I have written previously on this blog about the exciting fate of my first novel, White Trash Land. Although I was reasonably pleased with completing the story, I did little with it. I threw it up on the Internet, and left it alone and unpromoted to wither and die. I never even actually edited the thing properly, I finished the rough draft, went Phew! and continued on my way.
My brother-in-law, the Duct Tape Guy had other ideas. He thought it was a respectable, if imperfect piece, and felt it deserved a bigger audience. He took it upon himself to record the whole damn thing, and arranged to have it released at Podiobooks.com. While it didn’t exactly burn the house down in terms of listenership, it has attracted a wider audience there than it would have otherwise, and the reviews clock in at 4 out of 5 stars, which is gratifying.
I still did not do very much to promote it, but it put me into a community of authors, something I had never experienced before. Over the past few weeks, that community has really caught fire. Many authors use Twitter, the delightful micro-blogging service that not only allows you to answer the question “What are you doing right now?”, but it also gives you an audience for your fears, frustrations, triumphs, and a sounding board for questions. Evo Terra has created a Podiobooks Community over at Ning.com, and authors and listeners alike have been signing up and getting involved in discussions. Authors are helping to spread the word about new works, posting links on blogs, Digging news, and generally helping out in any way possible.
It’s exciting and humbling to take part in all of this. Watching all of these talented authors reaching out, creating a community of people from all over the world has been amazing. I can only imagine where we will be in five or ten years, when all of this social media stuff becomes standard in everyone’s life.
