Early December Stuff

Last week I talked about how blogging on Youtube can benefit writers, so I wanted to cover some of the Youtube basics necessary for a writer who wants to learn how to use it for self promotion. If you’re already technically savvy, much of this post will already be obvious to you, but the thinking about researching what others in the field are doing that’s mentioned at the end would still be a good practice.

First off, create a YouTube account. When picking your username, try to find something close to the one you use on your website. I use catrambo, which is the same username I use on Facebook, Twitter, and most other social networking sites. You want a name that your watchers can connect with your books, so they can find them later on.

YouTube has some social network functions. You can use your account to comment on or “like” other users’ videos and make lists of your favorite videos. You can subscribe to other people’s video streams in order to get notifications when they add new content. Buttons underneath videos allow you to share favorites with other social networks, including Facebook, Orkut, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Tumblr and many more. You can even set your account to publish updates to networks when you like a video or add it to a list as well as when you upload your own videos. Check here for some additional Youtube essentials.

When you start uploading videos to your account (and the post on that is not yet written) , you’re creating your YouTube video channel, which others can subscribe to. You can customize your channel (click on your account name in the upper right hand corner and when a menu appears, select “My Channel”) by giving it a name, modifying the colors and choosing what information to display on your channel’s page, such as event dates, a list of YouTube friends, and who’s subscribed.

But before you start making videos, spend some time poking around and seeing what others in your field are posting to YouTube. You’ll see commentary on book covers, book trailers, book reviews, interviews, readings, news magazines, and more.

Such research will serve you in good stead when you can thinking about what sort of content you want to be using for your blogging on Youtube. But for now – go watch a video or five, all in the name of research.

A major joy of my new Kindle is finding free books. I figured other people might appreciate some of the finds (and might share some of their own – bonus!).

So here’s a slew of classic science fiction novels, available free online on Project Gutenberg. (Kindle users, it’s so so easy to mail files onto your Kindle, although it’s not free when you’re moving books on there, but costs a .15 per MB, with a book running 2-4 MB, depending.)

1. Flatland by Edwin Abbot. The story of life in two dimensions, written in 1884 by an English schoolmaster, it originally boasted “A Square” as author.
2. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. One of the great pulp writers, Burroughs’ work is well represented on Project Gutenberg, and provides a taste of old school sf at its best. including the Mars, Pellucidar, and Tarzan series.
3. R.U.R. by Karel Capek. This Czechoslovakian play first was staged in 1921. It deals with the rise of the robots, and their final rebellion against the humans.
4. Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Written by one of the early suffrage leaders, Gilman posits a society without men, and in the tradition of such utopian fiction, explains it at length.
5. Deathworld by Harry Harrison. The first of the Deathworld series, this deals with gambler Jason dinAlt and his visit to the deadliest planet in the universe.
6. Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick. No one can be a science fiction fan without at least a little Philip K. Dick in their reading background (in my opinion). Prolific, full of wild imagination, and talented, he produced novels and short stories that are a major influence on the field. Others to read by Dick: Valis, Ubik), Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and (always) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which inspired the movie Bladerunner). I’m happy to see so many P.K. Dick novels available on the Kindle, but I miss Eye in the Sky and The Man in the High Castle.
7. Time Traders by Andre Norton. Norton brought countless readers to f&sf through her YA novels. Time Traders is the first of a series and follows sharp-jawed, keen-eyed Ross Murdock in his quest for lost alien technology.
8. Galaxy Primes by E.E. Smith. Another of the Golden Age writers, Smith does space opera like no one else. Here two men and two men are lost in space and must somehow chart their way back to their home planet, Earth.
9. Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. There’s a lot of Wells to pick from, but this is one of my favorites, and certainly has inspired plenty of other works, both books and movies. I’ll note that you should read Ralph Ellison’s version first – while not strictly sf, it’s surreal and enlightening and a great take on the idea.

And the tenth? I’m leaving it up to you to supply, dear readers – what would you suggest, what have you found online that delighted or amazed you?

(Coming tomorrow: story prompt!!)

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