Comments on: The power of blogging and social media

By: alan

alan — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:01:20 +0000

Richard – frankly, no you can’t! Building an author platform these days means being available in a lot of places. You don’t have to use them all, but I would strongly suggest using some. You can give as much or as little information as you like. You’re no more open to crazy emails or anything like that than you are posting a comment here really.

By: Richard Sutton

Richard Sutton — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:13:56 +0000

Alan;
]’ve been utilizing the web for promotion and dispensing information as well as securing reader comments, but I’ve been resisting some of the new more social networking venues such as Facebook, and Twitter. I’m a pretty private person, and I have concerns about throwing myself wide open to all kinds of crazy emails and implied personal contact. What are your experiences, on a personal level, with the demands placed upon you by your involvement with these new tools? Can I continue to do without them?

By: Interest Driven By Word Of Blog « Mist and Shadows

Interest Driven By Word Of Blog « Mist and Shadows — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:13:40 +0000

[...] first was a post from Alan Baxter, talking about comments he’d seen in a post by the agent Nathan [...]

By: alan

alan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:08:00 +0000

Rabid Fox – Thanks for chiming in. It’s good to know that all the work authors are doing on the net really does pay off. After all, in the “old days” people would often read books recommended by friends and family. Now that circle of friends is global. Doesn’t it make you all warm and fuzzy inside?

By: Rabid Fox

Rabid Fox — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:32:17 +0000

I must admit that the blogosphere has introduced me to a treasure trove of authors and their works, since I started digging around. I’ve been pointed towards some very entertaining novels, gotten peaks at short story publications and periodicals–hard to come by in my neck of the woods–and a plethora of sub-genres I would have ignored in the past.

It’s good stuff.

By: Someone is wrong on the internet! « Publishing Renaissance

Someone is wrong on the internet! « Publishing Renaissance — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:10:47 +0000

[...] Last night (or this morning, depending on where you are in the world) Alan posted a link back to a very excellent article on his blog about social networking. In it he gave a few examples of why “online activity and social media is [...]

By: alan

alan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:11 +0000

Naomi – I tend to be quite arbitrary with the links I click, often based on how much time I feel I have. But I know it works, so I take advantage of it. In all honesty, I’ve found some really interesting stuff by clicking links that crop up on Twitter. And some… not so interesting stuff too.

By: Naomi

Naomi — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:03:32 +0000

Yup.

I’ve never been a big fan of subscribing to services providing a big bunch of links for me to click on. I’m not sure I’m in the majority, though, because I’ve been amazed at the number of people following my fiction-links twitter account (@onlinefiction) and actually clicking through to check out the fiction featured. Odd, to my way of thinking, but it works.

By: alan

alan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:26:05 +0000

On the subject of this post, check out this post from SciFi Watch: http://scifiwatch.net/?p=2835

By: alan

alan — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:09:07 +0000

Thanks for comment, Graham. You make excellent points, all the moreso because you’re a consumer and you’re talking from the point of view of someone that buys books only, rather than someone that is also writing and trying to sell books.

It’s very easy for people like me to become convinced of the things I wrote about in this post because it’s in our best interests to believe them. Having an unbiased, consumer response like yours is incredibly encouraging.

And yeah, the irony of a computer technician not requiring an online presence while a writer of books does is not lost on me. The world is a funny old place.