Curmudgeonly Author vs Social Networking

I've been meaning to do a post about social networking for a while but I kept putting it off, so when this post from Monkey Bear Reviews went up with accompanying toon I figured it was a sign. Bwahaha! Sadly accurate.

I'm not sure when it happened but I turned into Curmudgeonly Author, which is interesting because it's only recently that I started identifying myself as an author at all. I was a dabbler. I dabbled. Even now I have to stop and think before I put on the Author hat if I'm not sitting in front of the computer. When I was at Lexi Ryan's house someone asked me "Do you write dirty books too?" and I had a three second pause where I was wondering what the blazing hell she was talking about. The Curmudgeonly Author part comes in when I see other authors beating newbies over the head with promo advice, and Curmudgeonly Author scratches her ass and grumbles, "What's the matter with worrying about the writing part first?"

I am a promo asshat compared to others. I don't do nearly enough of it. While some networking dynamos would love to give me some pointers, the fact is I probably won't follow through. I don't have time to blog hop. I check the author Yahoo! groups I belong to but I never post. My online presence is generally confined to my Twitter stream and this blog. I honestly don't know how authors with families do it, because as a single, childless woman with a full time job I will be lucky if I remember to have a meal that isn't coffee flavoured. When I have some time to dedicate to the Author it's got to be for writing, and even Author has to compete with The Golden Girls if it happens to be on.

So with Curmudgeonly Author being so stingy with the amount of time I am willing to give to social networking versus writing in what little time the rest of my day gives me, I've decided to be stingy with my online presence, which brings us to the point of this whole post.

This isn't a how-to, by the way, it's just my thoughts on the various social media options out there. Whatever works for you, go for it. Just don't forget the writing part and for the love of baby turtles, chocolate, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, read the submission guidelines. Put those at the top of your Holy Grail of Publishing Advice.

Blogger/Wordpress - I'm not talking reviewers, I'm talking a personal blog. Mine is my contsant, my touchstone (yes, I did rip that from The X-Files movie, thank you). I can't even remember what in the hell I was blogging about when I first started my blog. Probably nothing, since I was kind of a drive-by writer when I first started it. Bit by bit I've been condensing my entire online presence here. I like that I can have pages to include extras without making the blog layout look like a gadget truck exploded on the way to the gadget factory. Anyone can post at Blogger and sign however they want -- with their Google account, Open ID, or just their name, which makes it easier to check out someone who has left a message. The one problem I've had is finding stuff to write about when I don't have any news. Another problem is purely technical - readers like Google trunciate my posts. Grrr.

(Reader: RSS feed is a must. I spend half my day in Google Reader so unless you have an RSS feed chances are I won't read your blog because I won't know you have something new.)

Livejournal - I used to have a few accounts at Livejournal and a few at Livejournal's less shiny but superior cousin, Insanejournal. What Livejournal has going for it is that's it's pretty and you can express yourself with user icons, and it has a pretty good RSS feed. The problem is that you have to put money into your account for extra storage, extra user pics, to remove the ads and to customize it into something that could pass as an author page. Also as far as I know you can't buy a custom domain so you're always xxx.livejournal.com. For a blog to only share with friends it's great, but I found it totally pointless as an author tool. I stopped syndicating my blog there and last week I just closed the account and streamed my friends into Google. Not worth my time.

(Reader: and as far as commenting goes it sucks ass because without an open ID or a Livejournal account you can only comment as "Anonymous.")


MySpace - I signed up like five times and each time I closed my account. I hate the layout and customizing it is a pain in the ass. Not for me.

(Reader: I hate websites that have music forced upon you when you click, so I avoid MySpace unless it's a musician who streams their own music. I also hate the way the friends thing works - glittery gifs are not your friend, people.)

Twitter - I've used this more than anything just because I like shooting the shit. I've met some awesome people on Twitter and it's a very good way to get to know other folks. However it does encourage knee-jerk reactions and I've had a few myself. Overall though I've had nothing but a great experience as an author.

