March | 2013 | Guy Portman's Blog

Book Related Twitter Experiences

Mar 29 2013

Last week’s Blog Post was about the various ways in which authors use Twitter. This week I will be talking about some of my book related experiences on Twitter. As an author myself I am always interested to see what other authors are doing on Twitter and during the last year I have read a number of books that I was introduced to through this medium.

There are essentially two reasons for me having read books that I have come across on Twitter.

1). I found the author’s Tweets to be interesting/amusing and/or they became Twitter friends.

Here are some examples (click on links to read my review):

The Squirrel that Dreamt of Madness by Craig Stone – A unique and at times very amusing book.

The Earth Shifter by Lada Ray – A well written YA book, which has proved to be popular with a wider audience. Lada also has a great blog: www.ladaray.wordpress.com

Tollesbury Time Forever by Stuart Ayris – Probably best described as nostalgic Literary Fiction set in rural England.

2). I have selected books because of the positive feedback I have heard about the given book on Twitter (from people other than the author).

Texting Orwell by Ian Little – I enjoyed this amusing and original novella, though its embrace of lavatorial humour may not be to every reader’s liking.

Only The Innocent by Rachel Abbott – This book has become a best seller. It is in my Kindle queue waiting to be read.

The following is a less positive Twitter book experience I had recently that I would like to share with you. One Twitter author, who shall remain nameless, is an example of what I classified last week as an Aggressive Agitator. Sporadically Tweets appear in my Feed from this individual that are a call to action. These Tweets that embrace capitalisation and exclamation marks are of the BUY NOW!!! AWARD WINNING! variety. The same Tweet is often repeated every minute for up to ten minutes at a time. Last week on about the eighth repetition of this abrasive approach, I found myself saying, ‘Okay okay’, before hurriedly clicking on the Amazon link.

There I discovered that the book’s cover look like vomitus, there were only two reviews and what had been promoted as an award, now transpired to be merely a mention at a rural fair type event, in an area with a population made up mostly of gators and feral hogs. But it was none of these factors that prevented me from buying the book, but rather that it was not available in Kindle, only in paperback, with a lengthy wait for delivery and an oppressive price tag.

What happens when Adrian, an actuary, has his banal and predictable existence turned upside down by sinister forces that he can neither understand nor control? How will he react to a revelation that leaves his life in turmoil? Will he surrender or strive for redemption in an altered world, where rationality, scientific logic and algorithms no longer provide the answers?

‘An insightful and humorous tale of the unexpected’ – Reader

‘A sardonic delight. If Thackeray had lived in the 21st century, then he might have written Charles Middleworth.’ – Reader

Charles Middleworth is available through most regional Amazons on Kindle (£1.96/$3.17) and in paperback.

United Kingdom – www.amazon.co.uk

USA – www.amazon.com

Selling Books on Twitter

Mar 22 2013

With approximately 140 million users, Twitter continues to be the social media platform of choice for many people. Whilst many of those visit Twitter just to chat, more often than not about Justin Bieber, most of our Feeds are saturated with people promoting their wares, books probably being as prevalent as any.

I’ve come across books on every conceivable subject and others that I could never have conceived; a nuclear war allegory with My Little Ponies being the most pertinent example and Alice in Zombie Land arguably the most lamentable.

I am also on Twitter at least in part to promote my novel, Charles Middleworth, so I am always interested to see what other authors are doing and hopefully to learn from them. In this post I will be analysing authors’ Tweeting habits; for purposes of simplicity I will be classifying authors into groups, which is probably rather unreasonable, after all authors are very much individuals, but there you go.

Mellow Minglers – Mellow Minglers’ are adept at communicating effectively with their audience. They are naturally personable, energetic, fun loving and generally optimistic people, who like to share with others and make new friends. Mellow Minglers’ consistently reply to messages and are always prepared to help others wherever possible.
Tweet Composition: Tweets are made up of conversations, some RTs’ (generally not more than x5 per day), updates on their daily activities (non-complaining ones – e.g. physical activity updates/composition of meals). On average the promotion of their book/s constitutes between 10% & 25% of their Tweets.

