It's not all bad in the virtual world

Seriously, it isn't. I know I've been ranting about social media for ages, and I certainly stick to my main opinion, but it has good sides, too. I've made friends I may not have made without the Internet.
I've recently said to my lovely friend Winn Smith, that I'm glad I've taken up writing, and that I am on Twitter. Why? Because I wouldn't have met her otherwise. It all started out with me posting a link to my short stories and she downloaded them and tweeted that she really enjoyed the bok. Of course I was flattered, I would be lying if I said I wasn't, but somehow it started a wonderful series (novel-sized by now) of e-mail exchanges about everything in life, and of course: writing. She's become a beta reader, a proofreader (very good one, I will add), a humorist and a friend. We're going to meet up shortly for the first time, because, although both living in London, we haven't managed to find a date in over a year. Sad, but true. I'm really looking forward to meeting her in person.
In fact, due to social media, I've become friends with quite a few people. Readers, who got in touch and befriended me on Facebook, now get a close update on what I'm up to. We chat, have exchanges about our everyday life, support each other when the going gets tough, etc. I've learned that many readers like to see a human being behind the author, and that they are also very interested in getting involved in the process of the writing. A few have offered to beta read my books, or I've asked them straight out. For an author there's almost nothing more important than beta readers in the early stages. Here is where a reader can have a say and be a big part of making a novel better. Although many authors say they write for themselves, as I do, I also want my readers to like what I'm writing. They need to connect to the book in order to feel something, so if they collectively don't like something in a book, I must go a back to square one and change it. Not that it ever happened, but my beta readers have their say and I take them seriously.
I've also seen enthusiastic tweets about my books or my writing, often from people I have never spoken to. They share their emotions through Twitter or Facebook with their friends, which, to me, is means the world. Nothing is better than word of mouth in the publishing business.
So, yes, it's not all bad in the virtual world. As long as the good outweighs the bad, I'm happy to be part of it.

Earth at Facebook � you listening?

Well, if you have a minute, I'd like to talk to you. Why, you wonder? Don't be impatient, I'll tell you right now.

You see, Facebook, almost every time when I log in, I will have suggestions aplenty, of who I should be friends with, which games the people I'm connected with play, adverts explaining to me how I would lose weight or pictures of funny crooked houses (I'm still unsure what that ad is about); you inform me about who changed their profile and who read what news. The point is, Facebook, I don't fucking care about all of that. It's hefty enough to deal with all the little red figures, forcing me to catch up with all the fifty six comments other people made on a thread I mindlessly commented on.

Now, since recently you started to inform me that the person who posted on a thread is also a friend of my friends, and every time this person replies to someone on that thread, while I'm trying to type mine, this huge box appears, hiding what I'm typing. So I have to click it away or wait until it disappears, unfortunately, by then, the conversations has moved on or I've lost my thought. Or worse, I hit enter and the whole error riddled answer appears and while I went to the kitchen to get a glass of much needed red wine, the ability to edit my post that reads as if my iguana tried tap dance on my laptop, has gone, too.

Not that this is the only worry I have. I have been known to update my status with � admittedly � rather confusing statements such as: I have notpublished my sequel.

Much to the amusement of those who happened across it, which then developed into a long discussion and my ever growing embarrassment of not being able to change the innocent t to a w. Do you think it's funny that I accidentally called the lovely Catherine, Catering? Or the occasion when I drank red whine, making people think I probably had far more than it's good for me?

For months now, I've been asking, no pleading, begging you even, to introduce an edit-button, so I can correct errors I stumble across the next day. Up to today, you denied me my wish. Why?

And just to torture me a bit more and add to my, as you will probably think, trivial problems, you needed to introduce a new timeline � which, for those of us who use a touch pad instead of a mouse � is a pain to scroll down to the last comment and not an improvement to the overall performance. When I caved and changed to the damn thing, you promised me I could drag that picture around. I guess I don't have to tell you that it wasn't moving one bit.

Facebook, if you can introduce so many useless functions and buttons, why don't you seem to be able to get one of your highly skilled people to get us an edit-button?

Because if you don't I will call you Failbook from now on!

Tip of the week: Who to follow on Twitter or connect with in general

Be honest: how many of your followers are writers or authors and how many do you follow because they are writers or authors? My blind guess would be about 95%. I admit, when I started out with social networking on Facebook, all I did was trying to gather 'friends' and I envied those who had over 1000 on their list. Same with Twitter, I connected with anyone whose name I vaguely knew.
It became clear very soon that having all those writer friends on facebook didn't really bring me much other than having their constant promotion in my face as soon as they self-published. I started to delete those I never really talked to and kept those who are dear to me and with whom I have interesting, funny and informative exchanges.

On Twitter, I stopped following back. Instead I take a look at the profiles and blogs (if link provided) and decide then if they are 'worth' to follow. The problem is that I'm an author myself, so my tweets or the tweets of my followers will most likely be about writing or the books. It's preaching to the choir. There's no need to gather as many followers as possible, because only if your followers retweet your tweet, you'll have more exposure and that only if they have plenty of followers themselves. I have a few followers who have over 30k people following them, we never talk, they never retweet my tweets so I'm wondering what's the point of following them?

I observed that I'm gathering new followers (mostly writers) and when I visit their profiles and they don't interest me enough to cause me to follow back, they'll unfollow me a little bit later. We never exhanged a word. Which means, they didn't follow me because they found my tweets or profile interesting, they followed me in order to get a follow back. Well, no, I don't see the point.

Please don't get me wrong, I love the people I connect with, they are carefully selected -- at least those who'll stay in my list as I'm slowly going to clean it up -- and I'm having good conversations with many of them. Sometimes we don't talk for ages, but that's a Twitter thing, time differences, life, etc., but I only follow those who will catch my eye, be it due to their profile, their blog/website or because of our exchange.

