Jill Hughes on Facebook

An author friend whom I’ve known for about five years, Jill Elaine Hughes, wrote an interesting post about why she’s backing away a little from Facebook. Her reasons are explained in detail, and she also links to other posts on the same topic. She gets into ads, paying for ads, and even comments on privacy issues. I’ve posted about my disappointments with Facebook several times, and I can’t disagree with anything she posted. I’ve actually ranted a few times with regard to LGBTI content. Facebook is the place where you are always guilty until proven innocent.

Sorry, Facebook, but that is a classic marketing bait-and-switch.  You can’t expect users to keep going to your site and trying to create content that your readers will find engaging and relevant if you turn the whole shebang into a gigantic bleeping commercial.

I often find myself going to individual timelines to see what friends posted because FB decided to filter my news feed. And these are authors, readers, and friends I care about and I want to see what they have to say without FB filtering anything for me. And even though I do try to promote books and blog posts on FB I have found most of my hits come from random Google searches, not from FB. The only reason I’m on FB is to interact with people I’ve come to enjoy. But as a promotional tool I find it almost a complete waste of time. Not completely, but almost. I think in an abstract way it can help…but only to a certain extent.  

So my take on all this is that FB is okay for certain things, but don’t put all your promotional efforts into FB if you’re trying to brand yourself as an author. You might be missing out on markets and preaching to the proverbial choir.

You can read Jill’s post here.

Gay Boy Scouts in 2014

This is really one of those articles that make me smile and want to punch something at the same time. Smile because it’s good to see this kind of progress. Punch because they never seem to go far enough and we always wind up getting slapped in the face. The Boy Scouts have a new policy and gay Boy Scouts will be allowed to join. But there’s also a catch:

The controversial policy change spurred strong reactions from all side. Some supporters argue the policy, which leaves a ban on gay adults intact, doesn’t go far enough, while conservative groups claim the 103-year-old youth organization has abandoned its core values.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/boy-scouts-america-open-door-gay-scouts-new-policy-article-1.1563595#ixzz2pCRzimL7

There are more slaps in the face with this topic not mentioned in the article, but that’s for a future, longer post.