Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Online Networking 3

(Networking Part Nine)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Well, the fine group of people I interviewed about online networking last week taught me something—all by example.

I often post the Freelancer’s Guide late on Wednesday night—about midnight or so Pacific Time.  It’s too late to tweet that the Guide is up (no offense to the Australian readers) and the wrong time to post on Facebook or on my various list serves.  So I wait to announce the new Guide until I get online the following morning.

Last Wednesday night, I posted the Guide at about 11:30 p.m., then I shut down the internet computer and trundled off to my evening relaxation routine.  (Yes, I’m a late night person.  Setting your own schedule is one of the many perks of freelancing.)

I figured I would notify everyone that the post was up in the morning, and that also meant sending e-mail to last week’s participants.

By the time I logged on the following morning, I found that half of the people I had quoted in the Guide had not only figured out the Guide was up, they had also tweeted about their participation and in most cases, they had also written a small post on their own blogs about the Guide.

Whoa.  That’s impressive.  And impressively fast.  The internet—not bound by time or tides—allowed them to respond when they saw the post, long before I had contacted them.  In the case of the regular bloggers (who were the ones who responded quickly), I have a hunch they have their blogs set up to accept pingbacks, which are notifications that someone has linked to their blogs (for lack of a better definition), followed the pingback, and saw the post.

But still, impressive.  I often follow pingbacks to my blog, but I usually don’t have the time to write a short post about them.  (Or maybe I don’t make the time.  Hmmm.  More learning here.)

When it comes to internet networking, everything does move at light speed—rather like a real time conversation. But unlike a real time conversation, the back-and-forth remains on the internet for a long, long time.  (I hesitate to say “forever” because I am a science fiction writer, and therefore am quite aware that nothing lasts forever.)

I started the networking topic because writer Carolyn Nicita reminded me that networking is an important part of freelancing.  I saved online networking to the very last because I felt that I didn’t have enough knowledge of the topic to write convincingly of it by myself.

This is the third installment of the online portion of our discussion, and the ninth (!) installment of the networking discussion.  Whoops.  I would have really missed a major topic had I written this book without reader interaction.  (Thanks, Carolyn. And thanks everyone else who has suggested various topics.)

If you haven’t read the previous two posts on online networking, I suggest you do so now because I am going to continue where I left off last week. (Here are the links to the first part and the second)

Writing about online networking has helped me in some respects.  I realized that I automatically do a few things right.  I also realized that I’m more experienced at online networking than I thought.  Like everyone else, I tumbled into the online community (several of them, in fact) and accidentally used it to build a platform. While I’ve come late to some parts of the game (blogging, Twitter, Facebook), I’ve had a website for nearly fifteen years and I’ve been on listserves and e-mail networking lists since the early 1990s.

Many of the people I interviewed for this part of the Guide have similar experiences.

Bestseller Neil Gaiman (who, when asked for a description of what he does, wrote, “I write books and stories and things”) says he got his online start on CompuServe in the late 1980s when he still lived in the United Kingdom.

“I was on the comics, SF, and writing boards,” he writes.  “Then when I moved to the U.S. in 92 I started using GEnie, which I used until it died a few years later.  In the late 90s I used the Well as a forum/platform, then started my own blog in 2001.  I started twittering about 14 months ago, after resisting it for a while, and a couple of months ago I got tired of explaining that I had nothing to do with the Neil Gaiman Facebook page, and took over the Neil Gaiman Facebook page too.”

As he mentioned last week, he didn’t do this to network, but to have fun.

Mitch Wagner, who interviewed me yesterday on his podcast Copper Robot about the Guide (thanks, Mitch!), started his online presence in much the same way as Neil.

“I very much enjoy conversation over Internet text,” Mitch writes.  “I find it gratifying.  I became active on Usenet and the Genie online service in 1989 and just stuck with it, until sometime in this century someone slapped a label “social media” on the activity and it became mainstream, with participation from politicians and TV and movies stars as well as just us nerds.”

After I tweeted about last week’s installment of the Guide, writer and editor Cat Rambo sent me a link to her excellent article called “The Networks Around Us.” In that article, she gives a history of the rise of social media.  Even though she has given  me permission to quote from the article (excellent networking, folks), you are better off using your mouse and clicking on this link. She does a much better job of explaining the rise of social media that both Neil and Mitch refer to above than I ever could.

For those of you too lazy to click, however, let me give you a few salient points: She found a Consumer Research Center study that says 43% of online users visited social networking sites in 2009, up 16% from 2008.  I’m sure in the five months since her article was published, that number has increased even more.

Cat believes—and I think she’s right—that cell phones are what has made the difference.  Now that you can access the internet on your phone, you can check e-mail, search social media sites, Tweet, or easily post a newly taken photo on Facebook.  I’m sure that by the time I put this entire Guide together into one volume, there will be new apps and other technologies that make posting on online forums even easier than they are in late April of 2010.

