Disclaimer #1: This post is not inspired by anyone I know personally, just things I’ve observed on social media and my thoughts on it. Also, the intention of this post is not to claim or imply that I’ve never made an ass of myself on the web. I have. Repeatedly.

Disclaimer #2: This post is only loosely tied to writing…

I follow a handful of celebrities online (maybe a couple dozen on Facebook, a couple dozen on Twitter, and half a dozen on G+). Once in a great while, I’ll comment on their statuses or reply to their tweets, or even mention them in a tweet, but it doesn’t happen often. I’ve had a couple of “celebrities” reply to my tweets (and even had one thank me for mentioning him in an article I wrote for Mashable a million years ago). So I don’t view it as futile to try to interact with celebs on social media. If they didn’t want to interact with people, they wouldn’t be on social media.

What I’m about to talk about seems to be more prevalent on Facebook than anywhere else, but I’ve seen it on virtually every social network out there. It usually goes like this: a celeb posts something profound, deep, hilarious, or even a little boring, and there are a handful of comments that are semi-related to the topic (and often half of them are borderline-illiterate), and then, inevitably, begin the comments along the lines of “I want to have your baby!” or “You’re so hot!” or things that I will not repeat on this blog in case there are children or people with taste reading.

Now, I’m not gonna lie, there are times and certain celebs where I am thinking all the inappropriate things these people are saying. But I have this internal filter that prevents me from actually saying these things to a complete stranger. That’s what people tend to forget about all these celeb interactions: these people do not know you. They would not recognize you on the street, they would not take your phone call if you somehow got their phone number, and they would not invite you to their wedding or their kid’s birthday party. They do not know you. And as much as you like to think you know them because you follow their every tweet and status update, you don’t know them.

So why would you say something to these people that you wouldn’t say to anyone in real life? Would you walk up to a complete stranger on the street and say “I want to have your babies?” (Note: the correct answer is “no”, so if you said “yes” you might want to talk to someone about that.) Would you, sober, scream out in a crowded room that someone you’ve never met is hot? In front of their family and friends? Again, that should probably be a “no.”

It’s an epidemic on the internet. It’s like everyone loses that internal filter that tells them what they should and should not say the second they log on. Granted, some people don’t have that filter in real life, but the ratio is way off online.

This leads to other issues. It leads to trolling and people feeling like they can just say whatever they want when they’re online without consequences. Remember: there is a human being on the other end of whatever you’re saying. I don’t care if they’re famous, internet famous, or completely unknown, they’re a person! Sure, celebrities might be a little bit more used to people saying inappropriate things, but does that mean they like it? I’m guessing not for the majority of them. I’m guessing some of these things embarrass them. I bet they get uncomfortable when reading some things. And here’s the worst part: I bet they censor themselves because they know certain things they post will elicit a certain type of undesirable response. And that’s where everyone loses out, because we’re getting a less authentic interaction.

On that note, here are my three basic rules for interacting online. The goal here is not to stifle free speech or tell people what to do, it’s simply my own personal guidelines for how I interact with people, especially people I do not know in real life (who are more apt to get my special brand of humor), when online.

1. Remember that you’re dealing with people. Living, breathing human beings are on the other end of every comment you post.

2. Treat people the way you want to be treated. If something would make you feel uncomfortable if someone else said it to you, why would you say it to them?

3. Before posting anything online, ask yourself if you’d say the same thing to someone’s face. If you wouldn’t, why would you post it online for the entire world to see?

Following those three basic rules has kept me largely out of online embarrassment (there have been exceptions). I know that if I were to ever meet any of the celebrities or others I follow online, I wouldn’t have to be sitting there thinking, “I hope they don’t remember that thing I said that time.” Considering I want to be involved in the film industry, I hope there’s a good chance I’ll meet (or work with) some of these people in the future. So maybe that’s the difference: I view them as potential colleagues, while others view them as these unreachable figures that they will never, ever meet.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have another big announcement to share with everyone. I’m sure people have noticed how little I’ve been posting here for the past month or so, and also that I’ve been a little less active at times on Twitter and Facebook.

