“The Limits and Limitlessness of the Internet”

~ by Charles D Ameringer

The internet provides limitless opportunities for the writer, while at the same time creating limitless numbers of writers, so that one may get lost in the shuffle. You become a fleck in cyberspace. If you have a publisher, you have a page on its website, but no assurance that anyone will visit it. Your book is listed on Amazon.com, but who knows about it? You’ve got to get exposure.

You can go on Facebook or Twitter or create your own website or blog. You can list your profile free on Goodreads or BookDaily, but unless you buy a promotional package, it’ll just sit there, rusting in limbo. You’ll spend more time promoting your book than you did in writing it. But there may be help on the way.

There’s a new cottage industry of bloggers out there offering to review books. Some are really good, like Debra Hartmann, Roger Gerald Scott, Susan Peck, and Book Nosh, but they’re struggling like you to gain exposure. In time, as their reputations grow and they prove to be innovative and inventive (like the launching of AHA here) the review process may be a means of bringing order out of chaos and the cream to the top. But there’s a downside to the blogger-reviewer: some are dishonest.

They’ll give you a 5-star review for a fee. Plus, there are writers who get Uncle John or Cousin Mary to post a rave review for them. These practices undermine the purpose of the review and could render it meaningless. It’s a challenge that writers and reviewers alike, in a self-regulatory fashion, must meet by marginalizing the cheaters and cooperating to create a review system of integrity and excellence. In the meantime, writers, in their zeal to promote their books, would be wise to hang onto their wallets, play it square, and honor their craft.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Charles Ameringer is the author of the spy/mystery novel The Old Spook. You can find him at www.Solsticepublishing. com, Amazon.com, Goodreads, and BookDaily. Enter The Old Spook and click Search.