Still, the internet is full of something I call “the noise.”  So much is happening online that no one can keep track of it all.  Rising above “the noise” takes a special project or a confluence of events or maybe just a cute cat playing the piano (you know who you are, YouTube).  Justin Bieber and Susan Boyle both became international celebrities because of the internet—YouTube in particular—but I’ll wager there are a few of you reading this who have not heard of one or the other of them.

The internet makes it possible to specialize, and to spend your entire online life in one particular area, ignoring all others.  Programs and apps facilitate this.  For example, I use TweetDeck on both my iPhone and on my laptop to access Twitter. Without TweetDeck, Twitter would be impossible for me. But TweetDeck lets me separate the people I follow into various categories—friends, publishing, writers, news, etc.  I still don’t see everything in my own categories, but I see more than I would if I just followed the stream.

I’m sure that over time, more and more programs and apps will become available that will streamline things even more. Just today, I noticed that there’s an iPhone app which will organize everything that I experience on a trip so that I can easily blog about it or send it to my friends via e-mail.  And I mean everything, from my GPS locations (you really want to know where I walked on my journey?) to my hotels and meals to my photographs.  And honestly, if I decide to blog about an upcoming trip, I might download the app to keep everything organized in one place.

But while that organizes information for me, it doesn’t help you thread your way through the various social media.  Again, let me point you to Cat’s article, because she separates out the various online sources, from LinkedIn to MySpace, and discusses what they are used for.  Remember Mitch’s advice from last week: pick the sites that you’re most comfortable with, and use them.

Everyone I asked seems to use the various sites differently.   Some do it haphazardly, doing whatever works for them without a lot of analysis, while others figure out what’s best given their limited time resources.

Writer and futurist Brenda Cooper is quite organized about her social networking.  “I have a blog (associated with my website), three Twitter accounts (I am a technology professional in government, so I have one account for that personality, I have my own personal Twitter account with my real name, and I am one of many futurists who twitter occasionally on the joint account ‘futurefeed.’), a LinkedIn account, and a regular FaceBook page (no fan page so far).  I have some things I’m not really using well yet like a YouTube channel.”

But she admits that she uses some technologies more than others.

“I spend more time on Twitter than anywhere else, followed by FaceBook,” she writes.  “I pretty freely mix the science fiction writer and the technology geek and the futurist and the dog lover.  I figure what I’m marketing is me, and that’s me—a pretty wide-ranging person with eclectic interests.”

Writer Patrick Alan isn’t quite as technical about his approach, although he’s very aware of the networking potential.

“I have a blog solely for internet networking,” he writes.  “I’m not promoting anything because I have nothing to promote.  The thing is, it’s me online.  I comment on forums and blogs.  I twitter.  It’s an opportunity for people who my comments have amused or annoyed to go find out who I claim to be.  The most important page on my website is the ‘About’ page.”

John DeNardo of SF Signal is quite creative about how he uses the internet to network.

“The problem for me (as blogging is not my day job) is finding the time to network after the all-consuming task of feeding the blog is done,” he writes.  “What has evolved over time is a mixture of networking while providing content.  For example, our Mind Meld roundtable interviews provide our most consistently popular content, and they are also a great excuse for me to contact folks (authors, fans, actors, producers, scientists) out of the blue.  Also, folks will contact me out of the blue with a tidbit suggestion or to say thanks for an unsolicited plug.  The connections made in these cases are nice side-effects to the main task of providing content.”

Carolyn who runs the blog Bookchickcity says, “I network by using Twitter and Facebook mostly.  I use Twitter for publicising posts on my blog as well as communicating with other book bloggers.”

And in the lovely charm that is the internet, the only way you can tell that Carolyn’s blog is based in England is that she spells things differently than I do (but still correctly, I might add).

Glenn Hauman of Comicmix.com runs an e-mail list that includes a ton of professionals in various entertainment industries from all over the world.  (It has been running since the early 1990s, and in the beginning, most everyone was just starting in their industries.)  But he does a lot more, even though he writes,

“I don’t do as much as I’d like to; too many things get in the way.  But I always try to get in a few tweets in a day, at least one blog post a day if not five.”

Which sounds like a lot to me.  Five posts in one day? I can barely manage a few a week.

He adds, “For me, it’s a blog with an RSS feed, Twitter, and some Facebook.  And a widget from Widgetbox.com.  And posting on other web sites, being part of the community.”

Community is also important to bestseller Michael A. Stackpole, although he doesn’t use the word.  He writes,

“I network on the internet in several ways. First, I maintain a website and blog regularly about fiction, entertainment, writing, life and I use the blog to provide samples of stories.  The idea is to establish myself as being entertaining, since entertainment is what I do.  Second, I use Twitter, Facebook and Myspace (which are all linked) to get my blog further out there, and to interact with my various constituencies.”

