Wait, what?

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I’ve been a bit sick and rather distracted these last few weeks so this whole “Long Goodbye” has had a dreamlike quality for me. I keep thinking, “Did we really say we were going to do that? Surely not.”

But now it’s my turn, and it’s all starting to feel alarmingly real.

I’ve been with Murderati since, well, let’s look at the archives. Friday, December 8, 2006.  That would have been just after my first book, The Harrowing, was published.

I switched from screenwriting to writing books so quickly I really knew nothing at all about the book business, and even less about book promotion. I’m a pretty quick study, though, in general, and I jumped into the Internet research. And in 2006 it was pretty clear that blogging was the thing for authors to do, and pretty clear to me that Murderati was the mystery blog to beat.

So I became a frequent commenter. I came from theater, I know how to audition.  I figured I’d just be so sparkly and irresistible and indispensible that they’d just have to ask me to join. Which apparently worked, because they did.

It’s been a long time. I blogged here every week for several years.  I was quickly so sick of talking about myself (within a month, I’d say…) I started blogging on story structure instead, and ended up writing almost my whole Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbook here, one blog at a time. That’s a pretty amazing thing, right there.  A lot of what I’ve written has been scribbled (typed) frantically at the end of long days when I’ve simply forgotten what day it was, an occupational hazard of a full-time writer. Other times I felt inspired, or felt like I had to top some tour de force of Steve’s, and I ended up feeling like a real writer of other things besides books.

I don’t have to tell any of you this, but a blog becomes a kind of PLACE, where people know they can stop by and find other people of like mind, a whole batch of regulars. Sometimes fun, sometimes comforting, sometimes confrontational, often emotional.  You actually work with your blogmates, so this is feeling like leaving a long-loved job.  As well as, as others have already said, like a favorite restaurant or bar or club closing down.

Only we did it to ourselves.  Why?

Honestly, it’s not the bi-weekly blogging that’s so hard – it’s the turnover.  Anyone leaving throws the balance into turmoil and the rest of us have to scramble to get back on track. I've done that scramble more times than I want to count over these six years. And the truth is, writers don’t seem to have enough time to blog any more. It feels like diminishing returns, when there’s a fast and easy alternative conversation on Facebook. The technology has changed. The conversation has moved.  We’re having to reinvent.

I used to run a huge cyber bulletin board of 2000+ screenwriters.  In many ways I’ve never been as comfortable with the blog format as I was with the bulletin board format. On WriterAction, ANYONE could start a thread. It was perfectly egalitarian that way. Some of our beloved backbloggers here on Murderati have been confessing that they had hopes of joining the lineup here. My feeling is that you often WERE the lineup – it just didn’t appear that way to a casual visitor because of the hierarchical structure of a blog. But on a bulletin board, you guys would clearly have been the lineup. I can’t help but feel that’s a better way.

Facebook eventually made our bulletin board unnecessary. It’s possible that it was mostly Facebook that made Murderati unnecessary as well. I’m an intensely social person and I need my social contact, but I see so many of you regularly on Facebook that I may have been lulled into feeling it’s not goodbye, just a change of venue that seems better suited to the times. I guess I’ll never know how many people regularly read my blogs here, but it’s easy to see that I’m getting massive traffic from my Facebook mini-blogs and random silly or profound comments there, because I get so many comments back.  More people take that time to comment on Facebook.  It feels more real, and I can be political, or brief, or cryptic, or completely idiotic. I like the informality, and I love the pace of conversation when it gets going.

In previous years I would have taken on the burden of reinventing Murderati as a bulletin board community or something similar. But I’m getting what I need out of Facebook, and I’m providing anyone who cares to drop by my FB page with the same thing I’ve done here, whatever the hell that is! - and with MUCH less time investment, leaving me more time to do what I’m supposed to be doing.  And we all know what that is. We all keep saying it.

We need to write books.

I know I'll still be seeing a lot of you as much as ever, elsewhere.  But because Murderati is a PLACE, I am already missing and mourning it. It’s the end of an era, and we all take change hard. 

Please keep in touch, or it's just too unbearable.

- Here’s where I am far too often on Facebook.

- I will be blogging regularly on my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors blog – I teach a college film class, now, and will be doing a lot of movie breakdowns in the future.  I would love to have people come by and talk.

