Author Social Media

Here’s an article that talks about how authors should use social media. I cross-posted it earlier today on social media and I got around to reading it a few minutes ago and wanted to mention a few things.

First, they talk about Goodreads. (This social media outlet always conjures up the most interesting conversation between authors.)

Goodreads has more than 20 million members and is THE site for authors.

I don’t totally agree with that. I thought Goodreads was for readers, so that readers could discuss books and authors and interact with each other without authors jumping into the forum. When I go to Goodreads I go as a reader to leave reviews. I rarely check out my own reviews. I do link the blog to Goodreads and I do think it’s important to have a presence on GR, however, I’ve never thought that GR was THE site for authors. It’s more for readers and if you aren’t aware of that you might wind up in the middle of the surprise shitstorm of your life.

In any event, the first paragraph goes on to mention other social media like Twitter and Facebook, and then later there are more details and explanations.

But I did find a few things I wanted to comment on.

You want to interact mainly with READERS, NOT writers.

In a general sense this is true…to a certain extent. I didn’t always understand this myself and I thought my goal was to interact with readers only. But the truth is that there’s only so much interaction you can do with readers before you cross the invisible line, and I’ve also learned that by interacting with other authors that I’ve read and I like we develop a sense of loyalty and help each other get information out to readers. It’s not like a street team and it’s not something we talk about behind the scenes…we don’t actually plan it. We just try to get information out to readers through social media without becoming pests. I just deleted an e-mail from an author I know announcing that she has a new blog post. She’s not a huge author or a big blogger. Unfortunately, this author thinks she’s too grand for facebook or twitter like the rest of us and now she’s spamming us with e-mails about her blog posts. That’s a huge negative and it took one second to delete it.

But not everything in this article is off base. I did find a few positive things and I still think it’s worth reading if you’re new and you don’t know much about social media. It even goes on to mention Anne R. Allen, a blogger and author I’ve mentioned here before who gives some excellent advice. Allen has a gift and I’ve never seen anything on her blog I disagree with.

I think the other thing to really understand is that it takes time to learn how to use social media and you have to learn how to have fun with it. If you’re forcing yourself to do it that’s how it’s going to look.

You can read the entire piece in full here.

Republican Joins GLAAD

Meghan McCain, a Republican pundit and daughter of a Republican, Senator John McCain, recently joined the board of directors for GLAAD. Meghan McCain is a gay woman. She’s also one of the new breed of Republicans to break tradition on social issues.

‘For years, Meghan McCain has lent her voice and platform to spreading messages of acceptance across party lines,’ said GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis.

‘Now, as the American south and our heartland move closer to LGBT equality, it’s critical that we continue to build the bridges that unite us in our common ground – whether you’re republican or democrat, gay or straight.’

Meghan McCain’s mother, Cindy McCain, is a gay activist and she actually posed for a same sex marriage campaign.

You can read more here.

It almost sounds as if being gay is not going to continue to be a partisan issue for long.

The Christian Baker

I’ve posted about these overly religious Christian bakers who think they are the only Christians in the world…as if they actually discovered Christianity. Several have refused to bake gay wedding cakes for same sex couples claiming it violates their right to religious freedom. Each time, courts have ruled against them because it’s not legal to discriminate. The ironic part is that these rulings are helping these bakers and they don’t even get it. Suppose a gay baker refused to make a cake for a straight Christian wedding. The gay baker wouldn’t win that one in court either.

In 2012, Jack Philips, the owner of Masterpiece Cake shop in Lakewood, Colorado, refused to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig.

This week (30 May), Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission ruled the move was discriminatory and he must serve wedding cakes to all customers in his shop regardless of their sexual orientation.

The baker says he will continue to refuse to bake gay wedding cakes until someone shuts him down.

I still think my original idea should be taken into consideration. Let him refuse to bake gay wedding cakes. But force him to put up a huge sign in his front window that states this in public…”I Will Not Bake Gay Wedding Cakes Because I Believe in Discrimination and I’m Above the Law.” This way his religious convictions are not compromised and everyone knows where he stands, in public, and they can either support him or let him go out of business on his own. With more gay men and women coming out it’s going to be hard to find someone in the US who isn’t related to a gay person, friends with a gay person, or directly linked to a gay person in one way or another.

More here.