In 2010, when we were initially added to the Amazon Professional Conversion Services list,
Amazon asked me to basically donate time on the KDP boards, helping DIYers make their Ebooks. So, I did, and I still do. But that's been 7 years, now. It's nearly impossible for me to hang on any of those other boards, websites, etc., b/c either I see/run into our clients, or I am asked a bajillion questions about ePublishing, or how-to make eBooks, or how-to do this or that or the next thing....so
all of it is work for me. Not relaxation.
Thus, while I still donate time at the KDP, b/c we were asked to (and I figure, all things being equal, I should), I
don't hang out at other author's/publisher's forums. I have a few blogs and publishers that I follow; but lurky-wise, not noticeably. This, MR, is one of the few places I can come and relax. Just hang. Be mostly myself, instead of some vanilla, whitewashed, no-opinions version of myself, that has to not offend ANYONE, EVER. I mean, it's bloody tedious when you're a known person, (within my area of expertise, I mean, not like some celebutwit or actress or something) with an Internet biz; I probably have the single most boring, vanilla FB page and Twitter account known to humankind.
Before I had this biz, I had ZERO presence on the Net. I had nice little avatars, and ZIP presence as myself. I could say/post/be whatever I wanted.
I didn't have to be invisible. Now? Now I'm this nice, boring, vanilla person who never has political opinions or anything else. It's like being in a type of prison, really.
While I don't have much time for most of Hollyweird, it's given me sympathy, for how horrible their lives must be, forced to live as some idealized version of themselves, in the public eye. I cannot imagine what it's like. I already know how bad it is, in my little corner of the universe. Being a star? Must be a goddamned nightmare.
Hitch