Prolific Proselytizers – Prolific Proselytizers’ are energetic and enthusiastic Tweeters that are to be found throughout the Twitter sphere, including amongst the author population. They are generally very liberal with their use of the hashtag; eight #’s have previously been recorded in a single book promotion tweet. Prolific Proselytizers’ are voluminous in their Tweeting habits and are capable of Tweeting as much as every 19 seconds.
Tweet Composition: Tweets are usually neither part of a conversation or aimed at starting one. Prolific Proselytizers’ promote their own books constantly as well as the RT’ing and mentioning other authors within their genre. Prolific Proselytizers’ are usually well disposed towards others and will more often than not reply on the rare occasion someone responds to one of their Tweets.

Aggressive Agitators – Aggressive Agitators are very much in the minority amongst what is generally a friendly author population. Their intrusive Tweeting style embraces the use of capitalisation and exclamation marks (e.g. BUY NOW!!! AWARD WINNING!). Aggressive Agitators though universally sporadic Tweeters, Tweet in bursts, often Tweeting an identical Tweet every minute, sometimes for up to ten minutes at a time.
Tweet Composition: Tweets are generally divided into two categories, self-promotion and opinion. These opinions are often radical in nature and risk alienating potential readers. Aggressive Agitators always Follow many more people than they have Followers.

Next week I will be discussing some book related Twitter experiences.

‘An insightful and humorous tale of the unexpected’ – Reader

‘A sardonic delight. If Thackeray had lived in the 21st century, then he might have written Charles Middleworth.’ – Reader

Charles Middleworth is available through most regional Amazons on Kindle (£1.96/$3.17) and in paperback.

United Kingdom – www.amazon.co.uk

USA – www.amazon.com

Fight Club

Mar 15 2013

This week I read Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, which I review below.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The protagonist, who remains nameless, is an insomniac leading a bland corporate existence, investigating accidents for a car company, whose only concern is profit. Unable to find meaning in a faceless consumerist society, he instead seeks solace in support groups, for a wide range of potentially terminal diseases, including testicular cancer and brain parasites, ailments which he himself is not afflicted with. He is not alone in masquerading as the seriously ill: there is also Marla, a dysfunctional nihilist with a deeply troubled past, whose presence at these gatherings he resents.

Everything changes abruptly when our main character meets Tyler Durden, a fervent anarchist, who works as a projectionist and waiter. Tyler is hellbent on creating mayhem at every opportunity, even during his working hours, when he can be found inserting obscene images onto film reels and urinating in his hotel’s wealthy clients’ soups.

Tyler, whose belligerent attitude towards social norms is matched only by his organisational skills and leadership abilities, forms a fight club. Every Sunday during the early hours men congregate to fight one-on-one in basements and car lots. These disenfranchised young men were brought up with absent fathers and fed on a diet of mass media that led them to believe they would be superstars. It is only now that they have come to the realisation that their destiny is to toil in low paid blue-collar positions and office jobs, devoid of meaning. These angry individuals, now empowered by Fight Club are ready to bring about Tyler’s dream of returning the world to a hunter-gatherer society. Our protagonist had until his introduction to Fight Club been a co-operative and meek employee, but now he typifies this response and casts a sinister presence in the office, constantly bruised, bloodied and with the permanent fixture of a hole through his cheek. The Fight Club phenomena soon becomes a frenzy, with new clubs forming throughout the country and Tyler finds his dream of bringing about social dissolution gaining momentum, as his plans evolve into self-destruction and terrorism with Project Mayhem. However we discover that all is not what it initially appears to be when a revelation alters the protagonist’s understanding and reaction to the unfolding events.

Palahniuk takes us on a journey through a dark, menacing and brutal world that mirrors the film it inspired almost exactly. Fight Club is nothing if not controversial and the constant violent descriptions, nihilism and references to subjects such as human soap and descriptions of disease will not be to every reader’s liking. However whatever our personal opinion may be on these matters, it is widely accepted that Fight Club proves to be adept at both exploring the very nature of violent behaviour and commenting on society at large.

