Understanding Blogs

I thought I was doing pretty well understanding the internet and deciding just exactly where I’d fit in and how to use it in general. I did the Facebook and Twitter thing and discovered that it wasn’t really how I like to communicate with people, especially people who I don’t even know. Then I was invited to be friends with people who wanted to sell me something, or teach me something, or were looking to me to fulfill some other type of need of theirs … which shall remain nameless.

So even though I am still participating in social media, sort of from the sidelines, I spent more of my time writing a blog. Why? Well, I like writing, especially about things that happen in everyday life that arouse some emotion in me. Politics make me angry. Seeing a good movie or play makes me want to tell my friends. Animals bring out the “Awww” factor in me and I like to share those stories. Then there are interesting people. Yes, I am fascinated my them and play with trying to figure them out.

But now I’ve hit a brick wall again. It’s not that I don’t get enough hits. I am getting more and more hits all the time. But They are coming from companies who want to sell me real estate, insurance, or used cars. And there are a zillion people who want to teach me something like editing, or publishing, or marketing books.

So, I’ve decided to write this blog as an experiment to see who is going to read it. If you are one of my subscribed readers, please ignore this. If not, let me know why you’ve read this blog!

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The World of Machines

I’m all over the map going in all directions and getting nothing done. This time being “all over the map” is literal since I’ve just spent ten days in New York, the Netherlands, and Holland. That is one of the reasons why I haven’t posted anything here on WordPress. I was busy getting together clothes, sundries, toiletries, medications, reading material (for those long plane rides,) and paper to work on my next writing project. You’d think I was going to be spending time with a Stone Age tribe in the Amazon. Didn’t it ever occur to me that I could buy any one of those items in all of the above-mentioned destinations?

But the frustrating part of it all was that when I finally did find some time before my departure to get onto my computer, I couldn’t get through to the internet. A hasty call to my computer guy resulted in our needing to do more research to find out if my computer had died, or if the fault of lay in the hands ofTime Warner. They were in no hurry to come out to my house and my plane was leaving.

Never mind, I would have a computer at my disposal on the ship that was taking me on a River Cruise in Holland. Two computers for 130 guests on the boat! When I finally was able to get to one of them the ship was always located in a position out of range of the satellite. I tried to switch gears and pull out my writing pad. As soon as I finished a sentence or two, the Cruise Director would blast an announcement over the loudspeaker about our next port of call, or a waiter would ask me if I wanted to order a drink.

Perhaps you wonder why I didn’t spend any time getting to know my fellow passengers. The answer is that many of them were playing bridge in the back lounge. Good night, they could have done that back home in Iowa. Some of them came in packs of nine or ten people and they remained self-contained the entire time. I shouldn’t neglect to mention the three or four people who spent most of the cruise reading a newspaper or a Kindle. Luckily I brought mine along with me. The only problem was that I finished reading my book and couldn’t download another because there was no wifi connection available.

I thought about using my cell phone to call some of my friends back home, but I hadn’t purchased an international card before I left. All this made me aware of how dependent we have become on the amazing machines we have at our dispoasal. Imagine life without a computer, cell phone, or wifi connection. Yikes!

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Amazon’s Book Ranking

My mother came from the Old World; by that I mean Europe, many decades ago. If you’ve read Becoming Alice you know her pretty well. One of the things I didn’t write about was her propensity for interjecting into our conversations sayings for the ordinary things that happen in life. One of her favorite was, “every pot has its own lid.” That one was used to make old maids feel better about being unmarried. It meant that there was a man out there somewhere for her that would fit her needs, just like there was a lid for every pot.

Lately, I’ve thought about another one of her favorites: “a watched pot doesn’t boil.” It has absolutely applied to my latest experiences on the internet. I have a habit of watching, and I mean almost daily, my statistics on various sites to which I am connected. I am curious to see if anyone, and how many people, might have read a blog after I’ve posted it. Often I get a few hits and then the numbers don’t go up any more. But I keep looking.

Another statistic I watch is Amazon’s Book Ranking for Becoming Alice. There, the numbers change all the time, but mostly in the wrong direction.

This last month, my normal routine has been completely disrupted. I have had to move out of my home of many, many years. I’ve had an estate (it’s a joke, it’s just used furniture) sale and arranged for a donation to charity for what’s left over. I am now having to face cleaning the whole place up. Therefore, there has been no time to check my stats anywhere.

It turned out to be a great thing, because my stats jumped considerably in positive directions on all sites, especially my Amazon site. Since I can’t figure out Amazon’s ranking system in the first place, in future I am not even going to look at it for days or weeks on end. After all, “a watched pot doesn’t boil.”

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Calling a Book a Product

I’m pretty active in several social media groups. I’d been told that it would be a good idea for letting people know about my memoir, Becoming Alice. I’ve learned a lot in the process. I’ve met a lot of nice people who are doing the same thing I am, the only difference is that their book, or product as it is called, is different than mine.

