Top Five Things I’ve Learned About Twitter

January 10, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Twitter is a microblogging site where you post 140 characters at a time. I’ve written 100-word stories, 100,000-word novels, blog posts of various word counts, but anything that can be said in 140 characters or less almost doesn’t seem to be worth saying, so I’m having a hard time finding a home in the Twitosphere (or do I mean the Twitterverse?). Still, I am learning a few things about this twitterish world. Here are the top five things I’ve learned:

1. Tagging your tweets. You add tags to your tweets by using hash marks. For example, when I tweet this post, if I add #twitter to my tweet, people who are interested in finding out who is tweeting Twitter can search for #twitter, and discover all recent posts with that hash mark. (Okay, so you already knew that. But this is a post about things I’ve learned, and for some reason, that basic bit of twitia passed me by.)

2. Twit chats. #writechat is a group of writers who meet every Sunday on Twitter from 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm PT. You don’t need an invitation to join the discussion. (Well, maybe you do, but I crashed the party and no one complained.) All you have to do is go to your Twitter account and search for #writechat. Or you can start your own discussion group. Pick a name, add a hash mark, tell a few friends, and there you are, master of your own twit chat.

3. Trending topics. On the right sidebar of your Twitter home page, there is a list of trends. These trends are topics that are currently popular (as in right-this-very-minute popular) and are compiled from the most retweeted tweets, mostly news items. Twitterers think that they are tweeting non-mainstream news, that they are in the vanguard of a rebellion against traditional news sources, but as it turns out, the most retweeted twits and tweets come from the major media via their followers.

4. Friend or follow. Some twits like to follow everyone to get a huge following, and after you have followed them because you really don’t know what you’re doing and so you follow everyone who follows you, these twits unfollow you. Don’t you feel used? Well, no. Because you didn’t know they unfollowed you. Twitter sends you a message when someone follows you, but they don’t care if anyone unfollows you. So, here’s where you even the score: go to Friend or Follow, fill in your Twitter user name, and wait for the results. They might surprise you. You can easily unfollow your unfollowers from the site.

5. Clean your twits. Sometimes you end up with spammers or people you thought were your friends but who tweet a hundred times a day. Or you end up with a whole stream of multi-level marketers. Here’s an easy way of telling who is who. Go to: Twit Cleaner, fill in the information requested, and you get a whole list of unsweet tweeters with dodgy behavior such as those who tweet only links, those who only retweet other’s tweets, those who tweet the same links over and over again.

The main problem with cleaning your twits is that you end up with a huge discrepancy between the number of those who follow you and those you follow, and Twitter frowns on that. But whose Twitter is this? The way I figure, it’s better to follow fewer followers and get to know them, than to follow all who follow you and be inundated with the same twiddly stuff over and over again.

I’d planned to end this blog with a refutation of my bad report — Twit Cleaner told me I was guilty of dodgy behavior, that my tweets were mostly links. I was going to say that if people wanted to unfollow me because I tweeted too many links, then that is fine with me since if they’re not interested in what I tweet, they are of no use to me. Unfortunately, I just got a new report from The Twit Cleaner. They said “You’re awesome! Not very much to improve here. You’re basically already pretty great. Keep being your wonderful self.”

Thank you. I will.

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Is the Book Business Dying?

December 20, 2011 — Pat Bertram

Is the preponderance of self-published books killing the book business? I’ve been reading articles about how Amazon is promoting self-published ebooks — a few people have been picked by Amazon arbitrarily, and Amazon promoted these books constantly for a week and made them best-sellers. I’ve seen a couple of these best-selling self-published ebooks, and they are so poorly written, I can’t see why anyone would buy them, but since people do buy them, it must mean readers don’t care about good writing or good story-telling. I’ve also seen books go viral for absolutely no reason I can fathom. (And often, the writer has no clue, either.) Most often, these books go viral only on Amazon, with no bleed-over into other ebook formats, which means Amazon has an amazing control of the book business.