- My website is regularly updated, and you can join my mailing list there to get book news (no more than four updates a year.)

- And I am going to make a point of checking the Murderati Facebook page every day and posting/responding there.

And… I have to let you all know, since I have shared so much of my e book journey here: Huntress Moon was just nominated for a Thriller Award in the International Thriller Writers’ brand new category of Best E Book Original Novel.

That's partly down to you, you know.

Thanks for everything.  I love you all.

Now tell me. Am I just an idiot for thinking Facebook is the modern alternative to blogging, and that it could ever be the same? If so, what WOULD be an alternative?

- Alex

Be sure to tune in on weekends, too this month for posts by alumni.  J.D. Rhoades is first up, tomorrow! 

It's called MICROBLOGGING, okay?

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I was going to call this post "Is blogging dead?"  but that just sets up a conundrum I can't wrap my head around, not after the week I've just had.

But this question has been on my mind a lot lately, for a lot of reasons.  

Promotion and social media exposure, a strong internet presence, is absolutely mandatory for an author. Blogging used to be THE primary method of getting yourself out there, and if you had a personal blog and participated in a group blog like Murderati, or several, even better.

But so many group blogs have shut down, and authors seem to be burned out on personal blogging.

And then there's Facebook. 

I hear from a lot of people that FB is on the decline but it seems to me that the conversations that used to be had in the blog comments, and the large communities of "backbloggers,"  a lion's share of that action has moved to Facebook, and that that aspect of FB is growing.

Blogs are in-depth entities. The joy of a blog is that you can really explore a topic (as well as sometimes do some virtuoso writing), and the comments that follow deepen the conversation, and there's something compelling about the FEELING of a closed, fixed space that a blog is that makes it a sort of virtual salon. People return to their favorite blogs. I think of Murderati as a PLACE, where I can find people I know and where other people can drop by and join the party.  I love that virtual reality aspect of it.

But blogging takes a lot of time, not just for the blogger. It takes actual effort to read a blog, in that you have to go to a particular place to get to the conversation.  If the conversation there isn't what you were looking for, you have to look elsewhere.

Facebook is a different kind of experience.  It's all right there in front of you. You throw a topic up there and whoever happens to be passing by on the endless river of "feed" may or may not jump in.  You never know who or what you're going to get, although I do notice a base of regular commenters coming back to my Facebook page over and over, so there is an aspect of place to it as well.  

FB has tailored a social media expereince that is either still a novelty, or possibly more suited to the kind of social media experience that we are looking for - quick, fun, convenient interaction that gives you a buzz of relevance without much work.

I've heard it referred to as "microblogging" and I think that's a perfect description.

Now, I'm speaking from a very privileged position of being part of an established and respected group blog and also running a very popular blog of my own - my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors blog is getting more traffiic than ever (though far fewer comments these days), and a great deal of that traffic is for much older posts that are constantly reposted and linked to as people discover the blog and read the accompanying workbooks.  It's a hugely important selling tool for my nonfiction books.

But lately I feel like I'm casting a far wider net with FB than I can with blogging.  Any post I make I get comments from people I don't know at all. It's a quick interaction that introduces me to a huge number of people who may remember me and the fact that I'm an author, which is the groundwork of all promotion - name recognition. And I enjoy the format of Facebook.  It's so visual - which puts it light years ahead of Twitter, in my opinion. There's an aspect of improv to it, in that I can always find something fun to say about something someone else has posted. I am, for better or worse, a social butterfly, and I love to have random conversations with large groups of random people.

I know, I know, it's sounding like I've just discovered Facebook (Where exactly has she BEEN for six years?you're asking). But that's not exactly true. I was on it before it went public. It's only recently that I've felt that I can use it properly and that it's at least for the moment being a form of social media promotion that gives me the most bang for my time.  Time being always of the essence - not just for writers, but for everyone who reads them.

So today, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it. Do you think blogging has moved to Facebook? Have you had luck microblogging over there?  

And while we're on it, where does Twitter figure in? If people ARE leaving FB, where are they going? I'm really interested in what you all have to say about it.

And for comparison of the two media, here's my Facebook page, where you can find the same discussion topic (third topic, full page.)

- Alex

Hello, Goodbye

By Allison Brennan

I couldn't leave Murderati without one last post, and Pari graciously gave me the first "Expect the Unexpected" Tuesday in the new configuration of this great blog.

