As I explained in a blog post from September 2010, I am pretty old school when it comes to online technology and social networking. Before Crecomm my social networking consisted of chatting over beer, cheese and salami at the local community club. If I wasn’t in CreComm I would definitely not be on Twitter and I might not even have a Facebook account.
As for the difference between Facebook and Twitter: I think of Facebook as a way of keeping in contact with people I know. And Twitter is more about getting in contact with people or groups I would like to know.
I mostly use Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and family outside of Winnipeg – my brother James in North Carolina and my brother Peter in Indiana. Peter and his wife are expecting another baby at the end of this month and I am sure I will hear about it on Facebook first. I also have cousins in Ireland and other friends abroad I have met on my travels.
As for Twitter, none of my family, or friends outside of CreComm use Twitter. (Well that’s not true an Irish friend of mine just started following me on Twitter.) So I definitely do not use Twitter as a social tool. In fact I barely use Twitter at all. I look at my Twitter account once or twice a week. I follow my fellow CreCommers, some news agencies, some TV shows, and people I admire or think are funny like comedians, writers and musicians. And I only post a message in order to promote my latest blog. Which, I know is not a good way of building relationships on Twitter. I really need to get on the Twitter bandwagon and use it more regularly and properly…that is interactively.
In terms of strategic use of social networking in PR I think you need to use all the options out there, Facebook and Twitter and mainstream media, because you never know where your audience is getting their information. As I said most of my friends are not on Twitter. So an online PR campaign using Twitter to reach a target audience of middle class people in their early thirties that drink beer, play sports, ride the bus, enjoy movies, art, travel and reading would not be very effective in reaching my friends. Facebook would definitely be a better option. And mainstream media like online news organizations would be better still. Having said that I know there are people that fit into the above demographic that are on Twitter. I just don’t hang out with any of them. But it makes me wonder if my non-tweeting friends and I are in the minority of our demographic? Or are we the norm?
Soupy out.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Publishing Options in The Year Two Thousand (...and eleven)
(You have to imagine me singing the title of this blog in a dark room with flashlight shining under my chin.)
The seminars by writers Julie Wilson and Matt Duggan at RRC recently really got me thinking about writing and publishing. (Ok, ok, I know that was the point but that was the best intro I could come up with as I ride the bus home on Friday afternoon.) I am planning on doing a work of creative writing for my IPP and have not put enough thought into getting it published (frankly I have been too concerned about just completing it to worry about trying to market it). But I did do some research into marketing and it turns out a novella, which is about the maximum sized work we are recommended to undertake, is very difficult to publish. This is because they cost about as much as a full novel to produce, therefore their store price is comparable to a novel. But people don't want to pay as much for a novella as they do for a novel. They feel a little cheated by paying full price for such a skimpy book. (That is unless you are already a published author with an existing fan base- think Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, although I believe he published that in a magazine first.)
Based on my limited research partnering with other writers to publish a few novellas in one collection, an anthology, is recommended. Sometimes a publisher will find other novellas to include with yours in an anthology, or you can come to them with partners. It would be cool if a few of the Crecommers that are doing creative fiction could partner together to get their stories published. Although I guess they would need a common theme... other than that we are all Crecommers desperate to get our work published. That might be an idea if we decide to do self-publishing. A few novella's by Crecommers packaged together under the Crecomm banner might be a good selling feature, if only to other Crecomm grads. But hey, as we all know, the Crecomm network is vast.
Julie Wilson also inspired me to consider producing podcasts of my story and trying to market those. I have not looked to deeply into that but her discussion of the Best Laid Plans author's shameless yet unobtrusive self-promotion sounded like a skill all Crecommers need to learn.
And of course electronic publishing is something I will seriously consider.The Writer's Relief blog had this to say about e-publishing and novellas:
Because novellas are difficult to market as print novels, they have become very popular in the world of digital publishing. E-publishers are readily taking on novellas of all genres, and readers of e-books are on the rise. In fact, some e-publishers prefer novellas to novels because some readers of electronic formats prefer shorter books—and a good novella can pack a lot of story into a limited number of pages!
Soupy out.
The seminars by writers Julie Wilson and Matt Duggan at RRC recently really got me thinking about writing and publishing. (Ok, ok, I know that was the point but that was the best intro I could come up with as I ride the bus home on Friday afternoon.) I am planning on doing a work of creative writing for my IPP and have not put enough thought into getting it published (frankly I have been too concerned about just completing it to worry about trying to market it). But I did do some research into marketing and it turns out a novella, which is about the maximum sized work we are recommended to undertake, is very difficult to publish. This is because they cost about as much as a full novel to produce, therefore their store price is comparable to a novel. But people don't want to pay as much for a novella as they do for a novel. They feel a little cheated by paying full price for such a skimpy book. (That is unless you are already a published author with an existing fan base- think Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, although I believe he published that in a magazine first.)
Based on my limited research partnering with other writers to publish a few novellas in one collection, an anthology, is recommended. Sometimes a publisher will find other novellas to include with yours in an anthology, or you can come to them with partners. It would be cool if a few of the Crecommers that are doing creative fiction could partner together to get their stories published. Although I guess they would need a common theme... other than that we are all Crecommers desperate to get our work published. That might be an idea if we decide to do self-publishing. A few novella's by Crecommers packaged together under the Crecomm banner might be a good selling feature, if only to other Crecomm grads. But hey, as we all know, the Crecomm network is vast.
