When a writer approaches the Internet with the hope of attracting people's attention to his books, it appears that everybody's talking.
To what end, I often wonder. There are times when many writers feel like they're lost in a wilderness of chatter where the noise of all that talking drowns out every individual voice.
I read a great post by James Ball this this morning, and he said that when we step into the social networking arena, it's easy to forget who we are and why we're there. The trends, fads, games and tempting applications make it easy to get more lost in the crowd than we were when it first occurred to us that everybody's talking.
There are times when I want to return to the "old days" before the Internet. I want to open a store and put a sign on it that says "Books." If somebody wants a book, they come in and buy it. They're not there to play Farm Town with me or discuss which mythical character I am or tell me what their Indian Princess name is.
I want to keep them coming back by selling great books and offering great service.
So, I must say that I am often annoyed by the fact that every year writers on the Internet are expected to write more words than exist in all of their novels combined just to call attention to their novels.
Does anyone else feel this way? Are you tired of spending more hours a week on Facebook than you are writing? Are you tired of writing more words on all your blogs than you're writing in all your novels?
And, do you ever wonder if you're becoming less yourself by trying to think of a constant stream of posts, status updates, comments and links that match all the latest trends enough that somebody will notice and stop and look for a moment?
I'm just curious.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
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6 comments:
Am I concerned? Yes, absolutely, but here's the thing. I enjoy tremendously the post writing, the contact with people all over the world, the understanding from other writers engaged in the same dance, etc. Still, I remind myself that a kid can get a tummy ache from too much delicious birthday cake. I need to be an adult here and put limits on the amount of sugar I ingest. Thanks for prompting me to do that.
I was content to leave the internet to the kids and exist on email and real friends, but I started joining things like Gather for the writing, then had no idea what to do when I found myself with efriends. But efriends are real friends too.
The kids think I'm mad now I spend more internet time than they do. To be honest, I think they might be right. The dream was to generate interest in my "real" writing but the reality is more like interest in the fake. I liked your comment on my blog though - at least "branding" helps me remember what I came here for. And I do learn a lot and get a lot of encouragement from my real efriends.
Hi Judith.
You're right: the thing can be like too much sugar. It's hard to know when to say "no" because one never knows where a discussion thread may lead.
Thanks for visiting.
Malcolm
Sheila,
I started mulling this over the other day, then thought of it again when I saw your post. Where does addiction end and real Internet marketing begin?
But the time goes by rather fast once I sign on, and then I realize that the "real writing" I planned to do during the day just never got done.
Malcolm
Malcolm, it appears that you and I are on the same wavelength on this subject. I hinted at my feelings in my latest blog post (thanks for your comment), but here you've really said all that I feel. Because of the social web's addictive power, it feels almost impossible to pull away. But I'm leaning this direction: When there's no time or mental energy left for the real writing, it's time to say No to all this "marketing" (which, in terms of sales, seems of questionable value anyway).
Fellow self-published author Ned White (a virtual friend like you -- one of the benefits of this activity) told me, "you can't wheedle people into buying literary fiction," so he does even less social-network flogging than I do, and intends to just let his books build their own slow readerships. I have to go that direction too if I expect to remember who I am and what I'm doing. BTW, you would probably like Ned's novels Place and String Theories: http://nedwhitebooks.com
Best wishes,
Brent
I've been thinking more or less this same thing recently. I'm doing a blog tour (because of you -- if you hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have remembered to do it!) and it seems so much like the house that Jack built. Every day I write and promote an article on my blog that promotes the blog where I have another article that's supposed to promote the book that I wrote. Whew! Sometimes I even write a second article to promote the one that's on my blog that promotes the one that's on someone else's blog that promotes the book that I wrote.
I am addicted to the internet, though I do not play games on facebook -- in fact I block almost all applications. I am addicted to making friends, contacts, being the gadabout that I am so not in my real life. In an odd sort of way, I am becoming more myself online. But . . . I am not writing. After all the work on this tour, and seeing that it has made no difference in sales, I've decided that when it's over, I'm going back to working on my WIP. I'll still blog, because that's more me than storytelling, but I'm planning on spending less time online. And if you believe that, I have a bridge I can sell you!
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