Performed the Triple-S of the male body maintenance routine.
[Shit,Shower,Shave]
Fired up Firefox.
[You still use IE? Don't do that. Download Firefox. And Avast! Antivirus while you're at it.]
Checked my Facebook notifications.
Two new people like the Facebook fan page for my publishing imprint?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Burnt-Offerings-Books/1408858196016246
Awesome!
Let's see who these two people are.
First guy's got 385 imaginary friends in common with me?
*shift/clicks through opening his profile page in a new window and check out his profile/wall*
Posts cool stuff on his wall?
Doesn't seem like a Jesus freak or a fake profile?
No bitstrips?
He's okay in my books.
*clicks "Add Friend"*
Two minutes later he accepts my invitation to become imaginary friends.
*makes mental note to follow-up and see what that guy's up to*
Second guy? Same deal.
Pop-up box with the attached image...
No, I don't know this person outside of Facebook.
I have around 1,800 "Friends" on Facebook.
I only know about, maybe 300 of them IRL.
[That's "In Real Life" for all of you senior citizens out there And what are you doing reading this anyway? Shouldn't you be playing shuffle board or pricing out coffins?]
Anyway, that means that there are 1,500 people that I'm electronically acquainted with that I have probably never spoken to in person.
So, no, I don't know most of those people personally.
For that matter, I don't really like most of my "classmates, family and coworkers".
I've got most of those assholes blocked on Facebook for being assholes.
I am the most misanthropic, antisocial person I know.
If I don't even leave the house in a day and don't talk to a single person personally I'm that much happier.
But I am also an author.
Us writer-types are like that.
We might hate people, but we LOVE our readers!
I am trying to start up my own publishing imprint to help other authors to publish their work.
[Because so far, my publishing imprint is pretty much a vanity press. Nine books in two months and it's all my stuff. Sorry, I write a lot, don't be jealous. You can write books too.]
I also run an interview blog.
I have a Facebook Fan Page for that too.
https://www.facebook.com/YouAreEntitledToMyOpinion
Since October 1st, 2013 I've conducted over 125 interviews and the blog is going to break 12,000 unique page views tonight.
*brushes nonexistent dust (or chip) off shoulder*
Where did I find all of the people I interviewed for the blog?
Through Facebook, using what claims to be a "social networking" website to become acquainted with people that I didn't know before and making new friends from all over the world.
You know... being "social".
Also, as an author and an aspiring publisher, I am my brand.
My profiles on social networking sites often feature promotional posts for the projects I'm working on. I try to keep these posts to one per project per day so my imaginary friends don't get promotional fatigue and take me out of their News Feeds, but it's hard because I'm usually working on five projects at once.
I don't fuck around.
And when I do fuck around, I don't fuck around while fucking around.
Sorry about that.*
[*Totally not sorry about that.]
I use the internet to sell books and to announce the submission calls for my publishing imprints.
"Imprints you say? Plural?"
Yes, imprints, plural.
https://www.facebook.com/RadiationSicknessBooks
So, my question is, if I'm not allowed to send a Friend Request to someone who has 30 "friends" in common with me and seems to be into the same kind of stuff, (I mean, he "liked" the fan page for my publishing imprint, maybe we'd get along?) then how is Facebook a social networking website?
Does Facebook really think that everyone using their site is the kind of person that only has friends from high school, college if they went, their work, people from their Zumba class or church group or what the fuck ever, and people that they're related to through blood or marriage?
I know there's a lot of those people on Facebook, but they're part of the problem.
The kind of people that report a profile if they see a picture of a female nipple or if they see something that doesn't jive with their opinion.
I don't want to see people getting fucked in the ass in my News Feed while trying to wake up while smoking the day's first cigarette either, and if I want to see people getting fucked in the ass, the internet is woven out of porn and cats.
But it shouldn't be forbidden.
If I don't like it, I don't look at it.
I don't like your stupid fucking simple-minded Christian posts or your bitstrips or your inspirational memes or your pictures of your kids or your pets or you making out with your significant other, but I also don't report that stuff.
