You Are What You Tweet

After Tuesday's cautionary tale, Miss X and I were discussing (Yes, she still talks to me after that experience) and she raised an interesting point. Not only did the warning I mentioned about giving out too much personal information in the social media blizzard apply to the sender, but it also applied to how one replied to others.

How you respond can tell as much about you as tweeting personal information can. If you're constantly rude and biting in your tweets, you probably are as well in your real life. That broadcasts clearly. However, humor is a funny thing- funny-odd, not funny-haha. Even when you use 'LOL' or ':D' in a tweet, the reply you intended as funny and humorous doesn't always get interpreted that way by the reader on the other side of the tweet. You can *emphasize* a word for effect, but that doesn't always translate well either. A reader will process your tweet through their own set of filters of funny or appropriate. Not every uses the same set of parameters.

Throw in cultural differences, societal movements, personal beliefs and you've got a recipe for potential disaster. How can you avoid insensitive replies? It's really, really *REALLY* simple.

Think before you type.

In this go-go-gimmie-gimmie-now-now social media age, communication is almost instant and permanent. Insert cliche about one chance at first impressions here. How you present yourself is generally how you will be perceived. Once you hit send, it's out there for everyone to see. Think about that the next time you're sitting in front of Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Social Media Safety

Social Media - A Cautionary Tale.

We all like to talk about ourselves on social media. Twitter, Facebook, and more recently, Google+. If there's a way to let others know "I'm going to the grocery store" or to send a picture of "This guy I just saw at ComicCon!", we are using it. Social media has permeated society on many levels - for good or ill.

But do we really KNOW what we are telling the world when we use Social Media? Do we tweet, ect safely? The reason I ask is, you can tell something innocuous about yourself, but you never know what someone out there knows, and can find out about you from an innocent statement.

Case in point. Several months ago, someone I follow on Twitter who lives in my local area mentioned she was leaving on a trip that afternoon, flying to a location in the Rockies for a working get-away. Later that same day, she mentioned there was a coffee location not far from her gate area.

Now, anyone who's read this blog knows that I'm a fan of aviation. It's in the log line. I've written posts dealing with the subject. When she mentioned where she was going, my mind kicked in and wondered: "Which airline is she flying on? What type of airplane?"

Armed with the scraps of information she'd given, I took to the web and after looking at two sites, I was able to tweet her and ask if she was at gate X on ABC Airlines flight XYZ.

She replied that yes, she was.

Now, I wasn't trying to stalk her, and I told her as much. That it was how my brain worked, and the curiosity she'd peaked. She understood and mentioned that she now had food for thought about what she tweeted to the world.

Was I trying to change what or how she tweeted? Absolutely not. Did I feel bad about that, like it was my fault? Absolutely. For the next month I didn't see her tweet much, and didn't comment on anything she did send out.

Which brings me back around to the point I was making with this blog. You never know what someone out there knows, what specialized knowledge they might have to dig into you. Be cautious what you say in a general broadcast to the world. Even in conversations between people on twitter, I'm always being surprised at which of my followers will pop in, that follow both of us already in the conversation. Don't go and get paranoid that everyone following you is out to get you, to dig into your life, but be careful when mentioning your personal life in social media.

Boarding Call

If we ignore history, we are doomed to repeat it. Or, something like that. What can we learn by looking back at history? Well, I can see an interesting parallel between the Digital and Indie Revolutions in the publishing world and the deregulation of the airline industry in the 1970s.

Seriously. Stick with me and I'll explain.

First, a little history to get you up to take off speed. Federal regulation of the U.S. airline industry can be traced back as far as the 1920s, and became serious with the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938. The government basically said who had the authority to fly which routes, and how much passengers could be charged.

For example, from New York to Chicago, you might have had both United Airlines and American Airlines authorized to fly the route for a ticket price of $40 round trip. From Chicago, American could fly passengers to Los Angeles, and United to San Francisco, but not American Chicago-San Francisco or United Chicago-Los Angeles

To stand apart from the competition on a route, airlines competed on services, like inflight meals (yes they did consist of more than a sandwich and yogurt/fruit snack), and passenger comforts (hot towel any one?). Anything to make your trip a pleasant and memorable trip, in the hopes of securing your future business.

Most airlines at this time started out as small operations and grew into regional carriers. Some of these regional carriers grew into national carriers, with networks across the country, all connected by a backbone of a few connecting routes. Any Joe Millionaire could start his own airline, as long as he was willing to fly where the government said he could.

Then 1978 and the Airline Deregulation Act happened. These long time controls were removed,and airlines now had the freedom to fly any route they cared to, for any price they thought passengers were willing to pay.

New start-up airlines exploded all over the map. Expansion and market penetration was on the minds of every airline executive. Every major airline now had to compete under a vastly different set of rules.

Some start ups clawed their way into markets, others flopped because of bad business plans. Many disappeared into the major airlines of the time through buy-outs, mergers, and consolidation over the last thirty years.

Hey, wake up! History lesson is over. Still with me? Good.

Now, you're asking yourself "What is this idiot talking about? What has this got to do with the publishing world?"

Big publishing has long acted like the government, "regulating" who would be published and what they could be paid. This went on for decades, over a century.

Then came the three-headed monster of The Digital Revolution, Social Media, and the Indie Publisher Explosion.

The Digital Revolution gave birth to a new form of publishing for authors, the ebook. Social Media allowed authors to create networks of followers (potential customers). And Indie Publishing allowed authors the freedom to write whichever book they wished, regardless of 'market trends' and demand- if it is written, it will find an audience. Authors could now write, publish, promote and sell their own books for their own prices, without an agent or a publishing contract.

In short, authors can now be their own airlines in the deregulated era.

It's a chaotic, turbulent time for the publishing industry. Times are changing, technology is changing by leaps and bounds, and publishing is changing.

Is it now still necessary to have Big Publishing involved to be a successful author? Not always. Authors have long had print and then ebooks available from their websites, basically a parallel to the versions offered by their publishers. Now some authors are taking the leap and going without Big Publishing.

J.K. Rowling is going it alone. She has started Pottermore, the portal for all things Harry Potter, including the soon to be released ebook versions. How will her sales numbers turn out? It's entirely too early to tell, but any author with the smarts to grab on to the situation can have their own success without Big Pub behind them. Heck, 99.995% of authors with Big Pub backing don't turn out her numbers.

Are agents and editors now lining up at the unemployment office because of the revolution? Not hardly. New publishing houses, literary agencies, and editing services are growing in this new age. The opportunities are out there. Authors can literally pick and chose the best fit for themselves. Big publishing, specialized small publishing, or inde, each is a viable path to success.

What does this mean for authors now? Big Publishing hasn't gone anywhere, but it is in a state of change. The competition has increased no matter which route to publication today's author chooses. The author now has to work harder, be smarter about their business, and promote themselves more than ever to build brand recognition.

The workload has gone up, but the skies are now literally the limit.

Where would you like to fly to?
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Comments welcome.