There seems to be a movement going on to erode the traditional means of determining a worthwhile book, with vast numbers of people saying book standards are dead and they can write however they choose, without regard to grammar or story-writing skills. Which apparently is true, since such books find a market. (And often, these books get 5-star reviews, which says more about the reviewer than the book.) There is also a growing militancy among self-publishers. If you say anything against the practice, there is a huge backlash of disapproval.

I’m not saying all self-published books are poor quality — some are well written and well-edited and deserve their acclaim. Nor am I saying that traditionally published books are good quality — most are not worth reading. But with books on both ends of the spectrum selling millions of copies, is there any place for those with well written, unique, and perhaps thoughtful books who aren’t self-published and who don’t have a major publisher behind them to push the books? Or have the people spoken and said they have no use for such books?

When books are so prevalent, especially when vast numbers of readers seem to have no ability to determine what is worthwhile, books become devalued. Albert Nock, in the 1930s, disagreed with universal literacy. He contended that when everyone can read, books will be written to appeal to the least common denominator, and there is no doubt that during the subsequent decades, books were published based on their ability to appeal to the most readers possible. If there is any truth that book quality declined with universal literacy, wouldn’t it be even more true if there is universal publishing?

Historically, whenever one product or category of products dominated the market, it presaged the end of that product. If you are old enough, you remember when the streets were clogged with VW Beetles, and now you seldom see one. Is the preponderance of books on the market today the beginning of the end?

Posted in books, culture, internet, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 12 Comments »

Is There too Much Promotion on Facebook?

December 2, 2011 — Pat Bertram

I got a message from a woman on Facebook the other day asking if I’d be willing to write a post about too much promotion on sites like Facebook. At first, I thought this would be an easy task. I detest all the self-promotion that goes on at the site, especially in the groups.

Some promotion is understandable. Pages, of course, are all about “soft sell” promotion, and so any promotion that goes on there is part of the package.  Mostly I use my fan page for announcements, such as kindle sales, and for discussions. (You can find the current discussion here: Do your characters always act at maximum capacity? Should they?)

What people post on their own profile, of course, is up to them. Self-promotion is sometimes the least offensive thing they post on their profiles. How many times can the same dang too-annoyingly-cute-for-words animal video or cloyingly sweet sentimental photo/saying be shared? Sometimes the same thing shows up in the feed day after day after day after day. . . But I digress.

I thought I did a lot of promoting on my profile, in which case I would be the last person to talk about too much promotion on Facebook, but here is a list of the last twelve things I posted on my Facebook profile:

  • Two posts were about Malcolm’s Book Bits and Notions, a great compendium of links to publishing/writing/book news, which everyone in the industry should subscribe to.
  • Two posts were brags — 1) I just posted my 700th blog post!!! and 2) My blog is ranked 177,350 of all blogs and websites in the United States. People stay an average of 4 minutes. And based on internet averages, ptbertram.wordpress.com is visited more frequently by females who are graduate school educated and browse this site from work. At least according to Alexa.com
  • Two posts were pithy observations: 1) At the grocery store today, I saw a book written by someone I met here on facebook when they were first starting out. An odd commentary of our times when hitting the grocery store endstacks means hitting the big time. 2) I doubled my memory!! Facebook works faster now. I don’t.
  • One was an announcement for my live chat on gather.com: Maximum Capacity — No Whine, Just Champagne… | Gather (Same discussion as on my facebook page, but with different participants, and different comments and conclusions)
  • One was an announcement of an article (written by me) that was published in Angie’s Diary: Rhythm in Writing | Angie’s DIARY
  • One was an announcement of the Second Wind Publishing Short Story contest: Short Story Contest. No Entry Fee!
  • The remaining three were links to my blog posts.

Does any of that constitute promotion? In some respects, all of it does, but it’s not blatant. At least I don’t think it is. Maybe you have a different opinion on the matter.

