On Having An Online Presence

[Robert Zwilling]

With just a snippet of sound and a picture a deep fake ad can be created featuring anyone. You have to know it's out there to request that it be taken down. Seems like if the ad or speech is inappropriate for where it was posted that is more likely to have it taken down sooner than if it is just requested to be taken down.

 

[Astro Pen]

With just a snippet of sound and a picture a deep fake ad can be created featuring anyone. You have to know it's out there to request that it be taken down. Seems like if the ad or speech is inappropriate for where it was posted that is more likely to have it taken down sooner than if it is just requested to be taken down.

And to make that point here I am as James Bond!
(My girlfriend did a few 'refaces' a couple of years back.)

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Personally the sum total of my on-line profile as an author goes is Facebook and a blog. I'm also on Deviant Art, but when I put up covers and ask for comments etc, I leave the titles etc off - it just feels too cringe to have them on, like some sort of back door advertising. I'm perfectly happy having them on FB and my blog - since that's sort of upfront marketing.

But someone early on mentioned that they don't like the thought of showing their face because they're a middle aged man. I dig that! However, as I mentioned somewhere around here, I Deep Dreamed myself, and made a new sort of younger, hotter author picture of myself. Haven't really used it anywhere yet, but I might at some stage. I recommend people do get an old (older the better probably) photo of themselves, post it to their favorite AI as a source, and see what it will come up with. It's fun if nothing else!

Cheers, Greg.

 

[clarissajaneen]

I personally really enjoy maintaining my website. And I do alright with regular social media posting. I've been trying to post roughly once a week on Instagram. And I have found that pictures with my face perform better than those without (I'm also, admittedly, a young, conventionally-attractive White woman, which likely helps as far as the mythic algorithm) But from my MFA class on personal marketing for authors (which was also how I found this forum), we learned a lot about how one of the most important methods of building a community and following is to engage with people on social media, which isn't necessarily my strong suit. I don't know how to do anything besides comment "hey that thing you posted looks cool!"

I've also been told over and over that blogging is an extremely useful tool for authors, but only if you can commit to regular posting which I cannot. I also wonder how effective this really is for fiction authors? I've never followed anyone's blog, nor have I ever discovered and author or their books through a blog (unless you count Tumblr) so I don't see why anyone would follow mine. I am active on Tumblr, but I doubt that's the kind of blogging my professors have been recommending since I'm just posting my own illustrations and reblogging posts about books and writing---I'm not writing my own journalistic articles about writing that demonstrate my expertise on the subject.

 

[HareBrain]

I've also been told over and over that blogging is an extremely useful tool for authors, but only if you can commit to regular posting which I cannot.

@The Big Peat is probably the most consistent blogger here, posting almost every day. If he answers my summons, he might share a few thoughts.

 

[Dave]

The problem with all social media, blogging, and podcasting is the time that's required to build your online presence. Unless you are already a famous celebrity, or else you pay a vast fortune to promote on platforms, it doesn't really matter how interesting/funny/clever you are, because the algorithms mean that no one will read it. Until you have hundreds or even thousands of followers you are speaking into a vacuum. You need to have followers who will re-post, re-blog you to begin with. You have to commit to a long haul. Only a rare few people get something that goes viral and that is largely by pure luck.

I speak not as an author but as someone managed several different social media accounts, and who has taken about 12 years to create a 40k Twitter account (that is now dying anyway because that platform is being mis-managed and people are still leaving it in droves.) However, I did read all the advice, even went on a courses, including one at Twitter HQ, and did all the right things in those earlier days. And it's harder now than it was 12 years ago because rules and algorithms have all changed.

Facebook, Instagram are slightly better, but my point is essentially the same, it takes a great deal of your time to craft and build your account, and wouldn't you rather be using that to write books instead?

One workshop made us make a list of why we were on social media and to prioritise what we wanted out of that. You can then use that to make sure you are always on message and to measure if you are succeeding. I still think that was good advice. However, if you are using it for marketing/promotion, in the end you are spending a lot of your time doing something other than the thing that you really want to be doing. And when Twitter no longer supported free access to the their API last year, thousands of businesses became unprofitable overnight without much warning, so all your hard work is bound to a platform that could suddenly disappear for any number of reasons beyond your control.

If you love and enjoy Blogging/Podcasting then you can treat them as a fun hobby, but using it as a way to promote your books is not an efficient use of time. Joining SFF Chronicles was probably a better move.