I enjoy blogging, but as all of you know, and all the writers out there know, blogging takes time away from writing and family. I had to make a choice, and blogging weekly (twice a month here, twice a month at Murder She Writes) in addition to guest blogs here and there and all the other social media things on my author to-do list was kind of stressing me out. Everything was taking away from my writing time and my kids. Something had to give, and unfortunately, it was this blog.

But I'm sure I'll pop up on occasion, if the gang will have me as a visitor. :)

I've thought a lot about social media over the past year or two, and what is expected from authors. To be accessible, to share our thoughts, to answer questions.

Blogging is only part of it. (And, to be honest, when I founded Murder She Writes with four other authors six years ago, we did it partly because we thought it would be good promotion, and partly because we liked each other and enjoyed chatting with others through the blog about family, writing, entertainment.) But there's also Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn, and Google+, and a dozen other social media avenues that "they" say you have to be part of in order to survive in this New World of publishing.

There are many, many authors who aren't part of the on-line community. And many, many authors who are. The only way it truly works is if the author builds a rapport, which means talking about things OTHER than their books. And that means, they should enjoy the community they're in. Otherwise, it's a chore, a hated chore, like cleaning grout. And people pick up on that.

Social media works primarily if the author can create a following of readers who will sincerely talk up their books and spread the word of mouth that is essential to the success of any book. In fact, if you ask most publicists and marketing folks, they'll tell you that word of mouth is the single most effective tool to create a bestseller--but there's no one way and no guaranteed way to generate it.

Let's pretend there are ten equally "good" books out on a given day. A lot of things factor into making a potential bestseller -- cover, co-op, reviews, author (if it's a known author), endorsements, cover copy, placement -- and some work for some readers, some for others. But the way to make a title move higher is for people to recommend the book (or the author) to others. To talk about the book on blogs. And Twitter. And Facebook. But no one knows how to create that world of mouth--on the Internet or face-to-face--each and every time. They try everything, but what works for one book or author might not work for another equally good book or author.

But we sometimes forget because we spend so much time at our computers writing (and participating on blogs and twitter and facebook) that more than half the readers are still not reading electronic books (22% of my books are sold as e-books) and many readers still rely on the recommendation from their colleague or sister or best friend.

What this practically means for authors is that we have more to do with less time and resources. We can't neglect the online communities, nor can we forget that there are "offline" communities who read just as much.

So my advice to writers: participate in the communities that you enjoy, don't self-market all the time, and focus on the writing first. Because none of the social media matters if you don't have a book to sell.

My advice to readers: share your books with others. Recommend authors you like, either face-to-face or on the Internet. Email the author of a book you enjoyed and tell her.

And a caveat to all: give both, writers and readers, then benefit of the doubt when you hear rumors in cyberspace. Misunderstandings spread instantly in the virtual world, and can damage careers and reputations. People seem to think that they can say anything they want because it's "anonymous," but I'd argue that character is judged by what you do when no one is looking--or when no one knows who you are.

I can be found in cyberspace at my website, of course, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and Murder She Writes.

FYI: The third Lucy Kincaid book, IF I SHOULD DIE, will be out two weeks from today, on November 22. So far, the reviews have been positive. Fresh Fiction said, "“Non-stop action, spine-tingling suspense … a wonderful addition to a great series.” And Joyfully Reviewed made DIE a Recommended Read for December. “If I Should Die is a spine-tingling chiller that will wrap you up in its mystery and take you on a heart-pounding race to the breathtaking finale!”

In addition, the novella LOVE IS MURDER is printed in the book as bonus material. You get a full-length book plus a full novella for a single book, mass market price. Cool, eh?

And a sneak peak at the fourth Lucy Kincaid book, SILENCED, and the first with my new publisher, St. Martin's/Minotaur. They're taking the series in an exciting new direction, don't you think? And that's what I'm doing now -- revising this book. I have two weeks. Any wonder why I needed to free up some time?

I've very much enjoyed my three-plus years here at Murderati. We had a great little community amongst ourselves, and within our regulars who comment or lurk. Pari and J.T. have really created a fantastic, enduring blog, and I'm glad it's continuing to exist. Thank you, Murderati gang, for having me back for the day, even if it was just to say good-bye.