Nor do I promote in the groups I moderate. I post links to interviews I do with other other authors, I welcome new members to the group, and sometimes I post questions to get people to talk. Mostly what I do as moderator is delete everyone’s promotions. The group decided to ban self-promotion except on Saturday because they were sick of it, but apparently everyone assumes that self-promotion is what everyone else does, not what they themselves do. So they continue to post links to their books, links to reviews of their books, requests to “like” their page, and all the other blatantly self-promoting things that we all do on occasion but hate when anyone else does.  Instead of just turning everyone loose on Saturday, I’ve turned Saturday into a self-promotion extravaganza, which has become a lot of fun, and maybe people sell a few books from it, but still, it’s promoting to other authors. We need to be promoting to readers, not each other. This is a concept many authors don’t seem to get. Nor do they seem to understand that being generous and promoting other authors does not take sales away from themselves. I keep plugging away, though, trying to build a kinder, more giving group, one that is not so deep into self-centered promotion.

So, when the woman asked me to write an aritcle, I thought I knew what to say: that there was too much self-promotion on Facebook. Anything interesting gets buried beneath the constant barrage of “Look at me! Buy my book!” But . . . and here’s the sad truth . . . for some people, this constant self-promotion is catapulting them into star status on Amazon. Just because I think there is too much promotion on Facebook, doesn’t mean that there is too much from other people’s points of view.

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of articles about promoting on Facebook, looking for the magic ingredient that I seem to be missing. The only thing I can see that I am missing is a willingness to constantly and blatantly plug my books. One guy maxed out five profiles and made a fortune.  (Of course, that fortune came from the money he made off his book telling how to max out your profile, but it was still a fortune.) I was near maximum capacity on my profile once, but didn’t want to have to switch solely to a page — I like the interaction on the profile — so I unfriended all the blatant promoters such as the multi-level marketers, the people trying to sell me self-improvement books, people urging me to buy their book that will tell me how to make money on facebook, the people who had maxed out their profiles or were about to, and I was left with about 2,000 friends. I’m trying to make friends with my friends, to see if in the long run that will help sell books. And if it doesn’t? I’ve still gained a lot of online friends.

This has turned out to be a rather lengthy post when in fact all I wanted was to get your opinion. Do you think there is too much promotion on Facebook? What would an acceptable form of promotion be? Do you mind all the promotion? Do you do a bit (or a lot) of promotion yourself? If so, what do you do to promote yourself?

Posted in How to, internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 10 Comments »

System Restore for Our Lives

November 20, 2011 — Pat Bertram

When it works right, System Restore is a wonderful computer feature. If something goes wrong, if your computer gets a virus or starts acting abnormally, you can choose a restore point, and go back in time to the way your computer was on a previous day.

My computer got a virus of some sort that generated hundreds of tiny .png files that looked like the French flag. I have Trend Micro, but the full scan takes more than a couple of hours, so I most often do a quick scan, and somehow that virus snuck through. Anyway, since it seemed to elude the program, I did a system restore and voila! All of a sudden it is October 11, 2011 again. At least in my computer.

This made me think: if I had system restore for my life, would I use it? And if so, what restore point would I use? I’d choose a point before he (my life mate) got sick, of course, but he was sick for so very long, we’d have to choose a point many years ago, and I’m not sure I’d want to relive all those years. Would we do anything different to prevent his dying? I doubt it — he always took care of himself — eating healthy, exercising, taking various supplements that improved his situation. I don’t know what else we could have done (especially since, once we were restored to that point, we probably wouldn’t know that we had been living in the future, and hence wouldn’t know to try anything else).

Instead of condemning him to relive all those years, maybe I could choose a restore point closer to his death, but that would be so unfair of me to put him through that again just so I’d get to see him one more time.