To up your 'presence' write interesting blog posts, informative, educating, be versatile; something that'll make you stop and read another person's blog. Write about what you know, blog regularly and be selective with the people you connect with. A following of 4k or more won't help you if they only follow you because you follow them.

Have you noticed that a large following helped your exposure? I'd like to know about.

Please 'like' my facebook page - a rant

How many times did someone you didn't even interact with  -- on facebook or elsewhere, sent you a friend request, just to immediately post a link to his or her facebook page, asking to take a look or 'like' it?
Does that annoy you as much as it annoys me?
No, seriously. I don't have a problem with people building their pages and if a fan happens to like it -- fine by me.
What pisses me off is the cheek people have to pester me with their generous offers on my wall. I always feel like I've opened the door to someone I just met and, without saying hello, he comes in to placard my walls and leaves flyers everywhere, just to bugger off after that.
I don't like that sort of behaviour. Facebook has become more and more a pain in the backside and people only use it for promotion instead of communicating with each other. Every time I get a friend request, I check the person out to see if they plaster their links on the new friend's wall or not. If you look at their own pages, it's often full of links to their books which are available on amazon, smashwords or even on the moon. Despite having 2548 friends, they don't interact with them. Gee, why don't you just tattoo the title of your book in bright red on your forehead and walk through the streets? Would get you certainly more attention than get on fellow writers' and authors' nerves.
As you probably have guessed by now: I'm allergic to it.
You know, I wonder why those people take themselves so damn seriously? Who do they think they are, written a book, sold three copies and feel the need to force their fan-page down other people's throats?

Do they not understand that begging to take a look and like their page is not only the pathetic attempt to gather some better looking figures underneath the like-button, but also preaching to the choir?
I used to have a page for my novel No Wings Attached and I remember that I asked my few friends I had back then to 'like' it. I think I ended up with something around 26, oh dizzy heights of stardom.
I'm trying to understand what the point is, because unless you have hundreds or more people following your updates, it's just more work for a site nobody's interested in. How many of those who've been asked to 'like' the page actually go back for a follow up? I place my bet on 1%. 

I have you know that I'm going to build one in the near future and be it only to take revenge on all those authors who thought it's appropriate to leave their rubbish in my living room. And I'll leave a link three times a day, every day.

There, now, I feel better.

How to annoy your friends and followers

I've got to admit I might be a bit touchy when it comes to the topic, but those who know me, know I tell it like it is. No holding back and I'm rather sure there are many more people out there, who either suffer in silence or just click some buttons to get rid of the problem.

I'm talking about tagging, posting links, messages, over-promoting.



On Twitter:
1. There are people who only follow in hope you'll follow back. As soon as you do that, you'll receive a message telling you to check out their site, blog, book, link, picture, take your pick. It annoys me a great deal. I will take a look at your site when you say something I find interesting, no need to pester me.
2. Then you have those who post promotional links as if there is no tomorrow, no personal conversation, only link after link, clogging up my feed. I will press unfollow very soon.
3. I will not follow someone who collects followers and never tweets. What's the point? If they never tweet, they will most likely never really succeed in whatever they're doing. Or they're just collecting 50k followers to then bombard their poor and unexpecting following with their links.
4. There was a guy who followed me, when I followed back, he really had the nerve to ask me to RT his tweet. I was new and I did it, asked him to RT something in return. I will not do that again. The next person who asked had me press unfollow. 

On Facebook:
1. I've ranted about tagging in my status today. Since a few days there's this joke making its round, where you have to tag the first ten people on your friends-list and they all do silly things according to this joke. Great, I had a giggle the first time, then had  my mouth twitch the second time, but when I got tagged a couple of times more, I almost lost it. Why? Because it's not only the tagging, it's also the notification you get every time someone responds on this thread. I don't get this tagging business anyway. It might be wonderful for some teens who proudly share their drunken pictures, but I'm using facebook professionally as an author. I once had a guy tagging me in all his pictures and I couldn't even remove the tag. I had to unfriend him in the end in order to avoid it happening again.
Though I'm certainly one up for a laugh, I don't get why people feel the need to tag me in their writing. If you want me to look at your writing, ask me, being tagged feels like throwing your notes in front of me, saying: go, read it! I had one guy who tagged me almost on a daily basis, but I'm not interested in his writing. Such behavior is obnoxious. I've tagged a handful of people once, maybe twice, but I'd rather just post the note and ask for comments. Works fine without forcing others.
2  Sending a friend-request and as soon as I accept I get an invitation to look at a page or just to 'like' the page, usually a book. Sorry, dear, but I don't know you or your book yet, why would I like it? I've stopped responding to all requests. It shows up on my page and I decide what I like and what not. Or those who ask to share their link: I share what I feel 'worth it', not because you ask me to, maybe I need to know you and your writing first? In the end I'm an author who has a reputation, what if you wrote the worst book on earth and I share it? Sharing is recommending and I won't do that without knowing you or your book.

Google +
Since recently, I'm getting e-mails from friends who are new to google +. I'm so happy for them, but I'm really not happy to receive several e-mails per day telling me what they found out. If I want to know, I can google it myself and take a look. I've not asked to be in the mailing list and I will immediately unsubscribe. Luckily, only two have done it to me so far. I will forgive them, but imagine you have hundreds of friends and they all add your address and click the 'send-button' a few times per day, you'll certainly be not impressed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely for supporting each other, helping to get noticed, etc. but some people really take it to the limits. You will always find me retweeting links to blogs or books from friends and tweeps; I've had a lot of support and of course I'll give back -- with pleasure -- but I decide myself who and what, not because I get it dictated.