Big Brother, Thy Name is Facebook

February 14, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I feel as if I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole, and that rabbit hole has a name — Facebook. A couple of months ago, I met a reviewer on Facebook who had been prohibited from posting her reviews of mysteries on the Mystery Writer’s of America Page by MWA. (Isn’t that bizarre? Wouldn’t you think they would have wanted her reviews.) I invited her to post her reviews in my Suspense/Thriller Writers Group. I’ve mentioned before that we’ve banned most promotions except for reviews of other authors’ works, interviews with other authors, and excerpts from other authors’ novels. I’ve been trying to foster a sense of camaraderie, of authors helping authors rather than letting the authors inundate us with book links everyone is sick of seeing, and this reviewer’s posts seemed to fit with my concept.

But now she has been banned from posting links to her reviews in my group, not by me but by Facebook. Apparently, FB now have new rules banning any sort of promotion on one’s profile and from one’s profile. You have to use a business page for that. And so for now, people are still being allowed to blatantly promote their books, but unpaid reviewers are banned. Not just prohibited, but blocked — the links from her WordPress account and Networked blogs no longer post to her profile. And if she posts the links manually, her account will be suspended.

Technically, Facebook has always prohibited promotion. The profiles are supposed to be about socializing and connecting with real life friends, but people posted books links, giveaways, and all sorts of promos anyway, and Facebook never enforced it. A major change is coming now that FB is traded publicly. If FB allows promo anywhere on the site, the pages lose their competitive edge. FB also loses potential advertising bucks. (A related issue is that FB is not being welcomed by investors as enthusiastically as they had expected — huge numbers of users are accessing the site via phone and tablet and are bypassing the advertising, which makes FB not quite so lucrative as it was just a few months ago.)

But still . . . not to allow book reviews? Why is that a business? For some people it might be, but for this particular reviewer, it is a hobby, nothing more.

I asked the reviewer how FB found her and why they singled her out. She responded, “They tripped over me on another site and they FOLLOWED ME THERE! Yes, THEY FOLLOWED ME and about 4,000 OTHER people! That’s how they knew about my reviews, reviews that are free mind you. In time, though, I believe this will get to everyone. I’m betting I’m just in the first batch, but I’m sure they will be more.”

Yikes. Shades of big brother. I generally presume articles about Facebook fall under the category of urban legend until corroborated, but this reviewer’s experience seems to corroborate the following article: Wow. Facebook Rules Prohibit Users From Promoting Their Work, Company, And Much, Much More . . .

Posted in blogging, culture, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 9 Comments »

How Do You Discover the Books You Want to Read?

February 12, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Two-and-a-half-years ago, I took an informal poll to find out how people discover new authors. I posted the following on discussion boards on both Goodreads and Facebook:

It seems as if there are as many ways of discovering books as there are readers, but I’m curious as to how you choose the books you want to read. Do you go by reviews? By recommendations from friends? Because you’re familiar with other works by the author? Do you ever read a book because of an ad you saw? Because of a blog article? Because of a mention on a website such as Goodreads? Do you cruise book stores, libraries, or online sites like Amazon? Do you find them some way I haven’t mentioned, such as gifts, perhaps?

Admittedly, the questions were loaded, but I still got an interesting and probably quite accurate overview:

Favorite authors or previously read authors: 36
Word of mouth: 26
Blog reviews/Book websites: 26
Goodreads/Shelfari: 24
Local bookstores: 21
Amazon/B&N/other online stores: 15
Library: 13
Publisher sites/newsletters: 5
Social networking sites like Facebook: 5
Book Clubs: 5
Author appearances/writing conferences: 5
NY Times bestseller list: 5
Offline reviews: 5
Yard sales/second hand bookstores: 4
Advertising: 3
Saw the movie: 3
Oprah: 1
Free downloads: 1
Gifts: 1

Recently, I posed the questions and got similar responses (though from a much smaller group):

books by favorite authors: 8
recommendations from friends: 5
browsing in bookstores: 4
libraries: 2
imprints (the trade name under which the book is published): 1
newspaper reviews: 1
blog reviews:1
recommendations from Amazon: 1
book clubs: 1

So, even with small independent publishing houses springing up like new forest growth, and self-published books proliferating like elm tree seeds, the means of finding books are still the same. That means, if you are an author looking for a readership, you need to be everyone’s favorite author and have your readers recommend you. An almost impossible task when most people already have their favorite authors.

