I've been seeing references to Goodreads for a while now. And I've been ignoring them because, you know, I may be at the absolute limit of my Internetability. But Growing Great Writers From the Ground Up says authors can use it for market research and sort of advertise yourself.
GoodReads sounds like some website I joined a few years ago where you were supposed to keep track of all the books you owned or read or something. I don't know what happened to that.
Then WordCount offers advice on how writers can use LinkedIn. Now, I'd actually been wondering about that, because we know a young man who found a marvelous job through contacts he made on LinkedIn. Of course, he had to move to the other side of the country, but, still, I was impressed.
Linkes from Becky Levine.
Oh, no, seriously? My agent is (gently) nagging me about a website -- "a real one," because my co-blogging doesn't count apparently -- and I've also been nagged into joining both LinkedIn and GoodReads but I have to admit that I do nothing absolutely with them... Thanks for the heads up, not that I'm going to follow any of the advice. I truly do think that I have reached my limit as well...
ReplyDeleteI seriously have to question the usefulness of this stuff. I'm on Goodreads and Shelfari and I get what is essentially spam from writers. And if anything it urks me MORE than random spam.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to do that to people. Nor do I want to barge into a discussion and say, "Speaking of Harry Potter, my new mid-grade novel is..."
I like Goodreads as a way to talk books with other book addicts. Some of the groups are interesting, and I learn about new titles or classroom activities. But I agree with Sam, the invites are spiraling out of control. I'm in Virginia. What are the odds I'll make it to Denver this weekend for a book signing?
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that TadMack is being nagged to *join* networking sites -- my agent's other clients and I are afraid that she'll discover just how much productive time we've lost since we joined Facebook...
ReplyDeleteChris--Exactly. I already spend so much time with listservs and blogs. I definitely think they've done me some good, particularly working on my own blog and networking with other bloggers. But doesn't that diminishing returns thing come into play at some point? You know, I'll be spending so much time on all this other stuff and what about producing the writing that the other stuff is supposed to market?
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, everyone. You're encouraging me to do what I wanted to do, anyway, which was nothing.
Tadmack--As a writer, I can't definitively say that my website (which is totally different from my blog) truly does me good. But I do know that as a reader, I really like author websites. I'm very much into fast, easy communication, and a website should quickly and easily communicate such information as...what the author has written, when new books are coming out, reviews, biographical information, etc.
A blog's function isn't to communicate basic info quickly. A blog's function is to provide interesting and/or enjoyable content that will draw readers to you and help them remember who you are. If basic information is mentioned in a blog in passing ("My new book just got a great review, and here are the juicy bits!") a reader who happens by a month later will have to hunt for it. And if readers have to work hard for info, they may very well just give up and go elsewhere.
So I think a website is a good idea.
I'm just starting to play on GoodReads. Not sure how much time I'll spend there, but I'm using it today for research. We'll see how deeply I get dug in!
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