But that isn’t all Mike does.

“I participate in a few listserves,” he adds, “and have organized some projects among peers.  Being the motive force on a project that helps others earns a lot of good will. Folks return favors, which is always useful.”

So far so familiar to me.  But Mike has ventured into an area that I’m not technologically able to follow in at the moment.  (I have to upgrade a computer before I can do so—and honestly, I can hardly wait.)

“Finally,” Mike writes, “I use podcasting and Second Life as audio vectors to reach folks.  Podcasts can go into MP3 players, so folks can hear me even when they’re not at their computers.  Second Life allows me to do live readings and classes for an international audience.  All of these opportunities allow folks to become invested in my success, which is rather critical if one is to succeed.”

Mike isn’t alone in using Second Life.  As I mentioned above, Mitch Wagner uses it as well.  It was on Second Life that we had our interview yesterday.

He writes, “Second Life is where I do interviews for my podcast Copper Robot.  I like the community there, and the crazy 3D visual effects.  We have a good bunch of people who come to the show regularly and make smart comments and ask intelligent questions.  Copper Robot is also available as a podcast.”

He’s also active on Twitter, which he says he prefers (see last week’s post).  But, he adds, “Facebook is a close second for me.  I try to keep my friends list on Facebook to people I know and like, either in real life or by reputation.  I use Yakket, a Facebook app that echoes my Twitter updates to Facebook.  I have Yakket set to exclude any update that contains a URL.  I found Facebook users aren’t as tolerant of the constant stream of links as people on Twitter are.”

As Cat Rambo points out in her article, each social media site is different, and Mitch seems to understand what he wants from each.

“I use my personal blog,” he writes, “mostly as a feed of articles I’ve published elsewhere, as well as the occasional professional announcement or—very rarely—a personal post.  I’m finding it more rewarding to post on other people’s sites rather than try to build an audience for my own blog.”

And finally, he uses a network I’m just beginning to understand: LinkedIn.  He writes, “I use LinkedIn as an extended business card or resume.  I’ve never found the kind of community on LinkedIn that I get from other social media.”

If you take anything from this series of advice from good networkers, take this: Do what feels right for you. Doing it because you feel you have to or because you heard that everyone else is doing it will seem phony.  Do what you enjoy.

Because—going back to last week’s post—the key to effective networking is to have fun.  Last week’s word was “party”—social media is like a big cocktail party and it’s the amusing person who gets remembered. But this week’s word is “community.”  If you’re there and interesting and enjoying yourself, even if you’re relatively quiet or not the most noticeable raconteur, you’ll find a group of like-minded people to spend time with.

Next week, I’ll wrap up with the question that really matters—does all of this help or hurt a freelancer’s business? The answer isn’t as simple as you might think.

I’m learning a lot from the Freelancer’s Guide too—you’re all sending me out to discover answers to questions I didn’t even know I should ask. So thank you.

It does take time, however, so if you’ve gotten some value from the Guide, please donate a few dollars to pay me for my writing time. When I’m finished with this long first draft, I’ll be sending out an e-version of the Guide to everyone who donated.  And, as always, please forward this to whomever you think might be interested.

Thanks!

“Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide: Online Networking 3 (Networking Part Nine)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Here’s how you link to these great folks on social networking sites:

Patrick Alan
Patrick-Alan.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/patrick_alan

Bookchickcity
Twitter: bookchickcity
Facebook: bookchickcity

Brenda Cooper
Brenda-cooper.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/brendacooper

John DeNardo
SFSignal.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sfsignal
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sfsignal

I read a lot in March. Much of it was student manuscripts.  Some of it was out-of-date or research material.  A lot were pretty mediocre novels that I couldn’t finish.  So while I racked up the pages, I didn’t finish much. Most of what I did finish isn’t worth recommending.

What is worth recommending from March? Some magazine articles and two books.  After my stellar January, March really was a disappointment.  (Although the student manuscripts were all better than expected—so no disappointments there.)

March, 2010

Blum, Deborah, The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, The Penguin Press, 2010.  First the title caught me.  Then the subtitle:  I adore the history of science, the  history of criminology, and anything about Jazz Age New York.  And of course the word murder.  I made a mental note: get this book.  But it wasn’t until I started seeing reviews that I realized I wanted this book now.

Reviewers have said this reads like a good thriller, which is a bit of an overstatement—thrillers have plot after all—but the book is immensely readable and fascinating.  Readers who lack strong stomachs might want to avoid reading this over meals. (I read it mostly during lunch; clearly, I have a strong stomach and high gag threshold.)  Poisons are nasty killers and poisoners are nastier than most.  The stories in here—the killings, the methodology, and the forensic solutions are wonderful.  One even (sadly) made me laugh out loud—the story of Mike the Durable, whose “pals” at a local bar decided to kill him for the insurance money, seemed like something out of a farce instead of an actual case.

