Author platforms and protecting your intellectual property

Posted on 30/09/2014 by Debbie Robson

We are constantly told that we need to work on our author platform – as many social media sites as possible. Well that’s fine. That’s the way the world is in the 21^st century but how to find the time to maintain them all that is the big question! Of course it is a matter of personal preferences as to which ones you chose of the many. Personally, I have found that Pinterest, WordPress, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and LinkedIn are the most useful for me – the first five in particular.

But I’m not writing this blog to say get on all these now. I actually want to talk about a problem that seems to be overlooked. And that is protecting your intellectual property. In Goodreads, more so than Amazon, I’ve found that unless an author completes their profile and identifies which books are theirs, things can get really confusing.

I am a librarian on Goodreads, a Goodreads author and a participant of the wonderful Australian Women Writer’s Challenge. What’s been happening recently for me is that I have read several books where the author’s profile is not up on Goodreads. This may not appear to be a big problem for a lot of authors. It’s just one of the platforms they don’t have time for. But what they don’t realise is that when their profile is not completed a search of their name (without a profile) will bring up all the books for that name and some of the titles will not be theirs! In other words the author is not claiming and separating from other authors, their intellectual property.

As I am, like a lot of authors:
Working full time
Writing my novel,
Doing my research,
Reading
Maintaining my author platforms
Answering emails
Blogging. And, as well:
Participating in the AWWC
And of course, trying to have a personal life…
There is not really much time for extra stuff.

That’s why I am endeavouring to help in a small way. I hope to assist all the poets that I have featured at my community page www.starvinginagarret.com in making sure Goodreads reflects what they themselves have written. I am also either putting up profiles of authors who don’t appear on Goodreads but whose book or books I have just read. And sometimes this might be an author who has died but whose work I feel deserves a new audience such as Jean Curlewis. (I still have to put up her three other books).

In regards to separating titles that is a delicate process that I only do in collaboration with the author. I cannot presume to know all the titles they have written. So authors make sure Goodreads reflects who you are and what you have written. You mightn’t want to have to tackle this but you do want readers to find your books easily – and that, finally, is what a successful platform is about.

Coping with the rejection of your manuscript

Posted on 06/07/2013 by Debbie Robson

Yep, that’s what I’m doing. I’m back on the merry-go-round. Just received my first rejection for my current manuscript The Grey Silk Purse. And already resorted to drink! One bourbon and coke down and the Galliano pictured to go! Coping mechanism No. 1. Have a drink. That’s one strategy and being very generous of spirit, although down (but not beaten) I am going to offer some more.

2. Adopt a mantra. I submitted my first piece of writing way back in 1981 but it wasn’t until sometime after 1996 when I watched The Cable Guy and Carey said those marvellous words “Allrightee then!” that I adopted a mantra. I still repeat those eloquent words to myself on being rejected. I find they are very helpful, being such a mix of frustration and, dare I say, bloody-mindedness, that they sum up my feelings exactly and are very soothing.

3. Begin another project. As readers of this blog will know that’s what I’ve already done. I tell you, Paris is looking pretty good at the moment! I’d rather be writing about it than trying to work out where to send my manuscript next. But then maybe that’s why I still haven’t found a mainstream publisher for my novels. I tend to submit a handful of times and then retreat into a hole – generally the world of the first half of the 20th century. Each one of us has our own coping mechanisms, I guess, but obviously breaking through does require perhaps that one last gasp of air – that garganturan lunge to the finish line. Maybe I’m still ambling. How are you going?

4. Whinge to friends. This is a good one. Twitter and facebook friends are excellent. You can’t see them looking around for a means of escape and only those that feel like lending a friendly ear will respond to your tweets and posts.

5. Regroup. I do find that after a rejection (at least in the early stages of submitting) I am pushed back to have another look at the manuscript. This is my method of regrouping. After yesterday’s rejection I read for the 101st time, the crucial first page. I decided again, that yes, the manuscript did need a prologue but I slashed a few sentences. They were phrases that I had hesitated over previously. They are gone now and the first page is much cleaner.

6. Do not speculate! I’ve done it in the past, you know: “Oh why didn’t they accept my manuscript? Was it because of this, or that or maybe…etc. etc.” Don’t! It is a complete waste of time. Put your frustrated energy into something else. Maybe an idea for a co-operative, start up a meeting of like-minded friends or go to a workshop. Catch up with relatives or see a movie or a play. Anything is better than beating yourself up about it.

These are just a few suggestion. I hope they help. If you are wandering around in the wilderness, like I am, I would love to hear yours!

My twitter community and why they are so important to me.

Posted on 15/12/2012 by Debbie Robson

I went to the #NewyTwistmas party at Honeysuckle Thursday night attended by 60 plus and had a wonderful time meeting fellow peeps, most for the first time. I chatted to so many interesting people, including @CCLETS a dedicated potter, @whereismymuse a poet and @kimcoo and her husband who are relationship counsellors. It is a community that know me as a writer. That’s who I am – @lakelady2282, BookCrosser, author, amateur photographer. I tweet photos and the progress of my WWI novel The Grey Silk Purse. I also tweet/retweet about books, writing and history. That’s me!

To my friends and family, I am something else. With my family I’m mum and grandma. With my girlfriends I’m just a single woman in my fifties complaining about the lack of interesting men. (I have this theory that 75% of the single male population in their forties and fifties have been beamed to another planet and nobody’s noticed. But that’s another story.) My friends know I write but I don’t think they are aware of how much my writing means to me and in that sense they don’t know me.

My twitter people do. My wonderful Crossing Paths publisher @SkiveMagazine knows how important writing is to me and I love tweeting about his mag. The latest edition is an erotica collection so peeps get out there and buy it. Also @drdrdr09 knows. He became aware of how much I was agonising over finding an historically accurate way to get my main character from Le Havre to Salonika, late 1917 (avoiding submarines and nasty Germans). I tweeted in frustration to my twitter community and he stepped into the breach (WWI speak) and we had a fun time tweeting back and forth.

In my “normal” life, I mentioned to my friends the other day that I was having trouble with my epilogue. There was dead silence and then a change of conversation. In all fairness what can most non-writers say to such a statement? Some people would suggest a writing group. After all you get to sit down with “real” people and discuss writing problems but I’ve tried a few groups and they weren’t for me. (I once joined a screenplay writing group and one of the participants said, “I hate writing dialogue. Do you think that will be a problem for me?” She was serious). I didn’t go back.

For me twitter is my writing group, my photography group, my friends group, my “did you hear they found the cave from Island of the Blue Dolphins?” group. It is my arts world in a way that Facebook (that funny other social media with all the thumbs up things) has never been. It is where I’m lakelady2282 and it’s where on Friday morning I tweeted I had lost my job. I didn’t message my friends. I still – as of writing this article – haven’t posted it to Facebook. Without thinking I just tweeted. It was the community that I wanted to tell.