Musicians producing and selling their own material are only respectable when they’re good, mind you! There’s a lot of musical dross out there.

That’s why I made the MySpace comparison with regard to promotion, rather than publishing. I don’t think we’ll see the literary world changing its mind about the respectability of self-published fiction very soon, and I understand why. So long as anyone can print anything they write easily, and relatively cheaply, it’s inevitable that we will continue to see lots of dross being printed. But that’s not the same thing as being published.

Here’s to the year when you will be Number 50072!

My favorite point you make is that Web 3.0 will bring us back to a focus on people. Technology is useful, but it’s never been about the connections; it’s about who we get to connect with.

Great work. Thanks for all the info. Some year, very soon, I’m going to be Number 50072!

James Black

I think we’re on the same wavelength about MySpace and the indie musicians. I don’t have any evidence, just a gut feeling that the site is going to do the same thing for authors who get involved.

First of all, your general premise is absolutely right. The single best marketing tool for new authors is social media. But, there are a lot of factors that should go into planning your campaign. Size of the community is not the only issue. MySpace did a lot for indie musicians – because indie musicians are well positioned to appeal to the kids who made up the bulk of MySpace users at that time.

Yes, you’ll gain a few friends on any of these sites, since people are complex and don’t live stereotyped lives. But you will build the largest, most active following by selecting a few communities that may be smaller, but focus more tightly on the type of members most likely to make up your readers. Those people can tell their friends, whether it be in person, over the phone, or on Facebook, all about your latest, greatest book. By choosing carefully selected communities, you gain several things. First, you get access to the most likely possible readers for your work. Second, these will often be the most active enthusiasts for your work, and the most vocal in spreading your influence further. Say, instead, you meet a businessperson on LinkedIn who happens to like your work. If it isn’t common reading fare for the LinkedIn crowd, there is more chance they will read your book themselves but say nothing of it to their acquaintances, who don’t – after all – share their tastes.

Finally, of course, you save yourself time. It takes time to maintain a presence in any community. The largest ones are those most likely to feature spammers, and even ordinary users, just out to build their “friend” profiles any old way. So you will spend more of your time on meaningless “relationships” with people who will add anyone to their friends list. Instead, you might better spend your time on a smaller site building stronger relationships with people who, as I said above, are more likely to actively spread the word about you. Yes, there are a few authors who might gain from joining the big, obvious sites. But most will gain far more by looking over all the hundreds (or perhaps even thousands by now) of possible communities, and choosing one that will work for them (taking long term viability into account, of course).

Exactly how you choose the communities will depend on the nature of your work. Say you have a strong interest in a specific subject beyond reading and writing, and that subject makes frequent appearances in your work. (It could be music, or horses, or technology – whatever.) Then look for communities that focus on that subject – their members are some of your most likely core readers. If your work isn’t that clearly defined, you’ll need to be more creative in targeting communities that meet your needs. One resource to ignore when choosing a community: official statements by that community offering profiles and statistics. There is a good chance those books are cooked. A huge number of “users” claimed by nearly any site are people who once signed up for an account to look things over, decided they didn’t like what they saw, and left, never bothering to come back even long enough to delete their account.