I just click "I don't want to see this." and hide it from My News Feed and if all you do is post that kind of shit, I click "Unfollow..."
"Why doesn't anyone ever like anything I post?"
Because the stuff that you post sucks.
Post stuff that people will like and I'll like it.
No one wants to see a hundred pictures of your newborn baby except the kind of people that Facebook apparently thinks that you should be friends with.
You know, "classmates, family and coworkers".
Oh, and grandparents.
I love you Grandma, but trying to start a conversation with me asking how I'm doing in the comment thread about a snuff porn book I'm publishing isn't the best place to try to catch up.
Send me a private message or call me on the phone. Yes, I do answer my phone.
What's the solution?
There isn't one yet.
I've got a Google+, a Twitter, a Tumblr, an Etsy, a GoodReads, a LinkedIn, a Pinterest, a dozen Blogger blogs, and easily a couple dozen other "social networking" accounts that are a pain in the balls to remember all of the usernames and passwords for.
But Facebook and Etsy are the only sites that I have been able to use to make money from any of the many projects I'm working on.
Etsy, because that's where people go to buy cheap art, and Facebook because it currently dominates the internet, commanding something like 90% of the traffic.
Everyone except musicians abandoned MySpace like socialites off the Titanic.
Google+ is like a new housing development that people are gradually moving into.
It's really nice and they're trying really hard to get people to move there, but there's not a lot of people there yet.
And I always say that LinkedIn is where nobodies go to do nothing.
I haven't managed to develop any kind of work or project using that stupid site.
I had one inquiry about a painting through Twitter, and one inquiry about a painting through Tumblr, and neither inquirer ended up following through with the deal.
That's all I've got to rant about the matter for now.
Find me on all of the other social networking sites in the bio below...
Scott Lefebvre can write about whatever you want him to write about.
Mostly because when he was grounded for his outlandish behavior as a hyperactive school child, the only place he was allowed to go was the public library.
His literary tastes were forged by the works of Helen Hoke, Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft.
He is the author of Spooky Creepy Long Island, and a contributing author to Forrest J. Ackerman’s Anthology of the Living Dead, Fracas: A Collection of Short Friction, The Call of Lovecraft, and Cashiers du Cinemart.
He is currently working on ten novel-length book projects which will be released in 2014.
He also publishes themed collections of interviews from his interview blog You Are Entitled To My Opinion.
His reviews have been published by a variety of in print and online media including Scars Magazine, Icons of Fright, Fatally Yours and Screams of Terror, and he has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue and HorrorHound Magazine.
He is the Assistant Program Director for The Arkham Film Society and produces electronic music under the names Master Control and LOVECRAFTWORK.
He is currently working on a novel-length expansion of a short-story titled, "The End Of The World Is Nigh", a crowd-funded, crowd-sourced, post-apocalyptic, zombie epidemic project.
Check out the blog for the book here: theendoftheworldisnighbook.blogspot.com
Check out the Facebook Fan Page for the project here: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfTheWorldIsNighBook
Check his author profile at: www.amazon.com/Scott-Lefebvre/e/B001TQ2W9G
Follow him at GoodReads here:
www.goodreads.com/author/show/1617246.Scott_Lefebvre
Check out his publishing imprint Burnt Offerings Books here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Burnt-Offerings-Books/1408858196016246
And here: http://burntofferingsbooks.blogspot.com/
Check out his electronic music here: soundcloud.com/master_control
And here: master-control.bandcamp.com
Check out his videos at: www.youtube.com/user/doctornapoleon
Check out his IMDB profile here: www.imdb.com/name/nm3678959
Follow his Twitter here: twitter.com/TheLefebvre or @TheLefebvre
Follow his Tumblr here: thelefebvre.tumblr.com
Check out his Etsy here: www.etsy.com/shop/ScottLefebvreArt
Join the group for The Arkham Film Society here:
www.facebook.com/groups/arkhamscreenings
Stalk his Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheLefebvre
E-mail him at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com