Good stuff here, memorable stuff, and great writing.  The Poisoner’s Handbook is worth all of those weird looks you’re going to get if you read it over lunch.

Deaver, Jeffrey, Roadside Crosses, Pocket Books, 2010.  Normally, I buy Deaver’s novels in hardcover the moment they appear, but I didn’t buy this one right away.  I’m not a big fan of Kathryn Dance, the main character in these novels.  I love Deaver’s writing, but I knew there was a chance that this novel wouldn’t measure up to his other novels, and I didn’t want to risk my $25 on being disappointed.

It turns out that I needn’t have worried.  Roadside Crosses is a marvelous Jeffrey Deaver novel, not just a marvelous Kathryn Dance story.  It measures up to his other works and kept me reading.  Also, had I known beforehand what the subject matter—blogs, cyberbullies, online gaming—I would have been a lot more interested. But the hardcover edition didn’t emphasize that, instead emphasizing the crosses left on the side of the road before someone died.

Good characters, stellar plotting (as usual), an interesting exploration of a world I’m passingly familiar with from an outside perspective, and some fun additions.  Head out and buy this one; it’s absolutely worth your time (and your money).

Gladwell, Malcolm, “The Sure Thing,” The New Yorker, January 18, 2010.  Those of you who also read my freelancer’s guide might want to read this article as well.  Gladwell examines some high profile entrepreneurs and discusses how they really succeeded.  He blows the myth out of the water that entrepreneurs are gamblers and risk-takers, using example after example to show that high-level entrepreneurs are risk-averse.

These high-level entrepreneurs are also predators, willing to take advantage of weaknesses that they might perceive within the world around them, and willing to use those weaknesses to their advantage.  Fascinating stuff, which corralates with some of the things I have been writing.  He just said it better, clearer, and with a few high end examples.

Grape, Jan, “Interview with Tony Hillerman,” Speaking of Murder, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, Berkley Prime Crime, 1998.  I can’t in good conscience recommend the entire book Speaking of Murder. Some of the interviews are more than fifteen years old, and talk about the mystery market as if it’s fixed.  It wasn’t then, and isn’t now.

But for pure enjoyment, as well as the proper attitude toward a writing career, read Jan Grape’s interview with Tony Hillerman.  I had known a lot about his history, and I hadn’t known most of this.  If you want to read the rest of the volume, remember that the book is out of date—although the interviews that deal with the craft of writing are not.

Packer, George, “Letters from Dresden: Embers,” The New Yorker, February 1, 2010.  Fascinating article about a city I only know of in conjunction with the phrase “the bombing of” out of World War II.  Packer has spent time there, and contemplates the city’s history here—and whether or not the city can confront that history.  I think that question can be asked of all of us, cities or human beings. But the question is particularly dramatic here, and the analysis, as well as the city itself, is thought-provoking.

Golden Gryphon has just published Recovering Apollo 8 And Other Stories, a collection of my award-winning, award-nominated, and best-of-the-year short stories. The collection includes the award-winning novella, “Diving into the Wreck.” So if you want to see how I went from story to novel–or if you just want to read some other fiction of mine, please check this out.

Right now, you can order directly through Golden Gryphon here. Or you can find it at these bookstores. Or find it on Amazon.com. The official release day is May 1. So if you’re ordering before that, only Golden Gryphon can send you the book immediately.

Enjoy!

Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Online Networking 2

(Networking Part Eight)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I had a great week this past week.  Because I knew I’d be finishing a novel, which is always a period of great airheadedness for me (more than usual), and because I knew I was heading into a part of the networking topic I felt completely inadequate to write, I asked for help.

I mentioned to all you readers that I needed assistance on the Guide, and several of you responded.  I also asked people whom I think are good at networking for their assistance.  I asked them two questions:

1. How do you network on the internet?
2. How has it helped/hurt your business?

I got wonderful answers—so many, in fact, that I know this topic will extend at least a few more weeks.  I have probably 10,000 words of material from folks, and that’s two to three posts, without any comments from chatty old me.

As I made up my list of people to ask about online networking, I noticed that most of them were either writers or bloggers.  That’s partly my bent: I don’t follow musicians’ blogs or artists’ blogs, although I do visit their websites.  Another reason is that it’s easy to make the transition to online networking when you’re already writing, as writers do every day.

So my list of effective networkers is writer-heavy.  If you find other networkers out there who are good at what they do, please mention them in the comment section below so that others can find them, and learn from them.

I also noted that politicians and journalists (writers, again) were also very good at online networking, but I decided not to ask them about their online networking habits. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a strict no-religion and no-politics rule on my blog, just like I do at most social gatherings.  Much as I love a good political discussion (as my good friends will attest), I am also savvy enough to realize that not everyone shares my views.  I would rather keep you reading my work even though we disagree about health care or financial reform or the party in power rather than lose you to one of my political diatribes.

