My Fun New Hobby

I've been attempting to promote my new kids picture book on all the socials. I created a new profile on most of them (pcnugnugs) so I could shamelessly plug my book without bothering my friends.

Thanks to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and AI tools, the world is AWASH in kids picture books and people trying to sell them. Makes it very difficult get noticed, so I'll just have to wait and see if kids and parents enjoy it enough to get more copies or tell friends.

On my promotion Facebook account I've joined a bunch of kid lit author groups hoping, like everyone else, to get noticed. This environment of naive first time authors is like fish in a barrel for schemy types. Some like to direct message you, praise your book cover and eventually try to sell you promotion services. So long as they're upfront about it, that's okay. Others, however, are impersonating the authors of very successful books. They send you a link to their bestselling title and eventually offer to get those some kind of numbers on Amazon for YOU!

My fun new hobby is to engage on facebook messenger and see if I can confirm for myself what they're up to. Then I tweet the legit author on X directing them to the likely hoax facebook profile's link. It is very satisfying, and who knows, it might result in a little goodwill among the legit authors. Even if not, it is pretty fun. That is all for now, be well and enjoy Spring.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

THE Health Unit, Facebook and Twitter

You know, say what you want about London Ontario. The London-Middlesex Health Unit, a common naming convention for Health Units all over the province, owns the URL healthunit.com. Wow, man. Somebody was on the ball on that one.

This post was originally intended to simply state the paragraph above. I looked a it and thought "that is really only a tweet". At over 200 characters, it isn't, but nonetheless it got me thinking about Twitter and Facebook and all that and I started percolating. Percolating is bad news. Funny word choice, too, indicative of somebody who is getting oldish, I think.

You know what's wrong with Facebook and Twitter? They are aimed at people who like other people and want to know even more people. People suck. This blog is about me and the people who care to comment on me and that's how I like it. It would seem that I need to be the Centre of the Universe, at least as an online persona. This is the Internet, and I think that is my prerogative. Do I suck for being so self-centred? Well yeah, kind of. But those who engage in meaningful comment here always get my attention and respect, unless they prove to be complete a-holes.

I hate Facebook and Twitter. Rather than being online tools that enable me to connect with others, they generally just annoy me. I know that's not fair... hey, pay attention to me, while I ignore you! In an effort to be true to myself and how I operate for good or ill, I am leaving those Internet spaces. They just bug me.

I registered for both because 1) I thought I could use them to promote this blog and 2) I didn't want somebody to steal my name on them. You know what? I no longer care. They're both confusing and annoying to me. If somebody steals my identity I will see it as a sign of this blog's success.

Please don't misunderstand. I have many people I count as friends online, people I have never met in person that I value highly. I didn't meet any of them on Facebook or Twitter. They comment here, or I comment on their sites and we email and stuff. You know who you are. I have been a crusty old man as long as I can remember, from the age of 3 or so. I'm crustin' it up, baby! No more Facebook or Twitter for me! WooHoo!

Yer Newly Liberated Pal, R A N T W I C K