Edit: Just to add that by "promote your books" I did mean "sales." You quite obviously must have an online presence as an author, or anyone, in todays world. You need a website at the very least, because readers want to know about you and who you are, and you probably need somewhere to answer questions, which social media probably does far better than a website. Static websites get much less traffic than they did, unless they have lots of new content and download links, and they take up time in maintaining, and they cost money to host. Forum software costs more money. Facebook is "free" (except there is no such thing as a free lunch and they make money from your digital footprint.)

So, you do need to promote yourself and your latest book somewhere, just remember that "followers" are not book "sales."

 

[Toby Frost]

Unless you are already a famous celebrity, or else you pay a vast fortune to promote on platforms, it doesn't really matter how interesting/funny/clever you are, because the algorithms mean that no one will read it.

Unfortunately this site won't let me "like" your post ten times over. This feels incredibly accurate.

I've had a miniature-painting blog for eight years on blogger, which is still pretty popular in those spheres. I follow quite a lot of other people, most of whom are doing similar things to me at about the same level of skill. When I started, I assumed that things would naturally grow. They have not, and I now have 37 followers, of whom a fair chunk are probably inactive accounts. Two people comment regularly on my posts.

I don't really care very much, as I'm not doing it to make money, but the point is that good regular content doesn't enable a web presence to grow. Anyhow, so now we've got rid of the mid-list and there's no reliable way to succeed in self-publishing, what next for books? My hot tip is to get into book-burning. I reckon it's going to get big soon.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

If you not interested in making money off of every "sale" you cam find places that have free books and slip a book or two onto the shelves and then walk away.

 

[Ursa major]

My hot tip is to get into book-burning. I reckon it's going to get big soon.

It could be turned into a sport... with some matches televised....

 

[Toby Frost]

Available on a paper view basis.

 

[The Big Peat]

@The Big Peat is probably the most consistent blogger here, posting almost every day. If he answers my summons, he might share a few thoughts.

I will, and they're mostly don't do it.

Or at least don't do it with any great expectation of results.

Let's talk numbers for a bit. I went from Blogger to Wordpress in late 2020. From 2021 onwards, I have posted 1403 articles, or as its otherwise known, 1.1m words. I have 199 followers to show for that. That has given me no special consideration from agents, or expectation my work would be seized upon and given the best possible platform by hundreds of bloggers.

It's been fun. It may be, should I get published, that I can trace some good things that happen to the blog. And I certainly know ways I could have promoted it more.

But a useful tool? I guess, if you accept that the tools for creating an online presence as an author are just inadequate to the task. It's like using a metal detector to find life changing treasure - completely inadequate and while some will succeed, but that's more or less entirely dumb luck and massive perseverance.

 

[Toby Frost]

Last night, a friend and I tried to guess the future of publishing. This is one option:

Soon, AI will be able to copy an existing book and alter the text to the point where it no longer seems to breach copyright. Of course, doing this will in itself infringe copyright, but first you'll have to catch people doing it. It might be possible to download a programme, say, that will automatically write books for you based on what's on your kindle.

Say you really like Honor Harrington novels. The AI would be able to churn out more Honor Harrington novels, or create something very similar with the names changed slightly (Toby looks nervously at Capt. Felicity Fitzroy from the Space Captain Smith books). To begin with, these knock-offs would be bad, if not unreadable, but soon the AI would figure out how to write a low-quality pulp imitation. For some fans of whatever was being imitated, this would be enough. It's clear from some self-published stuff that some readers will ignore basic mistakes if the tropes they want are there.

Meanwhile, it would be possible to game things like Amazon sales ranks, keywords etc by applying an AI to them. At the moment, there is a cottage industry of people teaching SP authors how to do this. You wouldn't need to with an AI, which could follow and exploit trends like the stock market.

This could lead to the world of self-publishing (online, at least, which is where the money is) being flooded by books written by and marketed by computers. (This is somewhat reminiscent of Julia's job in Pornosec in 1984, but then turning the world into a dictatorial hellhole is quite fashionable these days.) Anyone could immediately get half a dozen rubbish knock-offs of their favourite novel. And that, in turn, might lead to a situation where (human) literary agents and trad publishers acted as a sort of guarantee service to show that a book was written by a person and was actually pretty good (or at least not totally derivative).

 

[Dave]

To take that to it's natural conclusion, they would create AI authors for these books with fake names and photos, made-up biographies and fake awards, with fake social media streams and histories, and fake followers. Wouldn't it be equally as easy to create fake literary agents and publishers to vouch for them too?

