Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
Jerry had a well loved column in Byte Magazine before the Internet existed. I think called Chaos Manor.
Most novel writers do not have the skills (social or technical), personality or maybe even the time to do blogs or social media. Also unless you are ALREADY famous the impact is about zero!
Some authors can't write effective material shorter than a Novella, and that might need 20 revisions.
Many would find it depressing to use Social Media and too much a waste of time. Also Mark Zuckerberg has 70% of Social Media and is exactly the sort of person anyone with a social conscious would love to hate. A parasitic and privacy invasive operation to sell user behaviour to convince advertisers that his platforms are best. Apart from the exploitation, there is no proof it actually works. They've lied about video and advert views and selling of data.
Google Services only exist to collect data from users with the same motive as Zuckerberg.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ns_by_Facebook
and List of mergers and acquisitions by Alphabet
It's depressing that the Big Publishers now look at Social Media profiles of possible authors and now expect perfectly proofed MSS and that the author, if given an advance and contract, is expected to be active on Social Media.
Basically it's a LIE. Social Media only works if you are famous, or by luck, or you have cute kittens, or too much spare time. Maybe several of them.
Also if you join a forum or SM etc to ONLY promote your book, you are dead in the water. You have to be helpful, insightful, humorous etc and only mention the book when asked or in passing.
Most of the money the big publishers spend on promotion is wasted. A tiny proportion become mass market. The majority don't even make the advance in royalties (though some of those do make a profit). The big Publishers are letting Amazon and Social Media eat their lunch with poor websites, no POD, poor communication with bookshops (when will it be in print? --Dunno, they never tell us that), daft ebook and audio book pricing. Amazon ALSO dominates ebooks, over 90% world and via Audible has most of the audio book market.
So it's really really hard to write and polish a good book. It's many times harder to promote it. And pimp is the right word for SM. |
Yes, Jerry Pournelle wrote Chaos Manor. That was also the name of his blog. He was active on BIX back when it was around.
The point I'm trying to make isn't that engaging with the fans is going to make you noticed when you are a brand new author, it's more that authors with a body of work and people who read those books should do what is necessary to make sure that fans know when they have new books and remain interested in the author. They need readers to grab their books when the book is release, for that matter, they need readers to know that a new book has been released. They need fans to retain an emotional attachment to their work.
Brand new authors have to get noticed on place like this and goodreads and have people recommend them to other readers. They need good ratings on Amazon. That's a different sort of need.