Widgets

I’m not embarrassed to admit that the interweb still frightens and confuses me. I’m a little technologically challenged, so there is A LOT out there that I simply do not understand. Among so many other things, apparently the internet is a great place for the independent author who knows how to navigate her way around Twitter’s hashtags and retweets, Facebook’s likes and pokes, and Goodreads’ giveaways and widgets. Because I had to be dragged into the twenty-first century, I’m amazed by people who actually know not only what all that stuff means, but also how to use it. My friend Milton, for instance, has been blogging for years, and his blog is filled with all kinds of media and icons and, I am pretty sure, widgets. And while I put the link to his blog in this post myself (here’s hoping that it works), I still haven’t managed to figure out how to make my blog look pretty, much less how to navigate my way through all these newfangled thingamajigs.

Nevertheless, I’m trying, and, the other night, frustrated by my inability to follow simple instructions about how to use the Goodreads Author program to my advantage, I asked Dave, “What the hell is a widget?”

As he usually does when I ask an impatient question about technology, my tech savvy husband smiled before responding with a mixture of patience and amusement. “I’m pretty sure I’ve already explained that to you,” he said.

“Well, clearly I have forgotten,” I replied with more than a hint of sass. “So can you tell me again?”

Unfortunately I can’t remember what he said (because sometimes when people talk about things I don’t understand, they sound like the adults in Peanuts cartoons), but I think his response was that it is a general term for a tool, not a specific thing. So I’m still not really clear about what a damn widget is because the Google was not much more specific. But I do know that I’m supposed to use them to encourage people to buy Luminous Creatures Press books and add them to their Goodreads bookshelves and write reviews so that other people will buy the books and add them to their bookshelves and other people….

If I’m really honest, though, I will confess that my fear of technology masks an entirely different issue. Behind my reluctance to learn how to use these technologies lies an aversion to self-promotion–specifically the shameless variety. I don’t mean other people’s shameless self-promtion. Just mine. I see people like the great monologist Mike Daisey on Facebook employing it almost purely as a tool for marketing. And he navigates it like a master. First of all he accepts friend requests from everyone. I know this because I sent him one after I saw him at Berkeley Rep a few years ago, and he accepted it. He also posts article after article and review after review of his work. He must issue thousands of invitations to performances every day. But what strikes me the most about Daisey’s use of Facebook is the complete lack of self-consciousness that I see. He clearly does not feel even the least bit awkward tooting his own horn. Or if he does, he hides it very well.

I do feel awkward. Terribly awkward. I resisted posting status updates or putting up a profile picture on Facebook for at least a full year after my friend Jill convinced me to join. Why on earth would anyone care what I’m doing or how I’m feeling in any given moment? Now any one of the five hundred or so Facebook friends I have could tell you that I’m obviously over that. Then came this blog, which Dave convinced me to write. I’ve also begun tweeting (a verb that still makes me shudder). I signed up for a Twitter account after Emily and I released our first short story collection because the books about marketing your self-published work suggest it. I believe I’m up to a whopping thirty-two followers. That after harboring nothing but disdain for Twitter since I first heard of it. Yesterday I did my first hashtag (does one do hashtags, employ them, or what? What’s the verb here?). And today I retweeted. All with only a little embarrassment.

So I’m learning, and bit by bit I’m getting over my fear or aversion or whatever hinders me from doing what every other successful artist seems perfectly willing to do–tell everyone how awesome their work is. In fact, I am very proud of the work Emily and I do. So much so that I am willing to sit down and learn to make use of the technology I’ve avoided.I think I’m making progress in teeny tiny baby steps. In this blog entry alone, which I’m posting to both Facebook and Twitter, I’ve set up two links to promote my work. And I’m okay with that.

As for the Goodreads author widgets: last night I asked Dave to show me how to use one. I cannot tell you how pleased I was that he had trouble figuring it out.