Monday, October 12, 2009


Facing Off with Facebook

from Publishing Perspectives
Editorial by Debra Ollivier

If you're a published author or soon-to-be-published author, chances are you'll get something like the 63-page document I got from my publisher before my recent book was launched. It's called "Internet Advice for Authors: Getting Started, Getting Online, and Getting Noticed," and starts with the almost quaint question: "What is Online Marketing?" Every author is expected to at least wade into the giant electronic pond of posters. But between blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, Youtubing, and maintaining a fan base (oh, and did I forget emailing?), what author has the time - never mind the mental clarity - to write? Being off-line has never been so attractive - even though I am writing this for an online venue. (Modern life is full of ironies and contradictions). (read on ...)

Bonus Material: Harvard to Digitize 51,000 Rare Chinese ManuscriptsBy Edward NawotkaHarvard University and the National of Library of China signed a multi-million dollar partnership deal on Friday to digitize 51,000 volumes of rare Chinese manuscripts.The works will be drawn from the Harvard-Yenching Library, a collection formed by Alfred Kai-ming Chiu starting from the 1920.The six-year project will be done in two three-year phases. The first phase, beginning in January 2010, will digitize books from the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which date from about 960 AD to 1644. The second phase, starting in January 2013, will digitize books from the Qing Dynasty, which date from 1644 until 1795. (read on ...)

1 comment:

TK Roxborogh said...

The post on the 'online presence' is most interesting. I'm lucky because my students are doing most of the work for me. One of them set up a T.K Roxborogh fan page on Face Book (I think there are currently 155 fans, lol) but the most pleasing thing for me, as an author, is the instance feedback I'm getting for the book.

Everytime someone posts on MY wall, it not only is available for all my friends to see but also the friends of the person who posts. It's really like multiplication.

Also, late last year, another one of my students set up a blog (it was the summer and the girls wanted to 'be in the loop' as I was writing the novel). This also has had wonderful flow on effects for the book. Not, of course, anywhere near as popular as your fab site, Bookman, but, with posters being displayed in bookstores and libraries containing my blog address, the FB traffic and search engines, I'm getting a huge number of hits daily, from all over the world.

The bookseller connected to my page told me on Saturday that he's had orders from America already.

Initially, it took up time which should have been spent writing, but I believe it has paid off (is paying off.

Though I don't understand Twitter, and tweeting and other such stuff, I'm leaving a lot of this online chatter in the hands of my very dedicated group of students who are spreading the word.

Penguin and Tania are very happy, esp as the book debuted number three on the best seller list.