, in use in targeting systems and mapping.  Stories about AR that come to mind:  Dennou Coil, Rainbows End, Eden of the East.  There’s a lot of potential in this technology, and a lot of conflict that it could create.  Virtual ads in fields, or modern digital graffiti are two.  And think of the networking and social media applications.

3.  Science fantasy:  There’s been a rise in this genre lately, which I have greatly enjoyed.  Some examples are anime’s Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou, which postulates a modern form of magic created with digital information instead of personal energy and ancient symbolism.  A great deal of steam-punk also falls into this category, although it’s generally not as modern as the normal idea of the genre.  Of course, I’m somewhat misrepresenting this term to describe a combination of scientific and fantastical elements.  I’m not really refering to just planetary romance or dying earth scenarios, as much as contemporary or near-future fantasy outside of the UF genre.  We might also include some space opera works in the category.  Anime provides the example of Heroic Age, while C.S. Friedman has given us the Coldfire Trilogy.

4.  Let’s also throw in alternate universe science fiction here.  Earth-like worlds with different cultural and geographical settings that nevertheless approximate our present level of technology.  I’m hard-pressed to come up with an example of this grouping that doesn’t involve alternate dimensions or the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  I’m not talking multiverses or dimension-hoppers here.  I’m thinking of entirely independent worlds.  Which makes me want to read this sort  of story even more.  Perhaps Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch could be an example book, although that veers closer to Science Fantasy/New Weird than I’m trying to go.

5.  Oh, and let’s not forget the Chimney-punk.  This isn’t a recognized genre yet, but I’m hard at work behind the scenes, spreading awareness(lol) and writing material.  New Weird isn’t the only interstitial genre out there–at least, not for long.

Anyway, those are a few genres I’d really love to see some new material in.  Does anyone have particular areas of their own that they find interesting but under-populated?

 

Blog Comments as a Center of Social Interaction

There are many kinds of social interaction sites on the web, but the most common belong to what I like to term “The Big Four”: Forums, Blogs, E-Magazines and Social Networking sites(SNS).  Now, each type of site is different, and while some may overlap in purpose, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages in the various areas of social interaction.  Let’s look these over:

1. Social Networking sites:  Pretty obvious there.  They facilitate contact between individuals and groups.  You can provide an online presence and contact format for business, or socializing, or sharing interests.  Most SN sites are primarily made up of networks that mirror the real-life networks of people and their acquaintances: college networks, business networks, fan networks.  They allow people to publicize their goals, interests, values.  There’s a very high bar for entrance into new groups on most SN sites–whether your friend request is accepted or not means little.
2. Electronic Magazines: To be honest I’m grouping a lot of different things under here–e-periodicals, news sites, gossip sites, etc.  But most of them operate in similar manner.  They present static articles, usually based on current events.  They may or may not allow comments, but the interaction between the article posters and the public is very distant.  There’s almost no entrance bar on these sites, and you can behave very badly and get away with it.  Of course, some sites have higher standards, but if you’ve ever seen the comments section on, say, Yahoo! News, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
3. Forums:  Most forums are moderated, focused discussion areas with for a particular topic:  cheeseburgers, net memes, pop-culture, fan-clubs, etc.  There’s generally a fairly high entrance bar and registration is required for most of them.  They may share a few things with SN sites, but they deal with specific topics, citing more sources, making members aware of relevant material, and generally creating a community around specific topics or areas of interest.
4. Blogs:  As you might be able to tell from the title, this type of site will be the main focus of discussion in this post.  Blogs are article(post) based social media sites often but not always run by individuals with specific interests and goals.  Personal news sites, you might say.  They tend to be more opinionated and focused on topics the blogger finds interesting.  Most are moderated by the owner, but they still allow for a certain amount of open discussion.  There are blogs for everything, from shrimp to shrink-wrap, and after SN sites, they might be the most popular medium on the web, at least as far as web-heads are concerned.  Bloggers and blog commenters tend to be more tech-savvy, and less geared towards the LCD.  While some forum and SN websites have instituted blog features recently, they are still far less popular than the independent blogging platforms such as livejournal or wordpress or blogger.

Now that we’ve gotten through the basics, here’s the meat of the post:

It is my contention that blogs, with low entrance requirements and an individualist atmosphere are one of the most important social influences on the web.  The blogging community(blogosphere) is one of the most well-connected communities on the net, far ahead of forums, which are oftentimes isolationist and geared towards a cliquish atmosphere that takes a long time for new members to fit into.  Blogs cover a very wide range of topics, and are more accessible to search engines, which means more new blood and a more diverse “membership” in the form of commenters.

Now let’s elaborate on that last idea.  What makes blogs so valuable is the knowledge and attitude of commenters, who often contribute a great deal to the discussion originally opened by the blogger.  Not to bash forums, SNS, or news services, but the quality of commentary on blogs is at a relatively high level for the most part, and the smaller scope means that it is easier to screen out less desirable material than a forum or news site.  The ability of a blog to provide concentrated, intelligent discussion in its own specific sphere means that readers and commenters(followers) have much more control over what they read.  Most blogs have a relatively clear-cut sense of what will and will not be discussed, as opposed to news services which cover a wide range of topics with little moderation, and forums, which also tend to deal with a wider array of issues.  You might say they have more individual personality.  Once you’ve found a good blog(for you), there’s much less sifting to be done to find the interesting and relevant material. 

Even while many are predicting the decline of blogs, and citing statistics which suggest the younger generations(to which I belong) are moving away from the blog model, I would put forth that blogs are not only a thriving and vital component of the online community, but will continue to be so for a very long time.  And I think it’s a good thing.  How many experts in your areas  have you met who hang around on forums?  A lot less than on blogs, I’d imagine.  (Feel free to correct my impression in the comments!)  Of all the writers I’ve met, the vast majority have a greater presence on blogs and SN sites than forums. 

The really juicy material is in the blogs, whereas forums tend to hash over the same subjects again and again.  Although forums can sometimes be faster on the pick-up of new information, the majority of forum members are not active in other areas of the web.  Bloggers and blog readers however are an extremely diverse and interconnected community that is often active across a wide range of sites and topics.  The lack of linear discussion means that an issue can be dealt with from many different angles at once, while still maintaining the integrity of those individual discussions.  Fewer derails, for you tl;dr folks out there.

Of course, I may be biased as an SFF fan who dabbles in programming and has little to do with the more popular SN sites, such as facebook and myspace.  I do however, have an active Twitter account.