Adventures in Social Media, part 1

As a struggling writer with a day job, for years I viewed "social media" as a time vortex. Many, many people over the years have told me I needed to start a blog, and get a Twitter account. When I tried telling them I simply didn't have time for that, they would explain what blogs, Instagram, and Twitter were.

These non-writers couldn't understand the difference between, "I know what social media is, but don't have the time for it," and "Golly - I've never heard of that. Why don't you explain it to me again?" In fact, the more non-writers argued with me about this, the more of my time they wasted, the more resistant I became.

And then I discovered the weekly Writer's Forum on Fark.com.

Some of the writers there described their own successes and struggles with self-publishing, the hardships of breaking into "traditional" publishing, and shared various tips and pitfalls.

I started asking for advice, and several folks were very helpful. I emailed the Writer's Forum's moderator and suggested a topic for the weekly discussion: tips and pitfalls in self-publishing. The moderator agreed that many people would be interested in that discussion.

Getting advice from somebody who actually knows what they are talking about is very different from somebody spouting the first thing that pops into their head.

Many Writer's Forum commenters shared similar responses: A good cover helps a lot in generating interest. Writing a series creates a built-in audience for future books, and releasing new books often results in a spike in downloads for older books in the series. Know your genre, and write for that audience.

But the most helpful advice came from several writer's explaining the importance of social media, and how to use it effectively. That was a major turning point for me. For years non-writers had been telling me, "You should do it anyway," but now people were telling me, "Here's is how to increase your audience and downloads." One tidbit I learned was that some authors will promote their ebook's publication six months in advance.

So I started this blog a couple months ago, and reactivated my old Twitter account @FHerbertLostarc which I made when I tried crowd-funding my book about Frank Herbert's lost archive of newspaper articles from his early career.

Just within the last couple weeks my "social media experiment" has started showing results. Among other things, I came into contact with an amazing artist who has agreed to create book cover art for me. While I originally asked him to create a cover for my Frank Herbert book, after seeing the rest of his online portfolio I definitely want him making a cover for my upcoming "Cthulhu Mythos" book.

But that is another story for another time.

The Dreamer becomes the Dream

For an aspiring writer, Social Media is a mixed blessing. While blogs and tweets can help a writer attract new fans, and update loyal fans about upcoming publication dates, there is also a significant time drain updating Social Media accounts regularly. One writes about writing projects, instead of finishing up that writing.

But sometimes the Miraculous happens, and some minor Social Media victory is achieved which shows all that time invested was well-spent, and not merely squandered.

Here is a short story to illustrate my point:

A couple yeas ago, when I got my first paid article published, some people were happy for me. At least, they were politely enough to say so. I had spent months researching microfilm at the public library's Historical Annex finding every article and photograph Frank Herbert created for Santa Rosa Press Democrat before his sci-fi novel Dune made him a best-seller.

But one angry little fella spitefully informed me, “Well, you can't live off what you made from that article!” His hostility shocked me, and I patiently explained that getting my first paid article published was part of my long-term plan to get my second, then third, article published, and then…

“Oh yeah? Well, you're stupid for writing that article when you want to write screenplays!” Again, his hostile shouting shocked me so much I couldn't get offended by his grade-school name-calling. I patiently explained that my Frank Herbert article, which the magazine editor asked me to write, only took a couple hours to write, whereas a screenplay could take more than a year to complete and polish.

I also tried explaining how publishing my article positioned me as a “Frank Herbert expert,” and this would increase my chances to get hired to adapt one of his books into a screenplay, and all part of my long-term plan. “Oh yeah? Well, how are you going to that?” the angry contrarian demanded triumphantly. “See? You're stupid!”

Then I remembered this miserable DreamKiller had no accomplishments of his own, except for angrily contradicting people, which explained why my own accomplishments insulted him so personally. Eventually, I moved away from Northern California to work on my writing where rent was less expensive.

About a month ago, I published my first Free ebook which included three of my articles about scif-fi writers, including my Frank Herbert article that angry contrarian told me I was stupid for writing. For my article about Jack London's near-forgotten sci-fi works, I reached out to several established writers for quotes, and got back responses from Norman Spinrad and Michael Moorcock, which I included in my published article.

About two weeks later, when my ebook had about thirty total downloads, I got a Facebook “Friends Request” from Michael Moorcock. As I figure it, one of those thirty people who downloaded my book was friends with Mr. Moorcock and informed him about his quotes in my article. I'm guessing that Mr. Moorcock then read my article, and liked it enough to look me up on Facebook. I can't imagine that he took the time to find me on Facebook just because he heard that I quoted him.

I have been an admirer of Michael Moorcock's sword-and-sorcery writing, and his anti-hero Elric the wizard-emperor, since sixth grade. In fact, I have long been interested in adapting his Elric novels into a screenplay. So having one of my childhood idols view me as a peer, and reach out to befriend me through Social Media, is a dream-come-true that I never dreamed of.

More importantly, this showed me that establishing myself as a sci-fi historian, as part of my long-term strategy writing screenplays and book adaptations, wasn't a waste of time no matter what angry little DreamKillers might scream at me.

Then another thing happened today. While checking my Twitter account for the first time in a long while, one of the Frank Herbert-related accounts I follow, @DuneJacurutu, reposted an article fromSombreroBooks.com about the origins of Dune. Naturally, this was relevant to my interests and I checked out the article. I was very surprised to find myself as a primary source for this article. Even more surprising, they cited the earliest version of my article from SRJC Oak Leaf News, my college newspaper.

Cited as a primary source on Sombrerobooks.com

As a historian doing independent research, but standing on the shoulders other historians to learn where to start looking, it is an amazing, magical feeling of accomplishment, of arrival, to discover other researchers standing on my own shoulders.

It is a strange, encouraging turning point realizing the Dreamer has become the Dream