You're Invited!

This one time I was looking for people to review my new book. Not to be kind to it, just to give it the time of day. While I was trawling for results in this endeavour I came across a few oddities about the lines of communication between authors and reviewers, and on that note, the sort of writer/reader continuum, if such a term may be randomly employed without prior warning or subsequent explanation.

See, it came to me that, while I would like people to buy my book when it comes out, I would like to be involved in the previously mentioned continuum more. What should we call this phenomenon, I will call it... the Storysphere!

The Storysphere is not just novels, but blogs, fan groups, podcasts, all that stuff. That's what an author should be involved with, because just being a "buy my book" machine is not to be anyone's friend. I have often lamented that I am not "important" enough to be involved in the Storysphere. I would see other people whose names I had heard get interviewed or be on podcasts or get involved in things and I would figure I hadn't been because I wasn't "important".

Then, trawling through dozens of review sites, lamenting the fact that I couldn't work out how to submit things for review most of the time, it hit me. These guys are book reviewers, and yet they often are not one hundred per cent clear how to submit books for review. And sometimes when they are completely honest about the process it's designed to be as off-putting as possible.

One of the nice people in the list of review websites I went through did not actually specifically say anything about review requests at all. In the contact section it was presumed that you wanted to collaborate, to produce something for the site, fiction, poetry or an article.

I bet loads of people just blindly spam in with their review request there. But not me, oh no, I thought, why, yes, I would like to contribute something to your site. I would like to be a part of what you have going on here, maybe you do want to review my book, maybe you don't but regardless I would like to make something and have you publish it. I would love that. So I wrote and asked what kind of material would be required. I am, at this time, still awaiting a response.

But the point is this. I realised I wasn't being asked to do all these things, I think, not because I wasn't "important" to other people, it's because what other people had happening wasn't actually all that "important" to me. And in the Storysphere importance is a two-way street.

All of which leads us to this:

I would LOVE to be involved with whatever you're doing. If it's a podcast, or an online magazine, or a short story collection, or a Google Hangout. Count me in, provisionally, assume I would rather do it, as long as my participation is free and I feel I would contribute nicely to the effort, yes, at this stage I have no reason not to if we can make it happen.

I plan to make an actual contact form at some point, but for now I will leave the comments open on this page (they are moderated Mr Spaminator, so be aware) and you can pitch me a way to get in touch there, which may well equal a way for you to get a link back to your social media and all that.

If you would like to collaborate with me on something then it would be nice if you could follow my FB page and my Twitter, at least while we're working together. Anyway, that's a good way to stay in touch.

I look forward to hearing from you!