So I didn’t ask journalists from my favorite publications/stations/programs (some of which might come from a particular political persuasion) to comment.  Nor did I ask any politicians to comment either, even though I know a lot of very effective networkers among them.  I didn’t want you to think I was endorsing them in anyway, while I don’t mind if you think I’m endorsing the writers/bloggers mentioned below. (At the very end of this post, you’ll find social networking links for the people quoted herein.)

The one thing I did notice about everyone I contacted—and I do mean everyone—is that they all responded to me.  Most responded quicker than I expected: I had 90% of my answers within six hours of sending out the questions.  That’s impressive.  It’s even more impressive because I sent out the questions on Sunday afternoon, hoping to get in line for everyone’s Monday morning work response.  Instead, I had my answers by Sunday night.

The handful of people who took longer to respond e-mailed me and asked for more time or asked when my deadline was.  And a few took longer to respond because of me: I had to contact them via Facebook or Twitter rather than via their preferred e-mail account because I didn’t have that account.

Still, I’ve been writing non-fiction for more than 30 years, and I’ve never had a 100% response rate before to interview questions.  And in the decade-plus that I’ve been sending questions by e-mail, I’ve never had such a rapid response.  I could have written my article that Sunday night.

That instant response tells me right there why these people are effective networkers.  They responded, first and foremost, and to a person, they answered my questions.

If you haven’t read last week’s post on Online Networking, double back and do so now.  With the help of writer Ryan Viergutz, I explained how people use the internet to network and to gather information.  In private e-mails, a few of you expressed concern that I was confusing networking with marketing in that post.  But I didn’t: as you’ll see in the next few posts, online networking and marketing go hand-in-hand.

I think this is best summed up by Sarah Wendell who, along with Candy Tan, writes a marvelous blog about romance novels called Smart Bitches Trashy Books.  Smart Bitch Sarah, as she signed her letter to me, also has her own blog, sbsarah.com.

She wrote, “I network on the internet by talking to people who share my interest or by answering questions from those who are curious.  It helps my business, but then, my business is creating a space for conversations about romance novels.”

I found her via Twitter, but I found her blog because of a review of a book she and Candy Tan wrote called Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels.  (It’s in my Recommended Reading list.   Check it out here.)  What I like about Sarah’s Tweets are the fact that they maintain the same attitude as her blog, but they also provide a link to the romance community online, since she forwards other people’s tweets (called retweeting, for those of you not on Twitter) and she often has links to good blog posts elsewhere.

In other words, her networking isn’t just me, me, me.  It’s useful and fascinating and opens doors to other worlds.

As does the networking of everyone else I talked to for this piece.  As writer Patrick Alan mentioned, “Networking online is the same as off.  It’s about engaging and being engaged.  First you have to be present.  Then you have to engage.  Eventually, someone will engage back.”

“I like to think of the social networks as one big ongoing party where there are lots of conversations ebbing and flowing,” writes Brenda Cooper, who is a writer, futurist, technology geek, and public speaker.  “Some [conversations] are small talk, some are business, some are deep questions.  And just like at a party, I try not to commit social errors—not walk up to strangers and say, ‘Buy my book,’ or ‘Book me for a speech.’”

“The most important things are personality and a point of view—like your mom always said, it’s what makes you unique,” writes Glenn Hauman, who publishes comicmix.com.  “And since it’s been reported that 70% of the content read online by under-40-year-olds was written by someone they know—be someone that your readers know, or at least feel like they know.”

“The key to doing it well is you have to enjoy it,” writes technology journalist and internet marketing consultant Mitch Wagner. “You have to appear natural.  Nobody’s going to listen to what you have to say if you only use it as a platform to promote your work, any more than anyone is going to want to listen to you if you go to a party and all you try to do is drum up business.  But if you go to a party and behave pleasantly and people know that you’re in business, a couple of them might remember you when they have a need for services like the one you provide.”

“I’m not sure if any [of what I do online] is networking,” writes bestselling author Neil Gaiman.  “I mean, if it is, I never did it to Network.  I did it because it was fun, and because writing can be a very lonely profession.  It’s fun to have people to talk to, fun to have people who talk to you, and great to have people who will answer your questions (even if they’re wrong).  I also feel that it levels the playing field, which I like.”

“I don’t specifically set out to ‘network,’ which sounds like something you’d do for immediate personal gain,” writes John DeNardo who blogs at SF Signal.  “My goal is simply to connect with like-minded people who also love genre fiction.  Ask me what the best part of blogging is and I’ll tell you it’s the variety of good people you meet.  Sure, it’s networking on one level, but the motive is—and always has been—about having fun and connecting with others.”