(Reader: Everyone tweets differently and sometimes can be annoying. I unfollowed someone because she tweeted every 60 seconds from the airport departures lounge. I unfollowed another because every single thing she tweeted was a promo for her book. Ok, I get it, you have a book. If you annoy me I'm less likely to buy it. Also, blip.fm is not your friend.)

Yahoo! Groups - I don't Yahoo! so I don't do Yahoo! groups a lot. The groups I belong to impact me directly, like author or editor/publisher loops. My latest editor uses it to update her authors on what she's working on, which is fan-fucking-tastic, and was super useful when her email was being wonky. I don't think I'd use it as an author though. Just another thing to have to update.

(Reader: I don't use Yahoo! - not my thing.)

Facebook - I closed my account because it I didn't find it a very useful tool for me as an author. My friends were mainly other authors who proceeded to invite me to join their fan pages or invite me to events every week. My feed was a mess of applications. I pretty much only ever interacted with Saranna DeWylde and Lexi Ryan. Overwall Facebook was just one big annoyance. I could have kept it and just sent my updates through Hootsuite but overall the problems with Facebook were too much effort for the payback. Deleted.

(Reader: Hate. Facebook. So. Much.)


Good Reads - Fantastic tool. I haven't figured out if there is a way I can tie my author page to anthologies I'm a part of but I really like this platform. I don't use it as much as I could, but even with the barebones it's great.

(Reader: I could gush for hours about how much I love this site. The only annoyance -- authors recommending their own books, not cool. I've only forgiven one because she considered her latest book her best work and wanted to share that, but overall I have a problem with authors recommending their own books. The recommendation means nothing to me as opposed to one coming from someone who has the same taste in books as I do.)

Website - I covered this in the part about Blogger. I gave my website the heave-ho when I realized that I can do the same damn thing with Blogger for only the cost of the domain addresses. I wouldn't go back to an actual page-by-page website unless I absolutely had to, and I've gotten some good feedback on what I have right now.

(Reader: YES. I've bought single short titles from authors and immediately bought their entire catalogues based on those titles, so a good website that lists an author's stuff and where to get it. Also, like the Blogger, easy on the gadgets and bling. I have an internal timer that sends me packing if your website takes too long to load.)

Thoughts?

The First Ever Billy Loves Stu Meme for Horror Bloggers

So I am not a horror blogger but I am a huge horror fan and I faithfully follow Billy Loves Stu, so when they posted this meme I had to do it. So without further ado, my answers to The First Ever Billy Loves Stu Meme for Horror Bloggers.

1: In Ten Words or Less, Describe Your Blog:
Pimpage for my books, shit I love to read, random thoughts, and more recently my quest to get rid of my shit so I’m not found dead under a pile of rubble and half eaten by stray cats.

2: During What Cinematic Era Where you Born?
A: The Classic Horror Era (late 30's to 40's)
B: The Atomic Monster/Nuclear Angst Era (the late 40's through 50's)
C: The Psycho Era ( Early 60's)
D: The Rosemary's Baby Era (Mid to Late 60's)
E: The Exorcism Era (Early to mid 70's)
F: The Halloween Era (Late 70's to Early 80's)
G: The Slasher Era (Mid to late 80's)
H: The Self Referential/Post Modern Era (1990 to 1999)

F. The Halloween Era, though I prefer the Exorcism era myself.

3: The Carrie Compatibility Question:
(gay men and straight women - make your choice from section A)
A: Billy Nolan or Tommy Ross, who would you take to the prom?

As much as it pains me to admit it, I’m going with Billy Nolan. Tommy is just too of a nice guy for me. Yeah, I'd let vintage Travolta feel me up.

4: You have been given an ungodly amount of money, and total control of a major motion picture studio - what would your dream Horror project be?

An adaptation of Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk. Oh sweet mother of God, I would spend as much as it took to make the discovery of the nun and her baby in the bowels of the abbey as horrific on screen as it was in my mind.

