The Wonderful World of Twitter

The other day I did a blatant self-promotion tweet about my freebie days on Kindle. I had little hope that it would do me any good, but I figured...what the hell?  Why not?

Then I saw that one of my "friends" from GoodReads (who's also a Twitter buddy) had retweeted my tweet. At the time, I was so grateful because my tweets hardly ever get retweeted. Actually...uh..."hardly" might be a euphemism word for "never" in my case.

Anyway, so he retweets my self-promotion post.  Not only that, but two of his followers retweeted his retweet.  I was so touched, but not sure how to respond to this kindness.  I had already vowed not to become one of those people who clog up other people's Twitter feeds with retweets of compliments and retweets they've received.

I ended up favoriting the tweets.  Then I followed the people who retweeted for me. But now I've come to realize something.  From what I can see these people retweet a lot of self-promotion posts. It's an act of kindness that's on auto-pilot.

And it is sort of kind. I appreciate it. But my gratefulness has been somewhat reduced.

I think there's a difference between promoting something you really stand behind and just shouting out blindly with no real loving (or liking) behind it.

I belong to a group on GoodReads that picks a writer of the month...or maybe week.  They ask fellow group members to promote the book on Twitter and other places. Then those who promote might be chosen for the next promotion.  As far as I can remember, they don't ask you to actually read the book.

It all seems a bit fake to me.

I haven't joined in. Yet.

I hope I don't ever feel desperate enough to do that.

Personally, I love to promote things. But I like to promote stuff that I actually like, or at least I'm interested in it. I did some promotional Tweets for self-published novels that I heard about on Twitter. But this was only after I had bought the books and planned to read them. And I DID read them.  I didn't blindly promote books I had no plans on reading.

Another friend of mine from GoodReads did some very nice promoting tweets about my novel. She's actually read a sample chapter of my novel and bought it.  And I have an old online friend who retweeted my book promo and bought the book.  I'm much more appreciative of both of their retweets.  It's authentic.

Now are their tweets going to bring me more attention than those who whore-tweet?  I don't know.  I just know I like them better.

Well, and I would also think that if someone over-frequently promotes other people, his or her followers are eventually going to think Well, he's not really standing behind this piece of art. He retweets everything.  It all becomes a bit meaningless.

Reading, Writing, and GoodRead Adventures

It's been about a month since I've updated.

It's hard for me to have the motivation to update this blog, since hardly anyone reads it.

Sometimes it's fun talking to myself. Other times, I get tired of it.

So...what's been happening?

I've been on GoodReads a lot. For awhile I saw it as my sort of Utopia. Now I've seen its darker side and I'm trying to spend a little less time there.  Well, actually that's not quite true. I started spending less time there BEFORE I saw the darker side. I made an effort to limit my time, because I didn't want to become a person who spends more time socializing on message boards than I do reading and writing.

I made a rule.  I can only go on GoodReads on any particular day if I've finished reading a book and want to post a review. After I post the review, I can go on GoodReads as much as I want that day.  

The only exception I have is private messages. If someone sends me one, I do read it and often respond.

Anyway, it was a great way to get me to read more...for awhile. I was so into GoodReads and it pushed me to read and finish books, so I could get back on there.

Now that I'm loving GoodReads a little less, I might be a little less prolific in my reading habits.  

Why am I loving it less?  

There's a lot of animosity between readers and writers...or really readers towards writers.  In some ways, it's strongly merited. There have been horrific cases of writers attacking readers who've given them negative reviews.  I'm very much against this for moral and personal reasons.  I've been treated badly on the internet for having an opinion people dislike.  

Sometimes when readers complain about mean writers, I think well, maybe they're being a bit too nasty with their reviews.  I've seen reviewers on GoodReads who seem to enjoy ripping books to pieces.  It's fun to be mean...that kind of thing.  On the other hand, I've seen firsthand that you can be very polite and gentle with your opposing opinion, and it doesn't matter. People will still throw hate at you.  

The other thing that bothers me about GoodReads is some of the writers do major kowtowing towards the readers.

It's kind of funny saying readers and writers...since I'd hope all of the writers are also readers.  

I should probably start saying readers and non-writer readers.   

Okay, so...let's say it like this.  Some of the readers are kowtowing to the non-writer readers.  And maybe it's needed to make up for the rude and immature writers.  I don't know.  Sometimes I feel it goes too far, because some of the non-writer readers have taken it too far.  Yes, some writers have displayed awful behavior, but that doesn't give non-writer readers the right to be obsessively antagonistic towards writers in general.  