And, here’s the kicker. System Restore doesn’t always restore exactly. (Firefox stopped working, and my Trend Micro crashed when I tried to do a full scan.) These computer problems are fixable — I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it, and I’ll probably do the same with Trend Micro — but what if we, after life’s system restore, weren’t exactly restored to the condition we were back then? What if we picked up a glitch, with one of our organs deciding not to work properly? The thought makes me shudder — it was hard enough living those years the first time.

I guess, in the end, I would choose to leave things as they are. Perhaps he’s better where he is, assuming he is anywhere, and me? Well, I have enough glitches in my computer. I don’t need any more of them in my life.

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Dellani Oakes, A Denizen of My Online World

November 18, 2011 — Pat Bertram

I’d like you to meet Dellani Oakes, a wonderful writer, great blogger, Facebook friend to thousands of readers and authors, blog talk radio host, fabulous reviewer. Hmmm. I think I listed everything. Nope — forgot to mention the most important thing of all: she’s also an indefatigable writer. Her two published novels are Indian Summer, an historical romance and Lone Wolf, the first novel in a new science fiction series. Both were published by Second Wind Publishing. (Click on the title link to read the first chapter of each book.) She has 54 works in progress at last count  and a notebook with hundreds of  other ideas for short stories and novels. When asked recently how she thought of all those stories, she replied: “There are more ideas in my head than I can get written down in one lifetime. I’ll have to live forever.”

We can only hope to have her around so long!

You can meet Dellani at Dellani’s Choice, the new blog she recently started to post author interviews and reviews of books she has read. Or you can meet her at Writer’s Sanctuary, her original blog. She’s been collecting author’s book titles & their links as a holiday guide for people who want to find great gifts. So be sure to check out Writer’s Sanctuary.

Click here for an interview with: Dellani Oakes, Author of Lone Wolf

Click here for an interview with: Wil VanLipsig from Lone Wolf  by Dellani Oakes

Click here for an interview with: Manuel Enriques, Hero of Indian Summer by Dellani Oakes

Click here to friend Dellani on: Facebook. Tell her Pat sent you.

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The Miraculous Resurrection of the Suspense/Thriller Writers Group on Facebook

November 15, 2011 — Pat Bertram

A few days ago I talked about how when I first joined Facebook, I hadn’t a clue what to do, and how quite by accident, I became a moderator of an almost defunct writing group called the Suspense/Thriller Writers. I was trolling around the site, looking for groups that might interest me, and I stumbled on that particular group, which had but eight members. On the right sideboard was a button that said, “become a moderator of this group.” I was curious what becoming a moderator would entail, so I clicked the button. And that’s how I became the moderator of the group. To make it a viable group, rather than a typical Facebook group where people just posted book covers and other promotional bits, I decided to have weekly discussions.

We had some great discussions about improving our craft, but facebook, in it’s infinite wisdom (that is irony, in case you didn’t catch it) decided to get rid of the discussion boards. Without the discussion board and the help we offered each other, any serious discussions rapidly disappeared beneath the steady stream of self-promotion. So all we could do was post information about our books, and in doing so, we lost many of those serious about writing.

On Sunday, something miraculous happened. The members of the group began talking about what they wanted from the group and what they didn’t want. Mostly, what they didn’t want was blatant self-promotion, and especially from members who never bothered to participate in any group activities. So, we decided to limit such promotion to Saturday (and I’m hoping to make that a fun day where everyone gets together to talk about their books).

This is the first time in a very long time I’ve felt any excitement at being on Facebook. Not only did we reclaim our group, but I made new friends and reconnected to some long-time facebook friends who had disappeared from my newsfeed.

And today, something else miraculous happened. I found the link to our original discussion board!!! It’s still viable, just not linked to the group, so I don’t know if  it’s worth using, but all that great information is not lost, and losing the information worried me most of all.

So where did I find the link? Here on my blog!! I have a terrible habit of blogging about everything in my cyberworld, and once (or twice or who knows how many times!) I blogged about my facebook activities.  Three years ago exactly (well, minus one day — the post was November 14, 2008) I asked people to join the Suspense/Thriller Writers group, and listed some of the links. And darn if those links don’t still work! Wow!