Note the theme? The emphasis on socializing, the repetition of the idea of a party—which is one I also floated just this weekend, during our weekly professional writers’ lunch.  J. Steven York and I were trying to explain how to use Twitter, and we both mentioned how you discuss things you’d talk about at a party.

That’s how social networks feel to me: they’re one big party.  Although they’re parties that you can chose to attend when you feel like going to them, as opposed to scheduled social events that are often connected to a business conference or a family gathering.  Then you’re on someone else’s schedule.  With social networking, you set your own schedule.

“Most conversations occur through e-mail these days—you can do that and multitask,” writes Lou Anders, writer and editorial director at Pyr Books. “Whereas if I have to talk on the phone, all other activity must stop, and what could be a five-minute exchange takes 20 to 30 minutes minimum.”

John DeNardo mentions the same multitasking benefit.  “In those in-between time-slices (queuing up in a long line, waiting for a movie to start, etc.) is when I find some time to visit social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.”

“I’m pretty disciplined,” writes Brenda Cooper.  “I check in on the tweet stream regularly, I un-follow people I don’t get any value out of (which might just mean they’re talking about things I’m not interested in), but I don’t immerse myself except for about a half hour in the morning and about a half hour at night.  Now that’s an hour I could be writing in, and I do think that costs me some output—but writing is like any other business and being good is not enough.  It’s also being connected.”

“Pick one or two services you’re most at home with and focus your attention on that,” advises Mitch Wagner.  “I’m most at home on Twitter, where I’m @MitchWagner.  I post there all day, mostly links to articles I find interesting and the occasional dumb joke or observation.  People seem to find what I tweet interesting.  I have 3,500 followers on Twitter, which isn’t a lot, but which seems like a lot to me.”

It seems like a lot to me as well, but then, my Twitter follow list hovers around 900 these days.  I have more followers on Facebook. But I’m just learning this stuff—and I’m having fun.

Mitch focuses more, and he’s good at linking.  In fact, when I sent my e-mail, he asked if I minded if he answered the question on his blog, and link to my freelancer’s guide.  I’ll be excerpting from everything he wrote in the next few posts, but if you want to see his answer in its entirety (and in the order in which he wrote it), go to http://blogs.computerworld.com/wagner. The post should be up in the next day or two.

Mitch writes, “The key to networking on social media is just like networking at a conference or meeting of a professional association: spend a lot of time talking with people, not at that, and listen and respond to what they have to say.”

Bestselling writer Michael A. Stackpole agrees.  “A chunk of networking boils down to listening and responding.  For example, if I see friends on Facebook are having a birthday, I wish them Happy Birthday.  I don’t get to respond to everything, but I respond to significant things.  I especially respond to questions asked directly which result from a discussion or a post, furthering dialogue.”

Or as Brenda Cooper says, “What I try to do is add value to my friends and followers—to tweet out interesting links, to maybe make someone smile.  To be honest.  To reply or re-tweet or recommend at least as often as I post.”

Michael Stackpole does that as well.  “On Twitter and in other social media, redistributing contributions by friends also helps, since friends notice and others get the benefit of their wisdom.”

Or as Mitch Wagner says, “Think more about how you can help other people than about how they can help you.  You’ll get more from your networking efforts if you think about helping others than if you think about helping yourself.  It’s a Zen thing.”

So, I’m discovering, is writing a post about social networking.  Next week, I’ll focus on what these people do, since each person has a different technique for social networking.  And then I’ll add how it’s helped or hurt them.

When I first envisioned the Freelancer’s Guide, I had no idea it would be so interactive.  I saw it as a static form, rather like a book, rather than a dynamic conversation, which is what it has become. People do comment on older posts, so I suggest you check the comments sections every now and then.  You can find some real gems there.

I am in deadline hell at the moment, so finding time for the Guide is a challenge to say the least.  But this is my 57^th week, and I’m not about to break my streak.

If you’re getting some value from the Guide, please do tweet about it or post it on your Facebook page or link on your blog.  I appreciate any donations to give me incentives to take time from my paying deadlines.  When I’m done, anyone who donates will get an e-copy of the book.

“Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide: Online Networking 2 (Networking Part Eight)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Here’s how you link to these great folks on social networking sites:

Patrick Alan
Patrick-Alan.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/patrick_alan

Lou Anders
Pyrsf.com
Louanders.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Pyr_Books

Artwork donated by Pati Nagle.

The Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Online Networking

(Networking Part Seven)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

When Carolyn Nicita asked me to discuss networking way back in February, she reminded me that I had missed a major topic in the Freelancer’s Guide.  I also knew that the networking section would have a lot of posts.  I didn’t realize, however, that I’d still be writing on this topic in April.