What about you? How do you discover the books you want to read? Or rather where. (A lot of people said they found books to read by the front cover or the blurb on the back, but I’m more curious as to where they saw the cover.)

Posted in blogging, books, internet, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 9 Comments »

Celebrating Twenty Weeks of Daily Blogging

February 11, 2012 — Pat Bertram

On September 25, 2011, I made a vow to blog for 100 days straight without fail. I wanted to get back into the discipline of daily writing, but didn’t want to make a major commitment such as writing a novel. I figured daily blog posts would satisfy the discipline and also satisfy the part in me that needs the reinforcement of completing a project. I passed the 100 day mark without even noticing, and now I’ve been posting a blog every day for twenty weeks — 140 posts.  Surprisingly, very few are frivolous, posted just for the sake of posting something. So today, let’s forget the seriousness of my usual posts. Let’s forget that this is Saturday, my sadder day. Let’s forget that my publisher, Second Wind Publishing, has moved to a new website and I have thousands of now-dead links to update. Let’s forget all of that, and just play.

And if that isn’t any fun, here’s a jigsaw puzzle (I get such a kick out of these!)

Want more fun?

Click here to read the first chapter of: Light Bringer

Click here to read the back cover copy and an excerpt: Light Bringer

Click here to check out (and buy at $2.00 off!) Light Bringer at Second Wind Publishing’s new site: Light Bringer

Posted in blogging, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Is “No Promotion” Really so Hard to Understand?

February 9, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I moderate a writing discussion group on Facebook where we’ve banned any kind of promotion. The point is to develop a sense of camaraderie among members, and to share writing tips, techniques, friendship. It’s supposed to be a destination, a fun place to hang out, rather than a bulletin board with links to other sites. It’s almost impossible to get people to understand the benefits of such a group. The following correspondence I had with a Facebook Friend (now a former Facebook friend) is a graphic example. FBF joined the group on December 18, participated in a few discussions, and then sent me an interview for my interview blog.

December 20 — FBF: Did you receive my interview? I felt really good about my answers. What did you think?

December 23 — PB: Yes, I received it. Haven’t read it yet, but I did see it. I’ll read it when I format it for the site. It will be perhaps in a week.

December 23 — FBF: Yeah. You answered me on a post in the group so I already knew. I’m very excited. Thank you for doing this for me. You are amazing. Don’t let those promo people bug you. They obviously lack the social skills necessary to make friends and understand what professional respect means.

December 23 — PB: Actually, the one that bothered me the most was the guy who posted on the wall that what he hated was my whining about no promo. Before you joined, all anyone posted was promo, and some of the members rebelled. I was pleased because I’d just about decided to dismantle the whole thing. I think we’re developing a great group. Thank you for joining and for participating in our discussions.

December 23 — FBF: Your welcome. I’ve already gotten my book on two websites. An interview and two reviews in progress. And I never promoted my book once! So thank you.

December 23 — PB: See, that’s the whole point. Get to know people, and let them promote your book! And you’re welcome. I am glad to do what I can.

December 31 — PB: Hi. I posted your interview. Thank you! Sorry it took so long. Let me know if you need me to make any changes.

January 1 — FBF: It’s great. Thank you.

January 10 — FBF (in response to the question what three words describe your writing?): Comical, dialogue, needs-improvement. But that’s why I’m here.

February 8 — FBF: I posted a promo (a book trailer) on the group wall yesterday for a good writer, and it was removed. I’ve had enough. I’m outa here. [And then he used a lot of not-so-nice words.]

Posted in internet, life, writing. Tags: , , . 12 Comments »

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.

Posted in blogging, culture, internet. Tags: , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

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.

Posted in culture, internet, life. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »

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.

Posted in blogging, internet, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

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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