 

[Toby Frost]

Probably. This is pure guesswork, after all. There would need to be some kind of guarantee that the agent or publisher was real: a sort of seal of authenticity, perhaps gained by being part of an in-person society. Of course, there would then be loads of attempts to falsify those credentials.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Two people comment regularly on my posts.

That's not bad. I think two folk genuinely into the work is a good thing. You are spot on about the algorithms, there is something strange behind the scenes there. I've made and published hundreds of stories, sketches, standup bits blah and most will get single figure or zero views. I'm realistic enough to consider that is simply because they are rubbish, BUT, as an experiment I got the best* comic in Ireland to do a quick sketch (*possibly not the most famous, but up there and all of the big names will say his name when asked who influenced them). I won't link it here just to be safe, but it was a good one. I posted it online on all the platforms with the correct tags etc. and nothing. So to be fair online popularity is probably meaningless.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Things do look pretty bad with AI. The only defence is not to have an authorial voice, like, say, Terry Prattchet or Honor Harrington. Vary the style. (This would be my advice anyway.) But it occurs to me now that an AI could easily copy the style of my Hairy London or Xana-la because the style is so distinctive. That's troubling..

 

[Toby Frost]

I think the question to ask with any technology now is "How could an immensely wealthy sociopath cause the most damage and misery with this?" and that's probably what will happen.

 

[beccabear67]

I remember in an '80s magazine reading some author (could it have been Harlan Ellison?) informing the readers that only 1% of people in The U.S. bought books and that of that 1% most bought two or three books in a year. It's always seemed 'bad odds', but I think writing is something you do as opposed to being or are; anyone who writes is in fact a writer, an author, and you are going to do it or else not do it. If you need to have an opportunity made for doing it that can be your excuse to not 'do'. Which isn't to say there is less opportunity than at another time, although supposedly in the age of access, it may also be the easiest it's ever been.

It does seem a new requirement of a commercially successful author is the promotion and selling part, that seems to have only gotten more a requirement. It's too bad there can't be a line of people who will 'be' that person full-time for someone who only wants to write full-time... not everybody can now wants be the Harlan Ellison sort of personality who gets attention, plus there is the question of just where is the time to do the writing which you might hope to be the important part. It used to be many SF/F authors were total letter hacks (unpaid writing/commenting) if not columnists proper (not always paid or well paid writing/blogging), you'd see them in the prozines and the fanzines all the time often having rather heated arguments or responding to allegations... the internet is really just more of that on a different scale and without much paper.

AI: I honestly don't fear this. To read something, anything, you are investing time, and honestly, who really wants to read what a program no matter how sophisticated would put together. We read what another human being like us has to say, thinks, dreams... that is what and why. Unless they are not honest that AI is behind something people will at best find only a curiosity where the real art is in the program. AI Art only costs seconds to scan and may serve a purpose, but AI writing? With so many humans able and very willing to write more than can be fully employed now? I really don't see it. There are humans that already are AI in that they are fueled mainly by the input and emulation thereof of past human authors, but they are the less interesting for it; it's the mind that takes two + two and comes up with something other than four which is most interesting and AI will only be imitating so bound to come up with not much genuinely of human interest. That's what I think anyway, and the same holds for song lyrics. There will never be another Sturgeon, or Dick, or Tiptree Jr., or Tolkien, and if you load them and a thousand others into a blender I believe you will find that mostly you're going to get a lot less than four.

Write what you want to, "sing your own special song" to quote from an old Cass Elliot song. Maybe "nobody else" will want to "sing along", but then again maybe then will, and if it's only four that still more than two, or nothing. Enjoy the 'do' because the 'be' has probably always been out of our individual hands, all you can do is keep the door open, and who really wants to force or trick people into entering? In the meanwhile what kind of an audience are you? An audience is important because in the words of another song (this time from the group Chilliwack), "if there's no audience there just ain't no show". If you can't find an audience then it will just have to find you, and meanwhile you are the audience.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

My hot tip is to get into book-burning. I reckon it's going to get big soon.

When a certain Southern US state recently published a list of books to be banned in schools, public libraries etc, I wrote to complain that several of my works were missing from the list. Unfortunately, I never heard anything back.

 

[Toby Frost]

"I believe this might be exactly the sort of book you will want to destroy. Please purchase a copy forthwith."