Julie Wilson also inspired me to consider producing podcasts of my story and trying to market those. I have not looked to deeply into that but her discussion of the Best Laid Plans author's shameless yet unobtrusive self-promotion sounded like a skill all Crecommers need to learn.
And of course electronic publishing is something I will seriously consider.The Writer's Relief blog had this to say about e-publishing and novellas:
Because novellas are difficult to market as print novels, they have become very popular in the world of digital publishing. E-publishers are readily taking on novellas of all genres, and readers of e-books are on the rise. In fact, some e-publishers prefer novellas to novels because some readers of electronic formats prefer shorter books—and a good novella can pack a lot of story into a limited number of pages!
Soupy out.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Literary Voyeurs Unite Against the Tyranny of Winnipeg Transit!
The term "literary voyeurism," the inspiration for Julie Wilson's blog Seen Reading, makes snooping on the bus sound so intellectual. Julie explained the cultural significance of literary voyeurism so eloquently during the seminar at Red River College today. I tried to explain its cultural value to a middle aged woman on the bus ride home today, but she would hear none of it. She had some choice words for me when she caught me pretending to drop my glove at her feet so I could kneel down and get a glimpse of the cover of her book. Her verbal assault is too rude to be repeated in this G-rated blog. My well articulated side of the exchange, however went something like this:
"Pardon me for staring...there's no need to bring my mother into this... I'm doing a school assignment. I'm a literary voyeur....No there' s no medication I take for it. It's NOT a condition. It's an intellectual pursuit....well I never!... Fine complain to the bus driver! I stand by my creative calling. Oh and before you get up. Could you just tell me what page you're on."
Luckily I was removed from the bus without too much of a scene. In fact, I would say overall it was a successful venture. I got the author and name of the book, and before the bus driver and some "do-gooder" tossed me out into a rather unforgiving snow bank, I managed to tear a few pages from the woman's book. And so here is my first Seen Reading entry. (Any future entries will be dependent on whether the bus driver has the authority or the wherewithal to carry out his claim of seeing to it that I never ride another bus in Winnipeg again. To him I say: "More senior members of the Winnipeg Transit Authority have tried and failed to get my bus riding privileges revoked!) Enjoy.
"Pardon me for staring...there's no need to bring my mother into this... I'm doing a school assignment. I'm a literary voyeur....No there' s no medication I take for it. It's NOT a condition. It's an intellectual pursuit....well I never!... Fine complain to the bus driver! I stand by my creative calling. Oh and before you get up. Could you just tell me what page you're on."
Luckily I was removed from the bus without too much of a scene. In fact, I would say overall it was a successful venture. I got the author and name of the book, and before the bus driver and some "do-gooder" tossed me out into a rather unforgiving snow bank, I managed to tear a few pages from the woman's book. And so here is my first Seen Reading entry. (Any future entries will be dependent on whether the bus driver has the authority or the wherewithal to carry out his claim of seeing to it that I never ride another bus in Winnipeg again. To him I say: "More senior members of the Winnipeg Transit Authority have tried and failed to get my bus riding privileges revoked!) Enjoy.
Number 11 WB Portage Avenue
Caucasian woman, mid to late fifties, over weight, blue jacket with a hood with a furry trim, black pants, purple rubber boots, large glasses that were probably not even fashionable in 1982 when they were purchased or possibly stolen. She carries a worn denim purse possibly containing a few rolls of quarters or some other hefty item that left a significant goose egg over my eye.
The Narrows, Michael Connelly (Warner Books)
Page 222:
My blood started to jump in my veins. Clear, Nevada. I had never been there but I knew it was a town of brothels and whatever community and outside services are spawned by such businesses. I knew of it because on more than one occasion in my career as a cop I had traced suspects through Clear, Nevada. On more than one occasion a suspect who voluntarily surrendered to me in Los Angeles reported that he had spent his last few nights of freedom with the ladies of Clear, Nevada.
Sometimes she thought about Fred. He had sworn that he would be back. She still remembers him promising. He was cowered on the kitchen floor by the cabinets, blubbering. She held the rolling pin high over her head. She normally drove cross country with him, to keep an eye on him, but he was going south that time. And since her run in with that US marshal in St. Cloud she could not cross the border. So she let him go. They needed the money. But the son of a bitch never came back. It had been almost twenty years and she still thought about him. Hopefully he died in a fiery wreck, caught Chlamydia, or both.
Soupy out
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Darth Vader Masters the Force of Advertising
Here is a cute and funny Volkswagen ad. A very effective commercial, which is something we are always struggling toward in Ad class. (I can just imagine my Star Wars obsessed nephew under the Vader costume.) It's also a good example of a video montage (which we have to do for our media production class later this month) on a shoestring budget. And it's a great example of a dialogue-free script (which we are required to do for a creative writing assignment this week). Enjoy.
Soupy out.
Soupy out.
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