Darkness At Noon

Mar 08 2013

This week I read the influential novel, Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler, which I review below.

Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler

Darkness At Noon is dedicated to the victims of ‘The Moscow Trials’, several of whom the author Arthur Koestler knew. Though the characters in the book are fictitious, the historical circumstances of the Soviet Union under Stalin in the 1930s are not. The book follows the protagonist Rubashov, a veteran of the Revolution and a decorated war hero, who had enjoyed a distinguished position in the party and had at one time been close to the leader Stalin, referred to in the book as No.1.

The opening scene sees Rubashov confined to an isolation cell having been accused of counter-revolutionary crimes. The story follows the pensive, chain-smoking Rubashov as he awaits his fate and reflects on his past, as well as the morality and workings of the party. Rubashov’s existence is one of privation, his only communication with the outside world being initially with prisoners in other cells via a knocking system until he is later permitted the relative luxury of being allowed to walk in the exercise yard each morning.

The head of the prison is the cynical intellectual Ivanov, a member of the old guard and a former comrade of Rubashov, who had fought alongside him in the Civil War following the Revolution. However Ivanov is to become yet another member of the disappearing old revolutionaries, when he is removed from his position, accused of political crimes, probably due to his connection to the political prisoner Rubashov. The result is that Rubashov is left at the hands of the humourless Gletkin, a fervent follower of the party. Days and nights merge as one as a lengthy interrogation ensues, its purpose to prepare the sleep-deprived Rubashov for the invariable show trial. Following his confession, our protagonist is left waiting in his cell for the trial, immersed in introspection and plagued by a guilty memory.

Darkness At Noon is a powerful and poignant political novel that examines issues of morality, particularly that of justifying the means to an end. Fascist and Communist systems are considered as being indistinguishable ideological systems that are in principle the same, in that both systems view their ideological goals as being superior to freedom and individual justice.

The Life of Pi

Mar 01 2013

This week resident book reviewer Adam Riley reviews The Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Piscine Molitor Patel, an intelligent, spiritual boy who renames himself Pi after one too many jokes about the similarity between his first name and a certain bodily function, grows up in his parents’ zoo in Pondicherry, a former French colony in Southern India. By birth a Hindu, he finds himself simultaneously attracted to Christianity after a visit to a Catholic church, and Islam through conversations with a local Muslim, leading to the unusual position of practising three mutually exclusive religions.

But when the family try to relocate the zoo to Canada, all three faiths are severly tested. The cargo ship sinks, leaving Pi as the only human survivor, stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, some cockroaches and a Bengal tiger. Natural food chain hierarchies soon reduce the occupants to just Pi and the tiger, leaving the sixteen year old boy in a desperate struggle for survival against the elements, starvation, dehydration and a vicious predator. But is the tiger really a threat to Pi, or are their lives more entwined than they really know?

A very famous book, and now a very famous film, the above plot is fairly well known. I did not expect, however, the rich metaphorical turns the story would take, and its ambiguous, thought-provoking ending. Written mainly from the point of view of Pi, the style exhibits a dignified wonder at the peculiarities of existence, as well as deadpan humour, for example when Pi begins to have his doubts the crew of the ship have his safety in mind when they throw him overboard, and chapter 97, which consists of the entire story retold in two words. Obvious literary comparisons can be made to Robinson Crusoe, particularly in the detailed methods used by the resourceful narrator to stay alive, and Pincher Martin, William Golding’s stark, intense story of a drowning man clinging to the illusions in his own head.

A highly symbolical novel, exploring the manifold expressions of life’s will to live, The Life of Pi also scrutinises the central problem of human existence: the tension between our perception of ourselves as rational, moral beings, and the reality of our animal precondition. Perhaps, The Life of Pi does not see this as a problem, but merely a fact, one that a higher power might prefer to include in any story it writes.