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 Friendship Relationship

One of my friends died last weekend. Since it wasn’t expected, my first reaction was shock. How is that possible? What happened? Are you sure? It can’t be! And then I had to make peace with the fact that my dear friend, Betty, is gone.

I didn’t see Betty all that often. She and I don’t live very close and we both were so busy that touching base every so often was all we could do. But when we did see one another, or even when we talked on the telephone, we could relate exactly to what the other was experiencing and feeling … because we each had gone through the same life events. We understood one another.

There is an empty hole there now that won’t be filled any time soon. The experts tell us that women fare much Better than men in case a lifelong partner is lost. Why? It seems that women make deeper and stronger bonds with one another that men do. Perhpas that goes back to the Stone Age when women stayed home in their camps with their children while the men hunted. Women talked, shared their concerns, and protected one another. Men’s attentions were completely directed to the hunt and not to one another.

I am particualrly sensitive to the strength and power of women’s friendships. You see, it was because of my Jewish mother’s close friendship with a Catholic woman that my entire family’s lives were saved from Nazi persecution. She risked her own skin for our benefit.

I must have learned that lesson subjectively because I am blessed with many friends of my own and to lose one of them really hurts. I treasure the others that are still with me.

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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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Power Struggle

I am in the process of dabbling in this social networking thing. I’m not sure I have the personality to really get out of it all that it is cracked up to be. I’m not looking for any long lost high school friends, or for that matter, college friends. I have lots of current friends with whom I have much more in common. Sometimes I wonder if the girl I was way back then was really me.

Nor do I find it interesting to read about what someone had for breakfast or how much trouble it is to go grocery shopping when they’d rather be writing their novel. That novel, or course, would be the next greatest American novel written.

And … I am really annoyed by the fact that a zillion posts are written by people who are trying to sell me something. But lately I have stumbled upon an interesting discussion, one which asks a writers’ community the question: when can a writer consider himself/herself a success. This question has produced quite a bit of steam. It has pitted one opinion against another, diametrically opposed to one another, and has turned into a classical power struggle between the two sides, each claiming to be right.

One writer claims his sales of 500,000 books has given him the right to consider himself successful while another wrote, “I consider myself successful each time someone other than a relative or a friend buys my book.”

Now, I know it is true that one must sell thousand of books to be considered by an agent, or editor, or publisher for any kind of contract for his/her work. And I also know you must sell thousands of books in order to make any money. I also understand myself well enough to know that my expectations for Becoming Alice were such that I fall in the category of the writer who feels successful with each sale of his/her book. Luckily I have had many, many days when I have felt successful.

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Hawkers and Experts

Weekends are my times for catching up to zillions of emails, some of them days old. I do have a quick check of them every day and open only those that seem to be important to me. Most of the rest are ones whose content I would describe as coming from hawkers and experts. They’ve become almost as annoying as the advertisement pop-ups you get while are researching something on the internet.

Perhaps the fault is all mine. I belong to a couple of social networking sites that attract readers and writers and hence, authors. I qualify for all those descriptions. Many of my emails come from postings by groups to which I belong on these sites. Among them are groups entitled: Write it Down, Cover to Cover, Published Authors Network, Authors Society, Bloggers Helping Bloggers, Tips for Self-Promotion, Sales, and Advertising, etc. etc.

Within these groups many participants discuss the books they are reading and share their opinions about the quality of the writing. Sometimes people will ask for recommendations for books of a specific genre or age group. Whether asked for or not, there are multitudes of postings from authors drawing attention to their own books.

In other groups, members will post the URL’s to their websites which are set up to help people market their books, learn how to navigate the social networking sites, how to set up a successful website, how to do book trailers, give interview, go to book signings, and become a sought-after speaker. Oh, I forgot to include the importance of writing articles … and of course, how to write those articles. And I mustn’t forget how to give interviews.

It has occured to me that my fellow authors have become a bunch of hawkers and experts. We are not much different from the hawkers that stood in front of a circus tent shouting to passers-by to enter to see “the greatest show on earth.” Only we authors are the hawkers trying to impress anyone reading the site that our book is the most interesting reading of all books.

And then there are the other authors who try to convince us that they are the most competent ones in marketing who know how to increase our sales dramatically. They usually have one or two recommendations on their website and consider themselves the experts in the field. Their services vary in price, but don’t come cheap. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for me, I know of people who have spend a fortune on such services and been sorely disappointed.

I must admit that at times I have added my memoir, Becoming Alice, to some discussions and forums when appropriate. But I get a little nervous about being seen as a hawker and I know full well that even though people sell themselves as marketing experts, I haven’t been convinced that they know much more than me.

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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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Advice for a Facebook Page

I’m thinking about putting up a Facebook Page. My first thought is, do I really know how to do it? Second, if I puting upteen hours of work trying to figure out how to do it, will it really be worth the time spent? Will any of the people that at connected to me as “friends” or “connections” or simply curious “readers of this blog” who may or, more commonly, may never have posted a blog,” come aboard now as “fans?” To me that implies finding either me or  Becoming Alice brilliant, entertaining, outrageous, or just interesting.

Then the next thing to figure out is what is my “target audience?”  Since most of you that read my tweets, facebook posts, and this blog have remained painfully silent, I don’t really know who you are. Therefore it is really hard for me to talk to all you ghosts out there.

Yet another problem I have is to know which category Becoming Alice appeals to most strongly. I have won awards for my work in both the Teenage/Young Adult categories and the Memoir/Biography catgories. I have received letters and e-mails from people of all these ages, even elderly people. Is there such a thing as a Geriatric Cagtegory? I don’t know what to do. I must find out if I can target at least the two existing categories.

So, if any of you can help me out with this quandry that I’m in, I sure would love to hear from you.

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