Where do you draw the line?

by: Joelle Charbonneau

The “job” of the author has changed a great deal over the years. Years ago, the author’s job was to write a good book, edit said book and then write another. Sometimes the author would be asked by the publisher to do a book tour or some promotional things when the book was launched, but mainly the author’s job was to write.

With the advancement of technology, a published author’s job has become much more. Publishers want their authors to be involved in social media – be it Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Goodreads or whatever else is out there. They want authors to attend conferences, sponsor their own tours, take out their own advertising and do the heavy legwork to get noticed by readers. They also would like authors to have their own website.

Author websites always confuse me. Do I have one? Yeah, although I admit I haven’t put a great deal of work into keeping it new and fresh. I update it with my new titles and release dates and have an excerpt up and a new one will be posted soon. I even have a FAQs section although it isn’t nearly as cool as Steve Weddle’s. However, that being said, I struggle with viewing my website as a weekly destination point for readers. As a reader, I've never gone to an author’s website to read an excerpt or check out their tour photographs or just to drop by and see what’s new. Why? I have no idea. I just don’t.

Now, I realize not everyone is me (thank God for that!) and I realize that a website is important to many readers. But this week I heard someone say that they were angry at authors who had websites but did not provide an e-mail address for the reader to contact them directly. This reader was incensed that after taking the time to read the book and then look up the website they could not reach out and have immediate access to that author. They even went so far as to say the author was arrogant and clearly didn’t appreciate their readers.

Really?

I mean, I have an e-mail address on my website and a surprising number of readers have actually used it which always brightens my day. But that is my choice. Isn’t it? When did being an author mean that the public has a right to be able to reach out and touch me whenever the urge strikes them? What if an author has a sick family member they are tending to or is holding down two jobs while writing in the dead of the night and doesn’t have the time to answer e-mails? Does that mean they appreciate their readers less than one who is happy to post their contact information?

What am I missing?

Is the author website really that central to an author’s career and more important – do you feel slighted when an author doesn’t provide an e-mail address for you to write to them? Has that really become part of today’s definition of being a published author? And while we're talking about it - what kinds of things do you want to see on an author website and which ones drive you nuts? Here is your chance to let us know how we are supposed to be doing it. I'm taking notes.

Communication vs. information - how the written word can work against you.

by: Joelle Charbonneau

News flash – publishing moves slow.

Ha! Yeah, probably not a news flash to anyone. But truth be told, the publishing submission process used to be even slower. Hard to believe, right? Well, thanks to the power of e-mail, the submission process is much faster than it once was. Not all editors or agents take electronic submissions, but the ones that do make our lives as writers so much easier. No longer do we have to print out query letters and pay for postage (both ways) in order to get a rejection or a request for additional material. And even better, if an agent or editor wants to see the entire manuscript we don’t have to kill a tree, stuff it in an envelope, pay the postage and hope against hope the US Postal service or the administrative assistant at the publisher/agency doesn’t lose the damn thing.

Hurray for technology.

However, there a couple of negatives as a result of the faster process. Rejections can be sent as early as three minutes after sending the e-query. (Yes, this happened to me.) Also, because e-mail is such an easy and informal a process (you don’t have to get out of your Cheetos-stained pajamas and drag your ass to the post office) people tend to be less aware of the words they chose in those e-mails. There is a danger to forget that how we intend to say something and how the actual words on the page can be interpreted by the recipient is often very different. More than once I’ve had someone dash off an e-mail to me intending to sound cheerful when in reality they sound surly. I bet you’ve had the same experience. If we know the person we can brush off the negative saying “Oh, I know they didn’t mean it that way.” However, an unknown publishing industry professional isn’t going to be quite so forgiving of that same mistake.

E-mail is a wonderful thing because of its ability to get information from one place to another very quickly. However, information is very different than communication. Information is cut and dried – when, where, how much. Communication is the meeting of minds and is more than the sum of the words on the page.

Writers should be fabulous at this. We all know that a character can say the same information in a variety of different ways each evoking a different emotion or spinning the story in a slightly different way. But the casual nature of e-mail makes it very easy for writers to forget they are writing – that the joking tone of voice isn’t described in the e-mail so the message can come across as arrogant instead of humorous – belligerent instead of inquisitive. Yeah – those are the kinds of things that can torpedo a writer’s chances at a career.

So why am I pointing this out today?

Well, I guess because this is a new year filled with resolutions for doing things better, smarter and stronger. Perhaps you are an unpublished writer who has resolved to land that editor or agent this year. You might be a published author who had decided 2011 is the year your career is going to go to the next level. Or maybe --- well the resolutions involving the written word are endless. Whether you have made a resolution or not, I am hoping you will join with me in resolving this year to make sure your communication skills are the strongest and smartest they can absolutely be. Who knows, maybe if we communicate better our little corner of the world will be a better place for it.