Seeing Synergy: Tweeting, Facebooking, or Both Part II - post NAÏVETÉ

What an education the last two months have been!  I went looking for answers after receiving zero responses and hearing ongoing mention of Twitter and Facebook in television news, newspapers, and conversations.  My search for understanding was further driven by wanting to reciprocate the generosity of The Bookaholics--who had some nice things to say in reviewing my book--and From the Shadows, which is kindly hosting a GIVEAWAY CONTEST for my book on February 8, 2012.

(Investigate to enter** here:

**Valid post entries must be on From the Shadows by 11:59pm on FEBRUARY 23, 2012**

Satisfy your curiosity by buying your very own copy of the book here.)

I can't wait to be far enough along to help another author on his or her first time out, someday. . . .

Dipping my foot into the online social networking sea has been astonishing.  It is an understatement to say that I have been living in a vacuum.  I don't know which is more amazing--the potential reach of Facebook and Twitter as tools, the characters that brought them to the world, or the concept of it all working in concert--the synergy.

Mentioning the subject to a neighbor elicited laughs.  My neighbor said it was no wonder that no one commented, because the issue is of monumental scope.  To at least better understand how Facebook came into being, he suggested watching the motion picture movie The Social Network.

I was riveted to the jilted, ex-Napster remix.  As it ended, my delicate sensibilities instinctively pondered the likelihood of catching elitist, back stabbing, cyber clap by attempting to use the Facebook account that I had surmounted my paranoid inhibitions to earlier sign up for.  When I asked my sister what would possess someone to make such a film, she suggested in a word, "revenge."

Despite hoping for like-for-like comparison in researching my original questions, there is no such motion picture drama by which to compare the founding of Twitter to that of Facebook.  It is also clear that I cannot literally print a coupon off a tweet, which is a perk on some Facebook sites.  Although, I might find some nice things by clicking a tiny URL on a tweet when I trust the site where I land.

Twitter reminded me of the way the heroine of the motion picture movie Stealing Beauty--the  daughter of a deceased poetess, who has clearly inherited her mother's gift--burns her spontaneous stanza as kernel of creativity that is just for her.  On the other hand, a venerable business development specialist for publishing group was using Twitter to host a guest interview with question and answer session!

Less abstractly, it turns out that the spirit of my inquiry about facebooking and tweeting is not new.  Some Twitter fans addressed it in honest fashion.  There was also an interesting and more technical take.  In trying to be fair, it actually took some doing to hunt down a likely Facebook fan take on the subject; that platform has such vast membership that perhaps its fans feel little need to delve into the matter.

Tweeting, Facebooking, or Both?

I wonder about this phenomenon that is social networking--tweeting and facebooking.  One of my best friends from school, a Brazilian with a gift for everything that is marketing and cutting edge technology, tells me that it is all wonderful.  Although I have seriously put off opening any accounts (because I don't really understand them), the guy running Smashwords indicates that they are fairly powerful for reaching readers too.  

Besides all of that, this blog came with automatic tickers for the Tweeters and the Facebookers.  Both of mine register zero.  That is probably because before now, I neither considered joining nor ventured to reach out to the Tweeters or Facebookers.

It's time for me to expand my horizons and to learn.  I am curious to know if you think social networking trumps good old fashioned email or ice cream socials.  If you tweet and tweet well, or facebook and facebook well, kindly educate me.  

Does tweeting and facebooking make you feel good?  Have they saved your life?  Did you find your favorite book in the whole wide world or simply discover a laugh or a fascination through them?  Feel free to share a technical line about how to do them or how they have otherwise helped you too.

Air

This is surreal cool.  I'm writing in a blog—a real live blog that hopefully looks right.  I am here in an internet world that I know is meaningfully tangible.  Yet, I can't really see the whole scope of that world from space or my computer screen.  

In any case, I have never before rendered a word in such a world from this perspective.  Besides getting used to all of that, I'm trying to stay coherent to announce Air.

The latter is the first book in a trilogy that I am making presentable.   For those of you that are not yet party to the plunge, you can sample and buy the Air ebook here.  Alternatively, you can preview Air as a large print paperback or buy it here.

I feel like I am experiencing the shock or lunatic high of having bungee jumped over an ocean cliff, believing that the cord to which my foot is attached will bolster me in my flight.  In that metaphor, I suppose the cord would be the broad stretch of online publishing possibility.  Air would be the discrete jump itself.

Still, the prospect of falling through something that I can't see, yet that is all around me—even with the swankiest of cords with the bungiest of spring constants—is a little more than humbling too.  Perhaps the act of detaching the cord after the jump correlates to letting go of this thing that I created—giving up the novella to the elements.  Gosh.

Well, here's to fortitude and beginnings!  To you willing buyers of my first novella—thank you.  I thank each and every one of you for being my air—my supportive medium that makes it worthwhile to jump at all.  

That about sums me up.  I have chucked myself through Air—that last word being real, darkly thrilling, yet hopeful entertainment that is soon-to-be available, 24/7/365, for download.  After you read it, feel free to weigh in about it as the feeling strikes you.  


I'm off as a first time fiction author.  Feel free to weigh in about the ambience, or the look of this blog too.  Hmm, what a concept—talking waves of air. . .