Before you go any further in today’s post, however, stop and read the comments from last week’s post on personality types and networking.  Readers have put up some great clarifications and excellent suggestions on ways for introverts and extroverts to survive at conferences.  You’ll learn a lot from their suggestions.

I did.

Which leads me to online networking.  Ironically enough, I would have missed the topic of networking entirely if I hadn’t decided to write this nonfiction how-to on my blog.  Even if I had hit upon the topic somehow, I wouldn’t have added much of the wonderful advice found in the comments section, particularly the advice from people who actually know how to network.

I also got a kick out of Kevin J. Anderson’s short comment.  He thought I had it together back when we were beginning writers; I knew he had.  Both of us were doing the best we could and putting our best faces to the world.  Even though we were best friends, we managed to keep our anxieties to ourselves, and use each other’s presence to help us through our difficult first conventions.

I think we stumbled on an excellent formula that I’m sure most other convention-goers have stumbled upon as well.

I saved the most difficult networking topic for last because I feel insecure about my abilities to write about it.  Even though I have had an e-mail address for more than fifteen years, and even though I was online as early as 1990, I still feel like a newbie in the field of social media.  As I mentioned back at the beginning of the Freelancer’s Guide, I jumped into full online participation only a year ago, after a meeting with Scott William Carter and Michael Totten.

My husband Dean Wesley Smith and I sought out Michael and Scott because they were the most savvy Oregonians we knew on the subject of online interaction.  Michael makes a living off his blog, and Scott augments his fiction career with his online work.

Once I’ve decided I want to learn something, however, I jump in with both feet.  So does Dean. We’re in the process of upgrading our dinosaurs (who knew that five-year-old computers would be dinosaurs?) so that we can do more than write on them.  We’ll be even more active as the year goes on.

But in preparation for becoming active online, I started observing others whom I thought had an effective online presence.  There’s a lot to online networking, some of which I’m just beginning to understand.

While we all understand  how to network in person—whether or not we’re capable of doing it—networking online is a new and different animal. And yet, in some ways, it has some of the same rules as networking in person.

Networking online requires observation, just like it does in person.  So to network well, you need to know what works.

Since I feel so new to this topic, I figured I’d better get some assistance.  I knew there would be areas I would miss.  So back in February, as I started on the networking topic, I asked anyone reading this blog to tell me how they use social media.  Writer Ryan Viergutz responded immediately, and I’m going to share his insights first because they’ll put everyone else’s comments in context.

Ryan is just beginning his freelance career.  He’s still in the early phase, so he’s gathering information—and he’s using the internet to do so.  Initially he wrote, “I don’t from firsthand, but I do see a swarm of musicians on MySpace all the time.  They show tracks and it probably helps.  Facebook I don’t get at all, but Twitter is bizarre and unique.  It’s a great source of news if you’re wary who you follow!”

Before I go on, let me second Ryan’s Twitter enthusiasm. As a former journalist, used to taking in news from a hundred different sources and distilling it into something I can use, I adore Twitter.  It replicates that feeling of being in a newsroom for me—part gossip, part fact, part lunacy.  I leave TweetDeck, a Twitter filtering program open as I do my e-mail and constantly go back and forth between one and the other.  Because of Twitter, I’m often ahead of the major news outlets on the news of the day (I love that feeling) and I’m keeping track of friends as if we live in the same town.  I use Twitter to make announcements, sure, but I also use it to forward information I find interesting or to comment on a friend’s good news.  Twitter, more than the other social media programs, truly feels social to me.

Ryan’s experience as a social media consumer, however, is much more vast than mine.  He writes, “Web forums are astounding, too.  The really huge ones, like RPGnet, can be completely overwhelming.  You can get sucked in like people who play World of Warcraft. For that matter, WoW and almost any page online is social media, even your blog, and my mind was blown when I realized that.  Anything allowing comments can act as one!”

I hadn’t really put that together either, although I know that each blog can develop its own community.  Every now and then, the combined intimacy and vastness of the internet boggles my mind, and makes me miss the obvious.  I’m glad that Ryan pointed that out.

After he had sent me the initial comment, I asked for clarification on the way he uses web forums, and how he follows musicians online.

He wrote: “I’m not sure how much traffic the musicians get through their Myspaces, but they do load tracks and link to other places and build exposure.  For a different site, I originally heard  one of my favorites, Nightwish, thanks to an AMV on YouTube.  People load entire albums up on  there, which is funky, but I’ve found several I would never have heard of any other way.  So that says something!”

I too have found a lot of musicians on the internet that I wouldn’t have found any other way.  In fact, I have an appointment each week with iTunes to check the free material.  I don’t download all the free music, but I have found a lot of musicians I would never have found otherwise.  I particularly like Canción de la Semana, which has introduced me to a lot of music in Spanish I might otherwise have missed.  I have also noted that a lot of the songs I downloaded for free, even from unknowns, later climbed the music charts and got a lot of airplay.