On the various sites to which I belong, I’ve joined several groups, all related to my subject and interests on the internet. My friends in these groups all come to this marketing … oh, oh, I shouldn’t have used that term because we might all be kicked out of these sites … come to these sites from entirely different points of view.

I find that many of the members are selling themselves as experts in helping the rest of us to sell our products. Many more try to teach us to be successful by blogging. I’ve noticed that a lot of these products are things as diverse as beauty supply items to real estate sales services.

Some very small group seems to be promoting their books, also called products. This is where I have to register a complaint. Selling a book is entirely different than selling shampoo or insurance coverage.

I have read that we need to sell our books to target audiences. Okay, in my case that target would include many rings since the book has appealed to men and women, young adults, people interested in wwii, people interested in family relationships, people who are Jewish, or maybe not, etc. etc.

So, being unable to target my product anywhere specific, but rather to everyone, everywhere, I shall now go back to writing my next work and let the chips fall where they may.

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The Power of the Internet and Facebook

A couple of months ago I was stunned to learn about how powerful the internet can be. I received an email from an editor of Reed Magazine asking me if I would object to their writing a short bio about me as a former student and a short synopsis of Becoming Alice, since I was considered a Reedite. I couldn’t figure out how they could have known this. Apparently, they have spiders that search the internet for this kind of information and they had gone inside my memoir and learned that I had attended Reed. Inside my book! Unbelievable!

Of course I was delighted to have them post these short pieces in their magazine. I didn’t think I was a Reedite, since I wasn’t an alumni. That did not seem to matter to them. I eventually got a copy of Reed Magazine and was most pleased with their entries.

Fast forward a couple of months and another thing happened that stunned me a second time. I received an message in Facebook from the son of one of the people I wrote about in my book. He had read about Becoming Alice in Reed Magazine, bought the book, and wondered if one of the characters was his own father. Yes, he was! He then went on to find me on Facebook. We exchanged several communications that took us back to our earliest childhood experiences as refugees in Portland, Oregon. It was a wonderful reunion of two people who had so much in common.

Which brings me to the power of Facebook. I have been on that site for quite a long time and always thought it to be most useful to my kids and grand kids who use it not only to find old friends, but to share all their current social happenings and pictures with the their friends in one easy post. I did not have much use for that although I enjoyed seeing what was going on in their lives.

Then I get an email from Facebook telling me that three people had gone to visit my Page. My Page? I had not done one thing on my page about Becoming Alice since the day I created it. I thought it to be too forward to ask all my acquaintances to become my fans. Now that others are looking in on me on my Page, perhaps I better go over there and welcome them and perhaps let them know what is going on in my life. Apparently posting where I’ll be speaking this spring on the Appearnaces page of my website will not be enough. I better run right over to Facebook and tell those three people … and perhaps some others … what is happening in my life.

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The Amazing Power of the Internet

I don’t understand the internet very well. I am neither  in the age group that learns as fast as the speed of lightning  nor in the age group that socializes with friends via the internet. I’ve come to it past those years. I play catch-up with the technology. It seems that as soon as I become familiar with one site or learn to master one progam, I become interest in half a dozen more sites and programs. Therefore, I am forever blown away by what the internet can do.

Two things have recently happened to me using my computer that shocked me into disbelief. The first was my receiving an e-mail from an editor of Reed Magazine, a quarterly publication sent to all people who have had any connection to Reed College. If you’ve read my memoir, Becoming Alice, you might remember that I spent my freshman year of college at that school. The e-mail asked me if I’d object to their placing a short bio of me in the Class Notes section of their magazine, and a short synopsis of Becoming Alice in the Readiana section of their publication. The Readiana section publicizes former Reed students who are authors and the books they have written. Are you kidding? Of course, my answer was, “Please do!”

I was amazed that they knew I’d written a book and asked how they found me. Apparently, the search engines and spiders on the internet … I don’t really know how they work … will pick up on the words “Reed College” for them.  I’d written about my time at Reed in my book and they had somehow gone inside my memoir to find me. It did give me a bit of a jolt in terms of privacy, buy hey, isn’t it great that Becoming Alice would be travelling elsewhere again.

Then the next amazing thing happened. I received another e-mail out of the blue. It came from the son of a person I’d written about in my memoir, that person being the friend of my father with whom he studied to pass the Boards for licencing physicians in the state of Washington. He had read the my book in the Readiana section of Reed Magazine, bought the book, and come to the part where I describe his father and mine studying together in our living room.

From there the adventure is easier to follow. The son gets on my website, www.alicerene.com, finds out I’m on Facebook and sends me a message. I don’t really use Facebook that much, I prefer to telephone my friends, but in this case, Facebook worked great for me. Since connecting, this son and I have exchanged memories of our two families backgrounds and experiences. Amazing … and so much fun. I have a new-found respect for the power of the internet.

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