Comments | cathellisen: The Divide Between Public and Personal

cathellisen

The Divide Between Public and Personal

Sep 21, 2017 10:00

Originally published at CAT HELLISEN. You can comment here or there.

When I was a kid, I thought all authors were dead. The idea that some of them could actually be writing still, while I was already reading their other work, would never have occurred to me.I’m not sure when the realisation started to sink in, tbh. This was before the ( Read more... )

writing

Comments 5

claidheamhmor September 21 2017, 12:14:28 UTC

I also figured all authors were pretty old, and of course they were masters of their craft (they had to be, naturally, or they wouldn't have been published, surely?) I swapped a few emails with Guy Gavriel Kay back in the 90s, little realising he was only in his thirties.

What I've found is that I like a lot of writers in their personal capacity, aside from their writing. There are some who have written books I'm not a big fan of, but I like them as people, and it's nice to see bits about their daily lives.

cathellisen September 22 2017, 18:05:21 UTC

yeah, I think it's getting the balance right - and it takes a certain kind of personality type? I dunno...

donutgirl September 21 2017, 20:24:45 UTC

Back when I dared venture over to twitter, there were a handful of authors (non-friends) I followed -- Colson Whitehead, Teju Cole, Patricia Cornwall, maybe one or two others? And I followed them because their twitters are brilliant -- funny, absurd, thought-provoking. Good stuff -- and *hard*. It is no easy feat keeping up a reliably entertaining and engaging twitter ( ... )

cathellisen September 22 2017, 18:06:58 UTC

"but I'm not convinced twitter helps people all that much, in terms of book marketing."

I am with you on this. I see VERY LITTLE click-through and engagement via twitter. I'll hang on to it because it exists and it is useful for some things, but I don't see twitter as my billboard.

donutgirl September 23 2017, 00:02:34 UTC

I think there's something to what was said above -- that if someone has already read and liked your book, they might want to find you on social media, for the excitement of possibly connecting with someone they admire. But that too can backfire. Like, for a while I followed Mark Gatiss, and you know well that I love LOVE his writing... and I feel like I would probably love meeting him in person, too. But I found his twitter persona incredibly grating and had to unfollow, lol. Very few people are their best selves on twitter.