Category Archives: Social networking

Why No Comments?

Portrait of a young woman covering her mouthSo this comes up occasionally and it came up again so I thought I’d address it publicly and then you can all tell your friends.

I was asked why I don’t have a comments section on my blog. Well, I’m gonna tell ya.

It’s no secret that I think the internet is dehumanizing all of us (check out this post for more on that). Because of all the trolls out there who like to hide behind anonymous avatars I had set up my blog to allow moderated comments.

Well between the trolls (seriously get a life) and the spammers (you too), I was spending way too much time popping into my blog to moderate hateful and potentially harmful comments. My time is better spent elsewhere, so I shut off comments all together.

I get that there are people who genuinely would like to interact with me and to them I say please join me on my Facebook Page or Twitter. Yes people can still sign up with fake profiles but that’s a lot of effort just to be mean and it’s so easy to block them there.

So it’s not that I don’t want to interact with people, I just don’t want to spend my life playing goalie against the worlds hateful and malicious people. I hope you all understand.

~S

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Filed under books, Random Musing, Social networking, writing

Why Am I on Facebook?

The title of this blog post says it all, Why AMI on Facebook?  Or twitter for that matter? I opened my social media accounts because a marketing

Social Networking Logos

Oh the horror!

“guru” told me that I had to have one. Why? To promote my book of course.

But that’s not what social networking is about. Social networking is about, well, being social.

Here is the problem, writers by nature are introverts. We sit by ourselves and tell stories about people we make up in our heads. Trust me, there is nothing “social” in that job description.

I’ve participated in events with large groups of writers being social to help promote their work and charities. Everyone puts on their game face for these events. They chat, and smile and are social butterflies. After the public leaves these ersatz socialites shut down. They’re exhausted. Most complain of headaches and fatigue. I even saw one poor author break down into tears.

I blame Jacqueline Susann and other writers like her who actively pursued the spotlight. Writers shouldn’t be celebrities, and I’m suspicious of people who think they’ll become famous as a writer.  Chances are you won’t. Especially with the explosion of indie authors. You are now one voice in a very large crowd of people shouting.

The proof for me that writers are not social people can be seen crystal clear on twitter. When you read a tweet that looks like this:

#Buy #Kindle #99cents #D #5Stars #Novel #(Book Title)

And that’s what they send over and over. Why? Because some marketing guru, told them they had to promote on twitter. The problem is they 1) don’t know how to be social and 2) don’t want to be social because they are introverts.

People who enjoy social networking and they know when you’re not being genuine. Most will tune out the tweets, unfollow the author, or just block the tweeter, because that’s not why they’re on these sites. People who are on these sites want to connect with others, not be preached to or sold.

My facebook page posts are sadly few and far between. I am an introvert. I would be happy to be shut in a room for the rest of my life. Let alone to churn out stories. When I hear people are sent to solitary confinement in prison I actually wonder why that’s considered a punishment.

So I’m wondering how much can these social marketing campaigns really be helping if all that is sent is spam?

For those authors who are genuinely social and can connect with their audience on a genuine, personal level maybe they’ve sold some books.

For those author’s who are socially awkward (and you know who you are), who are just posting buy my book, buy my book, I doubt their campaign has had much impact.

My guess is most of my socially awkward posts have now been hidden on most news feeds, so I struggle with the relevance of Facebook and the like.

If you are connected with me on a social networking site and you’ve wondered why I rarely post, I am sorry. I am not a person who lays bare the minutia of my day for the world to see.

I can only be who I am.

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Filed under Authors, Social networking