Self Promotion, on “Dear Veronica”
Posted on November 11, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 7 Comments
My pal Veronica Belmont offers advice on technology and the geek life over at Engadget, and this week she enlisted me to help out with a question about promoting yourself and your new novel online. Want to know what I said? Of course you do. The link is here (I would embed it but embedding doesn’t appear to work. Make the click anyway, it’s worth it).
thanks, John! Your tip to be yourself on line and not just “promote, promote, promote” is such good advice to more people than just book writers. Thanks for that! and now it’s for me to learn how to do in my line of work!
Blog techie question, please: What are the fonts your theme uses? As best I can tell, these are not Merriweather (Serif) and Open Sans, though what I can see in the mounds of stuff the blog adds appears to be that. Both font-families are very readable. Yes, only a typography / font geek would ask such a geeky detail. B) Thanks in advance.
This is like when Granny visited her relatives in Hooterville, Or when characters from Hello Larry show up in an episode of Diff’rent Strokes.
Hi John! Longtime reader, here at WordPress.com – you can embed that AOL video! Just pop the video URL on its own line in your editor (don’t link or format the URL) and it should embed! https://en.support.wordpress.com/videos/aolon/
If that doesn’t work the YouTube URL will definitely work (turns out the AOL video link wasn’t super easy to find!):
Partial Answer (maybe): I think the serif font is Calluna, after some more comparisons. Still not sure what the sans-serif font is. Yes, no, maybe?
So this is where Veronica Belmont fetched up!
She used to be on the TWiT Podcast Network all the time – but haven’t seen her in a while there. I know she was on PlayStation Network for a time, then kind of vanished off the face of the Earth after she and Ryan Block got married.
Good to see her back.
Er, by the way, I feel kinda bad for asking a geeky techie question and not commenting on the video and John’s section. Whether it’s a writer’s blog or a YouTube video or some local store or restaurant, or maybe the big ol’ chain stores and famous name products — As a potential fan and customer, I am going to react a whole lot better to someone who’s friendly and takes a minute to be genuine and get to know each other a little. If I’m made to feel welcome, a little better, and like I now know that person and product a little better, then I’m going be much more willing to buy again and to tell people about that great experience. Getting frustrated, badly mistreated, ignored, etc., someplace, by someone? Not a good first impression, and not good in the long run, even at a place or with a person you like. Sometimes, it’s little things, and sometimes they’re not so little. But how people feel and think and that personal, one-on-one experience is critical, and it’s the best advertising you can possibly get. And both in books and video, I want something to think about, to shake up my expectations a little, besides any big exploding battles and action-adventure roller coaster thrill rides. Hey, not that I don’t like that too, it’s just that I like it a whole lot better when there’s more than just whipped cream / meringue to the show or book. But that’s one of the reasons I love science fiction. Usually, you get plenty of ideas along with the adventure.