Twitter and Face Book are gazillion dollar companies, who
each possess a group of shareholders, board of directors, and well paid CEO’s,
who all are chauffeur driven and
supplied with the best masseuses money can buy.
Why fix the wheel if it is not broken? Such conglomerates
supply databases of information. If you want to contact a somebody, sign up,
get an account, and you can access the method for contacting any public figure
imaginable. But what if a person is afraid
of Big Brother and don’t want to be traced.
One thing to consider, in the past, when the police arrested someone,
they would ask for identification, figure prints, which may include a request
for information of next of kin, employers, or friends. Believe
it or not, today’s law enforcement officials are in the position to now ask for
email information and with that, access to social media which has a digital
trail for them to contribute to their investigations.
So you can’t lose. Essentially, social media has ignored the
market niche of those who are paranoid about Big Brother. Just think of it, to make their profits
bigger all these multinational corporations have to do is publish their own
encyclopaedias, all with their top hot links.
As an author, I look at face book and twitter for book
promotion information. Sadly, in Canada
no one in established, literary circles is familiar with social media,
including government policymakers. Arts
funding for authors and publishers are targeted locally, or nationally, but not
internationally. In order for an author
in Canada to get arts funding, they must have a book to get published in Canada
by a Canadian based publisher and be Canadian based. Why? Because government
policies for arts funding are rooted in the past. They ignore the American market
altogether. I will give you a good
example. To get an arts grant from Toronto Arts Council, one must be based in
Toronto and have a Toronto based publisher interested in publishing their work.
Why? That’s the rules. The same goes for
Canada Council except it is on a national level. Government arts funding ignores the American
market. To add to the confusion,
Canada’s only book chain gets a grant from all grant agencies to stock Canadian
books on their shelves. They get ten
million a year in grants to sell Canadian books. If this CEO is getting arts grants to sell
Canadian books, this CEO is obviously not a great business person because the
American Monster book chains don’t get any arts funding whatsoever. Yet, when I go to that monster book on Bay and
Bloor, there is a long shelf devoted to a library of Daniel Steel novels. Why?
Its Oprah approved and it sells.
All this arts funding and Canadian books still don’t
sell. Such thinking has lead to this
wasting of taxpayer money to keep this system going is support all to support
an old school thinking. The government
could actually save money by having social media supply them a list of top,
reputable book promotion packages, all aimed at the US market. Why the US and
not Canada? The American market is bigger and sales would happen. “In Canada,”
said a Canadian publisher to me some time ago, “the quality of the books is
stressed over book sales. In the US, the publishers look at the book sales, not
the quality.” This type of widespread
thinking led to Key Porter going
bankrupt, killing a lot of jobs. Arts funding, from every level of government,
should update the rules for those old school types in the Canadian publishing
scene, who aim at a generation of authors not familiar with the opportunities
available in social media.
Back in 2008, I was looking to promote my book Mystery of Everyman’s Way. I went to Writers and Editors Network and I met several PR person who said
they would promote my book for $12,000 unlimited for a two week period which
would lead to guarantee sales. This
offer was from a top PR man too. If I went to the Toronto Writers Center, it would cost me $1,500 dollars a month to
have a place at the center, where first time authors were getting publishing
contracts from major publishing houses.
I went to http://www.bookcandystudios.com/ and spent $4,500 US and got this link http://www.myspace.com/authorpaulcollins which includes a book trailer, all professionally done. In 2011, I got Mack Dunstan’s Inferno self-published. I found www.angiesdiary.com where it is free to post short stories and articles for big name authors and aspiring writers too. It costs $99.00 US for a one year deal and I think it is a great way of getting your work out there. You will find my short stories at this link http://angiesdiary.com/author/authorpaulcollins/ . In 2011, I found www.joeypinkney.com/ . For $75, his services include a separate author interview. For $25 package, he will have separate announcements for the book review and author interview on all the web sites he is a part of. The book reviews will be posted on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNobles.com, and GoodReads.com.
By a strange set of circumstances, the book interview he supplied led from http://joeypinkney.com/amazoncom/5-minutes-5-questions-with-paul-collins-author-of-mack-dunstans-inferno.php to http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/35-books/17615-five-minutes-with-paul-collins-author-of-mack-dunstans-inferno-by-joey-pinkney to http://www.entertainmentnewsexpress.com/1329388805,iuniverse-publishing-iuniverse-publishing-gives-25-discount-on-all-books.html to a reprint to http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/35-books/18509-iuniverse-books-that-have-caught-the-eye-of-the-media . Why is this interesting? Out of 42,000 books that iuniverse has published, the Joey Pinkney book interview led to Iuniverse to select my book Mack Dunstan’s Inferno and another for a major press release which led one major publisher to post this link on its walls. This whole experience has led to the power of social media and its future. The old school of arts funding does not work anymore.
Remember Joey Pinkney did not come from Canada Council or Toronto Arts Council but from Twitter. You may ask me: “Did you submit any unpublished manuscripts, past or present, to any of these funding agencies?”
“Yes, I did,” I would say, “and they rejected my work because I did not have a Canadian based publisher. You need a literary agent to submit your work to a Canadian based publisher. I couldn’t find such an agent because agents and publishers in Canada say non-fiction sells, not sci fi, or fiction. And that is why I found a database of publishers to submit work to through www.ralan.com , or even http://everyonewhosanyone.com/ . This experience in itself suggests old school thinking must change to include social media when it comes to arts funding and for us not to ignore the American market which would help authors to survive on book sales, not handouts. “
I want to come full
circle and suggest Twitter and Face Book to publish their own
encyclopaedias, all with their top hot links.
And I want to take this encyclopedia to the one bloodline, reptilian cro
magnons that run the Canadian publishing Industry.
Paul Collins, author of Mack Dunstan’s Inferno
Contact him on
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