MySpace pages

MySpace is the DEVIL!!

I don't really "get" MySpace.

I don't get it either, not for business purposes...

I'm a huge fan of all things online, but when trying to convey a professional image, I wonder how you can maintain that with myspace. It seems personal friends get added and things that don't pertain to whatever it is you may be promoting get all mixed in and it quickly becomes a confusing mess.

When I've tried to find things out about people or a product (music people, for example) and go to their myspace page, it's a big jumble to me. Maybe I'm just old...lol.

An author I am working with as an editor posted the query and synopsis on her myspace page, which has a not-so-professional picture of her, with a whole slew of non-industry friends, and now she's getting invites from people claiming to be celebrities, though it's more likely they're posers, data mining for authors, music people, anyone seeking industry contacts. Call me a skeptic, but I think a webpage w/blog should be the more business-oriented site, and the myspace a personal thing. The layout is just a mess.

To be taken with a grain of salt. I'm no expert. However:

I attended a seminar last night on promoting your book(s). MySpace was barely mentioned, but there seemed to be general agreement that writers can profit from having blogs. If you have one, it would be under your own URL--not a page on MySpace or YouTube.

If you have such a blog, the experts said, you should update it regularly and do a lot of networking to keep others informed about it, placing links everywhere that seems appropriate.

Do such methods work? I don't know. I'm just passing on what the kahunas said.

MySpace

I'm not sure where that common wisdom came from. I know more pro writers who have started, and then dropped, MySpace pages than writers who have kept them.

Which agent said that MySpace offers nothing to a writer except the feeling that he's doing something? Lot of truth there.

I like my live journal, it serves my purposes. I don't get the whole myspace thing either.

Myspace is the Devil!

(but it is a decent networking tool ) Since I've been on Myspace (which hasn't been very long, mind you), I've managed to network with organizations geared toward my line of fiction, as well as magazines, other authors, and potential readers. I use Myspace strictly as an information disseminator (wow! Don't I sound smart? ); for example, I post events where my stuff will be promoted in the calendar, I offer my author bio, I offer links to my website, bulletin/blog updates about news/events relating to my publishing career. That sort of thing. I keep my personal, buddy-buddy exchanges for e-mail or comments/posts on my personal blog.

Period.

I'm still tracking how much traffic is being pushed from Myspace onto my main website; I did it as an experiment to see whether Bebo or Myspace or Y!360 is better for marketing. When I tally my results, I'll let you know.

I think it depends on your audience. The YA writing community, and their readers, would be more active than other genres, for instance.

I don't know of any authors with myspace pages but I do know a couple who have LiveJournals. It just seems more of a place for grown-ups for some reason. I have a myspace so I can keep track of my kids' online activities, other than that, I never use it because the EMO layouts make me nauseous.

I have Myspace, Hi5 and Facebook accounts. I never really use them, except when I'm exceptionally bored or my friends force me to. All I've used them for is to place a link to my page and that's it. I don't really see how useful they can be, really. As has been said, a blog would be a much better bet.

I've told the craziest myspace story in the history of myspace pages to a couple people, and I can't really go public with it, right now.

However, I assure you, good sirs and madams, that excellent things may result from your page. I am still laughing about what occurred this week.

Ask me again sometime, and I might be in a position to repeat the tale to you.

I used to have a myspace page, but let me tell you something, I find facebook is much better because when you log-in you can see an update for all of your friends and are more likely to visit their page when you know something is new or updated. With myspace, you have to check everyone's page individually to see what's up, unless someone posts a bulletine always telling you when something is new. But those bulletines got annoying in their own way too.
Maybe it was just me, but I certainly didn't have the time to check 100 friends pages at myspace, just to find out if something was going on. So, I like facebook better and purely for the fact that in one glance I can see what people are up to.

I have a myspace site that I started for networking with other writers. If you go with myspace I would suggest that you check everyone who asks to be a friend. I only allow the ones that I think are appropriate and deny any that I don't think are appropriate. other then my son and a few friends almost everyone else in my friends is in the publishing industry. Stop by my site and check out my friends, I have some pretty cool friends.

I have a MySpace page. I look at it as a 24 hour advertisement for me. I update it once in awhile, but not as often as my website. I get *some* personal friends - or friends from AW or LJ, but many of my friends have sought me out - other writers, many, from all over the world, but some other publishing peeps and some fantasy fans.

But I write for the MySpace demographic, which is provbably why I find it more useful. I also found it useful to join some groups related to my genre. A bit of a time suck, but I connect with other people who check out my page.

It's free, so what can I lose from having it?

I also have an LJ. I have more friends on MySpace.

I have Myspace and Livejournal accounts in my RL name, which I use to trace my progress on my WIP and writing thoughts in general.

I'm planning on using both of them as networking tools as and perhaps as a promotional tool as I build up writing credits. I also 'own' my real life name as a domain and the idea is that when my novel's finished and the publishing industry recognises my undoubted genius {/tongue in cheek} I'll use it as the main promotional tool (incorporating my LJ blog into it as I've seen that done by other authors on their sites).

However, in answer to the original question:

How useful have you found your MySpace page to be? In what way? What have you done?

Click to expand...

So far, the Myspace page is only useful to me as I'm charting my own development as a writer and the kind of things I'm thinking about. Maybe it will be more useful as I get some writing success.

MM

Here's how an author's MySpace should look. Check it out. It stands on its own, but also matches his website perfectly. A great marketing tool, if you ask me.

Oh, and he has 14,000+ friends.

I find myspace creepy, too. I find it intrusive, slow-loading, and annoying. But that's just me.

Judg said:

Hmm, thanks for the feedback, everyone. Is there no one here who has actually found it useful? I know some of you have MySpace pages, heck, I've added you as friends...

Click to expand...

Well, I started a fake MySpace page (meaning under an alias) solely for the purpose of being able to spy on people I used to know. I found that useful at aleviating my work-day boredom for about an hour.

Judg said:

Chartreuse, I meant useful as a WRITER!!!

Click to expand...

I suppose it depends on whether or not it works for you. Everybody says that myspace is a "great networking tool," but for those who don't have the temperment for it, it's not. People who don't like using myspace as a networking tool are going to find their own way to network that works for them.