That’s because I’ve been working on a non-fiction book for John Wiley & Sons. I signed the contract in mid-February for The Smashing Idea Book, part of the Smashing Book series. It’s a big project, with a ton of research involved, and it’s been taking up a lot of my time. I have very tight deadlines (with a quarter of the book due every three weeks), and my regular work load hasn’t let up that much (I’ve had to adjust some things, but I’m still doing a ton of freelance writing), so that’s why I’ve been a bit less active elsewhere. It’s a bit different to be working under tight deadlines again, and I’m learning that time management is not necessarily my biggest strength!

The writing and editing of the book will be wrapping up in the middle of May (I’ve already submitted the first half, and am working on edits for the first quarter), and after that I should be back to my regular blogging/tweeting schedule. If you’re interested, you can already pre-order The Smashing Idea Book through Amazon UK (it’s not available on the US site yet, but should be before too long).

I’ll share more details as I have them!

As promised, I’m going to share my sales for my indie-published novella series here, so that others considering indie-publishing can have as much data as possible to make their decision. I’ll also try to share any insight into my sales numbers, and what marketing efforts I’ve made (and if I can see any correlation between those efforts and my sales figures).

So, February was a short month, and Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris wasn’t widely available until the 4th or 5th. So right off the bat, I was working with a month that was only about 24 days long.

Also, I did virtually no marketing ahead of time. Sure, I’d posted here a few times about the book and its progress, but I didn’t send out any review copies, I didn’t do any real networking, prior to the release date. Mostly, it was because this is my first go at indie publishing fiction, and I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot if I ran into problems getting it out there. I decided to go with the slow-and-steady approach.

Here are my sales for the month of February: Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I’ve got more to post this week than I have for the past couple. First of all, I’m planning on launching the new book website prior to June 1st if all goes according to schedule. Stay tuned here or follow me on Twitter for the latest updates.

Publishing Renaissance had a great post about how indie authors need to take some cues from the indie music and movie industries, titled Finding Our Defiance. Mentioned in that article is an article by Henry Baum titled The Last Stigmas of Self-Publishing, which I thought deserved it’s own mention here.

Wil Wheaton was featured in an article in The Washington Times on self-publishing, Self-publishing finds commercial niche in digital age. Definitely worth a read.

I had another article on authors who tweet (this time it’s nonfiction authors) go up on Mashable today. Go check it out and please retweet it if you find it interesting.

And, last but not least, Nathan Bransford has his usual roundup of even more publishing news on his blog.

Hope everyone in the U.S. has a great Memorial Day weekend! And I hope everyone not in the U.S. has a wonderful regular weekend!

This is going to be another short one. On a personal note, my freelance writing has really picked up recently, with three new inquiries in the past couple of week and two new regular gigs. Keep an eye on my portfolio page for updates on new articles I’m writing. I’ve also picked up a ton of new Twitter followers (you can follow me @cameron_chapman if you aren’t already).

Dan Holloway wrote a great article on the future of books over at the Streamwriting site (which is run by Hannah Davis). It’s a great article. Dan is really on top of new technology coming out in the publishing world and is taking advantage of a lot of it himself (have you seen the interactive novel he’s writing in a Facebook group?) At some point in the future I’m supposed to have an article going up on the same site. Stay tuned for that.

I am almost finished with the website for the new book. It’s currently in the hands of it’s first beta readers and I’ll be starting some edits this weekend on the first few chapters. I’m forever greatful to those who are taking the time to read it and they’ll all be mentioned in the acknowledgements and possibly get a case of champagne if the book does really well…

Nathan Bransford has his usual excellent round up of other publishing news. My favorite of the stories he mentions is the one from the New York Times addressing piracy concerns over ebooks. Very interesting read.

I recently wrote a post over on Mashable covering more than 100 authors making the most of Twitter. In doing so, I had to do a TON of research and found plenty of authors who weren’t using Twitter in the best way possible. I also found a lot of authors who weren’t using the web in the most effective way either. Read the rest of this entry »

Not much news to report this week, other than that some of you might have noticed the site being down for a good portion of the week. It’s back up now and will (hopefully) stay up.

I had two great articles posted this week on Mashable. The one that went up today might be of particular interest to most of you: Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter here.

In other news, I’m hoping the website for the new book will be up next week. I’ll post as soon as it is.