So, if you’re interested in learning more about writing, meeting writers, networking, join the Suspense/Thriller Writers. All writers (and readers) are welcome. If you don’t think you write suspense, think again. Whatever genre you write, you still write suspense. Suspense at its most basic is making readers worry about what is going to happen to your characters. If they don’t worry, they have no reason to read. Besides, all genres make use of the same basic story elements: plot, characterization, scenes, description. So, see you on Facebook.

Speaking of facebook, you can friend me here: Pat Bertram, but if you want to friend me, be sure you tell me why (say you saw me on my blog or some such). I don’t friend everyone who asks, though I once did. I want to actually get to know the people I know. Also, you can “like” me here: Pat Bertram. I hope you do. “Like” me, I mean.

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Proving I Am Human

November 14, 2011 — Pat Bertram

My email provider has apparently decided I am not human. Every time I try to send an email, it posts strangely twisted letters for me to identify to prove that I am not a machine. Since I have a hard time seeing some of the twists and turns, occasionally this email provider kicks me off its site for not being human.

Does anyone else see the irony of trying to prove to a computer that I am other than it? And losing?

Perhaps the computer should be trying to prove to me that it exists. Or at least that it knows what it’s doing. My email provider says there has been too much spam being sent from my IP address, which is why they need this proof of humanity (as if humans never send junk email) but the IP address they say is mine, the email address all that spam is originating from is in Kansas City. Huh? What does that have to do with me? I am more than a thousand miles away from Kansas, though maybe I fell down a rabbit hole without being aware of it? No, wait . . . rabbit holes have to do with Wonderland, not Kansas. Must be all this email jabberwocky that’s confusing me. Or perhaps to a computer — which I may or may not be — Wonderland and Oz are the same place.

I do understand the rationale behind the captchas — spam is getting way out of control. In the last few weeks, three people I know had their email accounts hacked, and two lost the accounts and everything in them. At least a dozen Facebook friends had their profiles hacked in the past couple of days and naked photos were posted through their accounts (photos that have over five hundred thousand likes, I might add — apparently I’m going about social networking all wrong. I’m lucky to get five likes per post).

And on top of all this, every few minute a png file tries to open itself on my computer, files with bizarre names such as jkjsylddw.png or qwxxcvjks.png. Perhaps a computer or two has decided I’m one of them and they are coming on to me?

Ah, well, I’ll just have to continue traveling the twisted path of trying to prove I am human. But I still think it’s bizarre I have to continually prove it. I mean, whatever happened to “I think, therefore I am”? Shouldn’t that be proof enough?

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Introduction to Beth Groundwater, Author of “A Real Basket Case”

November 8, 2011 — Pat Bertram

When I first joined Facebook, like many new members, I hadn’t a clue what to do, so I became a moderator of an almost defunct writing group called the Suspense/Thriller Writers. Sounds ho-hum, doesn’t it? But it was that simple. I was trolling around the site, looking for groups that might interest me, and I stumbled on that particular group. It had eight members at the time. On the right sideboard was a button that said, “become a moderator of this group.” I was curious what becoming a moderator would entail, so I clicked the button. And that’s how I became the moderator of the group. To make it a viable group, rather than a typical Facebook group where people just posted book covers and other promotional bits, I decided to have weekly discussions.

Brazen me, I picked people from the group at random (after an active membership drive I had over 1,500 members because those were the days authors were signing up for facebook  in droves. Or do I mean signing up in murders — you know, like a murder of crows. What else do you call a convocation of mystery writers?) and asked if they’d like to host a discussion. That was my introduction to Beth Groundwater. Three years ago — November 13, to be exact — I asked if she’d host a discussion, and she said yes. (One of the many strangenesses of Facebook is that the email discussion about the discussion is archived for all times, which is how I know the date, but the discussion itself, which took place on November 18, 2008, has disappeared into the great maw of Facebook’s yesteryear.)