I like free on the internet, for a short period of time.  I like the way that folks who keep up get freebies which will inspire them to buy other works. When Audible.com asked me if I “minded” giving away The Disappeared, the first novel in my Retrieval Artist series, for one week for free, I said do it without hesitation.  I got a relieved response.  Seems other authors got angry at the request.

Maybe I understood because I consume free materials on the web—when they are legal (please don’t steal my copyrighted material, folks).  But I never completely understood how important it is to be web accessible until a few months ago.

I wanted to buy a song by one of my favorite 1970s musicians.  I searched iTunes. I searched Amazon.  I searched other legal download sites.  I knew I had some of this guy’s songs on my iPod, but I also knew I hadn’t bought any of his CDs (had some albums back in the day; sold them in a move).

So I searched for his website. Even though he’s a name you’d recognize, he had no website.  Nor did his band members.  He’s mentioned on his label’s website, but no downloads available at all, not free and not for purchase.

After all that searching, I went to see where I had gotten his songs for my iPod.  I got them from some movie soundtracks. I’d purchased and put on the iPod.

I found myself getting angry—at the musician—as my odyssey to find his music went on.  Which is not what you want your fans to be.

Now, as an artist myself, I know that this may not be his choice.  It all depends on the contracts he signed and the agreements he had with his record label.

Many of my novels are not available as e-books yet, and many of them will take years to become available because I sold the e-book rights to my New York publishers more than ten years ago. Those publishers refuse to exercise the e-rights (in other words, make an e-book), and they refuse to return the rights to me so that I can do so.

Imagine my frustration.  I want to provide the books to my readers and can’t.

But I’m not so sure about the musician.  His lack of web presence makes me think he doesn’t understand the importance of the new market, and how shopping and information has changed.

I now have an app on my iPhone that will allow me to get the name of any song I hear on the radio and immediately order that song if it’s available for download—even if I hear that song at 2:37 a.m.  Brick and mortar stores are closed, yet I can have a piece of music that I enjoy with the flick of a button.

Or a novel.

Or a short story.

The key is finding out about them, which comes back to networking.  Which comes back to Ryan’s letter.

The last thing  he discusses is one of the areas of the internet I don’t participate in: web forums.

He writes, “I use web forums maniacally.  You can usually surf them without being a member, but a few have private boards like RPGnet’s Tangency or administrator boards, where only specific people can go.  I found Greg Rucka, one of my favorites, from a thread about spy books.  I found Dresden there, too, and Jim Butcher gets insane amounts of love on the place.  Word of mouth no fooling!  People even post history books there.  Roleplayers like unique settings.”

And other groups form over different connections.  I had the good fortune to watch one of my articles go viral a few months back.  A reader pointed out that my article had suddenly become a trending topic several list serves. The article, one of many I’ve written for BenBella Books’ Smart Pop Series, had just gone up on their site as the essay of the week.

I followed as much of the viral trail as I could, learning as I went.  Many readers had no idea who I was.  Because the article was somewhat political (which is why I’m not giving the title here), many readers assumed I was a journalist or a political blogger, never reading the bio. But quite a few posted my sf credentials.

Had I been prepared, had I been savvy at that point, I’d’ve had one of my novels featured on my website. The article is about comic books as well, and I have a romance novel about comic books.  If I had been thinking, I could have gotten quite a few readers at that point.

But I hadn’t been thinking.  It was a live-and-learn situation—as is much of networking.

I’m just starting to get ideas on how to network effectively online.  I know what I like: I follow people who are informative and interesting as well as people whose work (in the arts or in the public realm) I admire and/or love.

Because I’m so new at online networking, I asked some folks whom I consider very effective as online networkers to help me with this part of the Freelancer’s Guide.  I’ll get to their substantial contributions next week.

In the meantime, be thinking of how you consume online media and how you, as a freelancer, might use it to your advantage.

And if any of you have insights you want to share for next week’s post, please e-mail me.

I love the interactivity of the Freelancer’s Guide.  Y’all have made this project a lot more fun—and a lot bigger.  You’re bringing topics to me that I hadn’t thought to include in the Guide, topics that really need to be there.  Which is why the Guide is about twice as long as I initially imagined it would be.

I’m still taking time from my paying work to write the Guide (really, I should’ve been finishing my novel tonight), so if you can, please donate so I can call the Guide a paying gig as well.  If you do donate to the Guide, I’ll give you an e-copy of the book as soon as I’m done.

And please, share the Guide with other freelancers, even if they’re not artists.  There’s a lot here for anyone who makes a non-traditional living, from the retail shop owner to the fulltime blogger.

Thanks, y’all.  You’re keeping this fun.

“Freelancer Writer’s Survival Guide: Online Networking (Networking Part Seven)” copyright 2010 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.