5: What horror film "franchise" that others have embraced, left you cold?

Saw does nothing for me.

6: Is Michael Bay the Antichrist?

I want to say yes so badly, but I loved the first Transformers movie like I love baby turtles, chocolate, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

7: Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Frankenstein Monster - which one of these classic villains scares you, and why?

Dracula, because he has that mind control thing going. Unless it’s Hot Dracula. Mind control me naked, baby.

8: Tell me about a scene from a NON HORROR Film that scares the crap out of you:

Delacroix’s execution scene in The Green Mile. I had read the book and I knew it was coming, so when I first viewed it was through my fingers. I still go find something else to do during this scene when I watch. Just listening to him scream while he's being cooked alive ... *shudders*

9: Baby Jane Hudson invites you over to her house for lunch. What do you bring?

Frank's Red Hot. I put that shit on everything, including dead rats.

10: So, between you and me, do you have any ulterior motives for blogging? Come, on you can tell me, it will be our little secret, I won't tell a soul.

Hrmm. More ulterior than shameless self promotion?

11: What would you have brought to Rosemary Woodhouse's baby shower?

The corpse of Ira Levin. Before you judge me, read Son of Rosemary. Yeah, he deserves it.


12: Godzilla vs The Cloverfield Monster, who wins?

The Cloverfield Monster. Godzilla would ultimately fall the fuck over and be eaten by those freaky spidery things.

13: If you found out that Rob Zombie was reading your blog, what would you post in hopes that he read it?

Stop. Just ... stop. And take Eli Roth with you.

14: What is your favorite NON HORROR FILM, and why?

It’s a tie between O Brother, Where Art Tho and Labyrinth. If you’ve seen these movies and have to ask why, I will judge you.

15: If blogging technology did not exist, what would you be doing?

Reading VC Andrews while drinking more coffee.

Stuff: The Sequel

I'm still on my purging kick. Just when I thought I was done and in the clear I rearranged a room, moving a sofa from one to another and thus changing the entire function of said room, and I discovered I still have a lot of crap that just needs to go away.

But the painful part is right around the corner. I've already started to purge my TBR pile. It only hurts as I'm removing the books from the pile but once they're out the door I don't miss them. In response to my post about series Dhympna posted her own thoughts and indicated that she has a tendency to buy an entire series on faith. I have had similar tendencies in the past. I bought the first few Terry Goodkind books and while I immensely enjoyed the first I just could never find the time or the attention-span to jump into subsequent books.

As I approached the bookshelves with a give-away bag I made the decision to read like I did when I was a kid and I was allowed only one or two books to take home from my weekly trip to Woozles. I won't buy the book until I'm actually out of things to read and unless I intend to start reading it right away. Since I've been pretty good with my book moratorium (Wolf Men and vacation books aside) it's not as big of a shock to my system as I anticipated. I'm making the transition from book collector to reader, and the reader bought a digital book reader for a reason.

Regardless, this weekend is going to hurt like a  fucker. I'm hitting the Shelf of Honour. It will remain the Shelf of Honour but there are some things on it that just have to go. While some books are safe, others I can let go of. LJ Smith's The Secret Circle series, Kinsella's Becky Bloomwood books and Cabot's Heather Wells books (yes brain, I know there are more books coming and there is no rule that says you have to own all the books in order to enjoy the forthcoming titles ...), Mary Stewart's Arthurian saga, and a few others. Pretty much the only book that's safe is Paul Burke's Father Frank, which I had to order from Ireland and which I will be buried with thank you, the Stephanie Plum books, because some days I just want to read about a woman getting her head humped by a horde of guard dogs, and a few others.

* * *

I've also purged my web presence. My website is gone with both domains pointing right here. It just made absolutely no sense to have a website that included the exact same information as this blog. Also I've kicked Facebook to the curb. I understand the need for Facebook as a tool to reach people but the only thing it ever did for me was annoy me with event invites and application updates. I live without MySpace, I can live without Facebook.