It was an apropos discussion, too, considering all the changes Facebook has made. To lead off her discussion, Beth said, “I’d like to see the members of this group help each other figure out how to effectively use the features of Facebook to promote themselves and their books without turning off members of the network.” Today, without the discussion board and the help we offered each other, any serious discussions rapidly disappear beneath the steady stream of self-promotion. So all we can do is post information about our books, probably turning off the members of the network in the process.

The discussions may have disappeared from the group, but Beth is still there and still a class act.

The title of this post is Introduction to Beth Groundwater, Author of “A Real Basket Case,” but all I did was natter on about me and my running battle with Facebook. So, I’ll tell you what — if you click the link below, it will take you to my other blog where I am interviewing Beth. And that interview is all about her. I promise.

Click here for an interview with: Beth Groundwater, Author of “A Real Basket Case”

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Have You Ever Felt as if the World Were Backward and Upside Down?

November 7, 2011 — Pat Bertram

?drawkcab saw dlrow ruoy fi sa tlef reve uoy evaH

Hɐʌǝ ʎon ǝʌǝɹ ɟǝlʇ ɐs ıɟ ʎonɹ ʍoɹlp ʍɐs ndsıpǝ poʍu¿

¿uʍop ǝpısdn puɐ pɹɐʍʞɔɐq ɥʇoq sɐʍ plɹoʍ ɹnoʎ ɟı sɐ ʇlǝɟ ɹǝʌǝ noʎ ǝʌɐH

At times, we’ve all felt as if the world was backward and upside down, felt as if we needed to stand on our heads to make sense of life. In truth, the world is upside down all the time, or at least half of it is, though I doubt anyone knows which half is upright and which half is upside down. Does space have an orientation? Is there a top and a bottom? A right and a left? An east and a west? We know the east is where our sun rises (at least, that’s what we’ve been taught) but in space, with no rising suns, with not much of anything in fact, is there an east?

We live on a small ball, careening around in space, twirling and tumbling at unimaginable speeds. And yet, for the most part, we manage to deal with each sluggish day as it comes without a thought to our precarious situation. Some days, we feel as if we are on top of the world even when there’s nothing to prove to ourselves that we are on top. Other days, by definition, we have to be at the bottom of the world because, in a globe situation, there is no way for everyone to be on top all the time.

There are some things one cannot make sense of, even when you and the world are both upright. Electrons, for example. We live in an electronic world, with billions of electrons careening around in mostly empty space (hmmm. Too obvious a metaphor, perhaps?). Or maybe there is only one electron zinging around so fast it creates the whole shebang. (Not my idea about there being a single electron, though with the way my mind is working tonight, it might as well be. As for shebang — that’s something no one seems to be able to make sense of — apparently it appeared out of nowhere like the big bang.)

Now, don’t you feel so much better about your problems? Life may not always make sense, but it muddles along whether we understand it or not.

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Angie’s Diary — A Great Site For Readers and Writers

October 25, 2011 — Pat Bertram

Continuing my series of introductions to the residents of my online world, tonight I’m spotlighting Angie’s Diary. I met Angelica Pastorelli on Facebook (see, fb really is good for something!!) and now I am a regular contributor to Angie’s Diary, an online writing magazine to help authors get read.

Most recently I’ve posted a few interviews:

Interview With Deborah J. Ledford (Snare and Staccato)

Interview with Mickey Hoffman (School of Lies)

Interview with Dellani Oakes (Lone Wolf)

Interview: Malcolm R. Campbell (Sarabande)

and these articles:

How to Use a Character Profile

Will Traditional Ways of Selling Books Remain Effective?

Why Do People Get Married?

I’ve also posted a few other articles, including some from last year that are still available in the archives, and I hope to continue posting articles and especially interviews. Interviews are good — I get to promote people I admire, and I don’t have to think of something entertaining or interesting to say.

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