By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
From November 8, 2012
Part of my series of columns on publishing, Writing on the Ether, appearing Thursdays at the invitation of Jane Friedman at JaneFriedman.com
What Blogging Authors Need to Know
Tuesday, November 13
1pET / 10aPT / 1800 GMT
Webinar & Critique with Porter Anderson
You’re all platformed up. But where are you going?
Could you use an expert critique?
Are you getting traction? Or dying on the vine?
Join us for this special Writer’s Digest webinar — precise guidance on best practices and professional performance points. And your fee includes a critique — a web post or page from your site, your choice — meaning your work gets individual attention and personalized feedback. 
Click here for full details & registration for this November 13 webinar.
Ether for Authors: Starts Tuesday
A programming note on the gas here. I’m glad to tell you that we’ll be starting a new weekly edition of the Ether on Tuesday (November 13) at Publishing Perspectives.
Ether for Authors will focus on some of the best craft guidance and commentary, much of which we tend not to have room for here in Writing on the Ether.
“Craft,” in Ether-eal terms, comprises essential points of writerly process and “hyper-craft” elements of the business, from self-publishing issues to the marketing and discoverability quandaries faced by all empowered authors — traditionally published, self-published, and “hybrids.”
An especially exciting part of Ether for Authors is Publishing Perspectives‘ keen internationalist stance, something I value highly.
We’ll be able to explore the experiences writers are having in many parts of the world.
And our setting is one that for some four years has provided a global view and myriad talented voices and initiatives.
Ether sans frontières.
Worldwide domination is at hand.
Join us Tuesdays at Edward Nawotka’s Publishing Perspectives for Ether for Authors — and, of course, on Thursdays for Writing on the Ether, as usual, right here at the sturdiest web site in the known universe, JaneFriedman.com.
Onward and outward, into the gathering effluvium.
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Now, let's move forward and begin to work together on what really matters: snarky tweets, yelling about publishing, and cat videos.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) November 7, 2012
Burning Up the Bunting: What’s in a Handle?
Mercifully, the 18-month U.S. presidential election cycle has come to an end. Think of how many substantial efforts could have been mounted — from infrastructure improvements to educational, economic, and environmental efforts — by the army of partisans who worked so diligently to persuade you to think as they do. All those get-out-the-vote volunteers. All those potholes. We’ve missed our chance again.
On NPR’s Morning Edition Wednesday, Steve Inskeep reported that at the peak of ballot bedlam on Tuesday night, there were 327,000 tweets moving per minute. Those things may have flown by so quickly Tuesday that you missed the interesting divide between those in the industry! the industry! who do — and those who don’t — think it’s good to trumpet their political preferences on Twitter and other media. And in the most colorful language.
This is something some of us in publishing have quietly discussed for months now. It can be curious when someone usually so articulate on a publishing panel suddenly pummels us with their crudest tweets about national leaders they’ve never met.
(The tweets I’m dropping in here, by the way, are completely innocuous, not the partisan material I’m talking about. We don’t need to see those again.)
Remember to vote. And vote Empson.
— rip empson (@ripemp) November 7, 2012
I invite you to think of people you know in the biz who did not do this Tuesday. They, too, might have been tweeting and pinning and Google+-ing and FB-ing and Tumbl-ing their views. But if they were, they weren’t doing it on their professional accounts. Not on the same handles with which they interact with clients and bosses and associates — that would be us — and with others from whom they might like some respect.
Enough partisan crap. There's work to do and both parties need to get on with it.
— Don Linn (@DonLinn) November 7, 2012
What’s important is that you make a conscious decision for yourself whether your most vociferous political curses or cheers belong on the conference-room table. Because that’s where your stuff just landed. And if you seriously start thinking of how many colleagues weren’t there swearing along with you — and then picture them around that table looking at you — you might realize that “everybody” is by no means doing it.
The publishing community has a vibrant life online. And since the analysts all woke up Wednesday yelling “demographics!” at us, it’s not a bad idea to acknowledge what a diverse-o-rama we are in books. We are not a choir to whom you are preaching. We may not agree with you at all. And even if we do, we may not need you to share sensitive beliefs with us in the vulgarity of the shopping-mall vernacular.
If you want to vote with your tweets on your professional account, this is your decision. But I’d suggest you not cave in to what you think “everybody” is doing. Because everybody is not doing it.
Click to read this week’s full Writing on the Ether column at JaneFriedman.com.
Why are all of these newscasters pitched at such jaunty angles?
— nadia sirota (@nadiasirota) November 7, 2012