One reason it's a good idea to belong to the AAR if you're an agent, aside from it being the ultimate stamp of legitimacy, is you get to go to AAR meetings. They're hit-or-miss, but there's usually drinks.
The last couple have been either about e-Books or social media outlets for authors like Facebook, Foursquare, etc. They basically boil down to this:
Social Media Presenter: This program is totally awesome and unless your author is a complete shut-in, incapable of communicating with the outside world, they have to have it YESTERDAY. Let's look at some totally cool statistics about user traffic!
Agent: ... How does this translate into sales?
Social Media Presenter: Funny you should ask that! I have no idea! But if your author doesn't do it it's definitely lost sales, right? So they should do it. They should spend way too much time on it, if anything. By the way, as an employee of this company or someone who's hired by authors to do this sort of thing for them, I have no stake whatsover in what I'm talking about!
Man, I have so many authors as friends on my author account on Facebook. They all make irrelevant posts and I tune them out. That's why I rarely post; I don't want to be tuned out. I don't really want to know about their cats or that they like the group "Reading" or that they just got out of a mental institution, which might be why they post "I AM THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST THE SAVIOR" roughly once every ten minutes, in caps, and sometimes with a long exposition. Dude, I am starting to not believe you are a legitimately published poet who has won many awards.
Authors: If you make a page specifically for your writing and author information, please stop posting meaningless crap I will instinctively tune out. Post about, I don't know, your writing. I must have some interest in it - I friended you. That or we're both on Farmville.
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Nothing turns me off of a writer's page more than being swamped by the irrelevant details of their life.
I don't mind a little here and there to get a better look at them as a person, but the reason I joined their page was to follow their progress as writers, not to learn about the gritty details of their cat's leg injury or how old their child is.
Excellent post!
Facebook ...
Will there be a book comprised of posts & chats? How about My Greatest Tweets?
Spare my gracious ass.
If you tell others about your restaurant, the food better be good.
If you lead people to your webpage, the content better be entertaining.
Yea...I don't know why they post about their cats. Dogs are much more interesting anyway. Maybe you should give the writer a chance, be patient with him/her,and read through the whole blog.There could be an underlying message. Be patient,because some dude once said, "the patient dog eats the fattest bone." Last week i started wondering, "Isn't that patient dog more likely to choke on the fat bone?" Is it really worth it? And why an i contradicting myself? Get back at me if you want to know the answers at slushpilehero@blogspot.com. its got my book query...and no i wasn't high when I typed this. I don't smoke. I drink, but who doesn't a a few kegs every day?
That's really funny--I generally stop following or reading an author's page if ALL they ever post about is their writing!!! I am completely BORED by, "I wrote 5k words today" or, "I'll be at such and such event" in a place far, far from me...
I enjoy the cats, the dogs, the broken vase--just about anything BUT the "I write."
People get pretty excited when George RR Martin says he's finished a chapter, mostly because his book is like 3000 years behind schedule.
Hmmm...Most every other source advises an author to post about their life in addition to their writing, because fans/readers want to feel they know the author and are not just seeing a costant advertisement.
I came across this site accidently, and wanted to check again. It's been over a year since I visited....still sounds like sour grapes. Do you just hate authors or enjoy feeling superior?
Anon 10:16,
I believe the term for my experience is "oversaturation."
Too funny. I know this is sad, but I actually unfriend people when they start going into the mundane (i.e. went to work today, worked late today, drove Matt to soccer, another soccer game...yawn). I use Linked In to connect with professional people. You get less cat talk. :-)
Ninety percent of social media is crap . . . no, I mean REAL crap, especially those who post pithy, meaningful (to them) sayings and homilies. I unfollow them immediately.
"A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be somewhere else. Only your real friends tell you when your face is dirty."
OMG, will you p*** off!
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