Some of them sound like bigots.  I read one comment in which a non-writer reader defended her post in which she asked to be directed to a group that's dominated by readers rather than writers by saying she has nothing against writers. She has friends that are writers.

It reminded me of people who say I have nothing against Jews, gays, black people, etc.  Some of my best friends are blah, blah, blah.   

Onto other things....

My books.

I published The Dead Are Online on Kindle.  It's doing quite horribly. Well, the only person who has read and reviewed it is Tim (my own husband).  I told an email friend about the book and he bought it...started reading it. I don't think he'll be the type to write a review. But it's still really nice that he's planning to read it.   

It's funny about reviews. I'm putting so much emphasis on them right now. But before all this, I rarely wrote them and I rarely read them.   

I did the Kindle free days thing.  I had about fifty downloads.  I'm guessing it will be a very small percentage of those people who actually read the book, and I'll be very pleasantly surprised to get any reviews.  Or...well, maybe my surprise won't be pleasant if it's a bad review.  Hopefully I won't catch the bug that makes writers go on some kind of angry rampage.

In my last post, I talked about how I badmouthed Thirty Cats. That had a strange effect.  Trashing my own novel, for some reason, made people interested in reading it.  Four people added it to their To-Read list suddenly, and two have already read and reviewed it.  They both seemed to like (not love) it despite the formatting and grammar errors.  One reader was super nice—helped me download it into a format I could edit and pointed out some of my errors.  

I broke my contract with iUniverse a few weeks ago.  Now I'm in the process of editing. I did the first edit this week and will do at least two more in the next few weeks.

Despite the embarrassing grammar mistakes and probably-not-my-fault formatting mistakes, I was very impressed with the book.  

I think it's been at least twelve years since I've read it!

Anyway, I didn't really find anything I disliked about the storyline.  

I even had some tears at some point.

So...I'm going to work on republishing Thirty Cats this summer.

I might work on a sequel to The Dead Are Online.  Though it's hard for me to get excited about writing when no one is reading the first book.  But who knows what will happen in the future. I can imagine I'm writing the book for future readers...maybe even my own future grandchildren or grandnieces and grandnephews.   

I think I've given up on promoting my book.  I'm feeling it's a lost cause.  Readers (whether writers or non-writers) seem to hate blatant promotions. I don't blame them.  I do too.  Especially when it's excessive, but even when it's not excessive.

I thought simply being involved with GoodReads...being social would bring my book attention.  It hasn't happened much yet. Although one GoodReads friend bought my book the other day. I was excited and grateful about that.

I thought reading books from other self-published writers on GoodReads would bring on some reciprocal action.  So far...very little luck with that.  It didn't work on Twitter, and it's not happening for me on GoodReads.    

I don't THINK writers should read a book simply because the writer of that book read their book. But I guess my heart feels differently.  Or maybe my brain agrees.  I don't know. I think if someone reads my book, I would feel an obligation to at least try and read their book.   

That situation though can get sticky.  If someone reads your book and truly loves it...how is it going to feel if you read their book and dislike it? How do you handle that?

For my reviews in general, I try to be nice. Though GoodReads gives you the option of rating books 1-5, I usually stick to 3's and 4's. Three means I didn't really like your book too much and 4 means I either liked or loved your book, but I didn't love it as much as Harry Potter.  

Some of it's uneven though, because I was admittedly more gentle with self-published writers.  I can't go below a 3.  But then I have some 2's for regularly published books. I rated these before I became an active participant on GoodReads.

Now though I'm trying to give the same type of ratings to both mainstream and indie books.  

Well, for example...several weeks ago I read Artemis Fowl and gave it 2 stars.  But if I rated and reviewed it today, I would give it 3 stars. 

Back to promoting....

I'm kind of leaving it up to fate now.

If people are meant to find my book, I'll try to believe that will happen.

I think if people email me and ask what's going on in my life, I might say...I wrote a novel! If they ask to read it, maybe I'll send the link. But I'm not going to beg people to read it. It just lends to an uncomfortable situation for everyone.   

You know what. I love The Dead Are Online.  I think it's fantastic.  It might be one of my favorite novels.  But it could also be that I wrote a novel that's personally tailored to me...and only me.  Maybe it's my special friend and possession.  Just like my Minecraft world.  It's a great place...a great adventure.  But only for me.  I don't expect other people to visit.  I'm happy there on my own.  

That being said, I'd much rather people read my novel then mysteriously pop up into my Minecraft world.  The latter would be very creepy.  Terrifying, actually.  

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