I'd like to belong here. Do you think that I could?

Speaking of shameless self promotion, a friend of ours with the Denver Post wants to interview you sometime. She needs good interviews and I think this would be great for both of you. She'll be at Mile High Con. Contact us on Live Journal or Facebook with a "yea" or "nay" please. (Or just reply here, depending on the degree you want to go into it in public). We'll see it anywhere. (It's the Colleen on Fred's facebook whom you don't know yet.)

-- Robin

Sigh. I was talking about it with a fellow female sci fi fan. Her response? "Oh, men get just as much flack as women, you just aren't paying attention. Maybe because you aren't an author." Um, really?

I need more cute now, damn it. How would you like a drawing of "Machete Kitten Has Your Back"?

I'm waiting for the day when I'm accused of over-self-promoting on Twitter or Facebook (where I have an actor Page separate from my private Profile for a reason). I figure it's only a matter of time; in my circle of indie-film acquaintance, I've seen it happen to virtually every woman and not a single man. Don't even get me started on the typical comments on photos...

Machete Kitten and Flamethrower Puppy have your back.

It's not that women don't talk a lot, it's that they don't talk a lot about themselves.

There are large portions of the Internet where people believe strange things. I sometimes worry that I'm filtering my information feed too much by the extent to which things like this surprise me.

Let me put it simply and succinctly:

YOU BELONG HERE, SEANAN McGUIRE! Like me or hate me as you will, but you belong here and those who kvetch about you aren't worth your time or trouble.

I don't know, or want to know, who said those things. I could probably call them a few mean names, like jealous sociopaths, but that would just be crouching down to their level. So I'll just say 2 things: everyone I know who knows you is proud of you, and self-promotion is part of the job of any writer. Selling books is a business, like any other. It might be a valid criticism to say someone doesn't promote themselves well; criticizing you for promoting yourself is, to me, akin to criticizing someone for writing too well.

You know, I hadn't thought about perceptions of the amount of self-promotion being done as a gender specific thing before, but looking at it like that makes a situation with a former friend of mine a few months back make A LOT more sense. I'd messaged him on Facebook just to ask if he'd seen my post announcing that I was published, explaining to him that no one had replied, bought the story, or even clicked Like -- not even my mother! -- and it'd been up for a day and I thought that was weird, so I was making sure I hadn't goofed up somehow and set it private. I even told him he was the one I was asking just because he was the only person online when I noticed it. His response was nasty tempered and, long story short, led to him unfriending me because I, according to him, wouldn't quit pestering him about buying the book, even though once he said he couldn't afford it, I hadn't brought the book up again. He had, sort of, telling me that he'd never, ever read an ebook, and I'd replied with an explanation of why there wasn't a physical version.

A few months earlier, when my husband's first book was published, the same guy was messaged to see if he'd seen the post about it for much the same reasons and his sole response was "Oh, cool. I hadn't noticed. I'll put that on my Amazon wishlist now, thanks for telling me."

I've been replaying the conversation in my head for months, trying to figure out what the difference was. His reaction makes a lot more sense if he somehow saw my post plus message as more than my husband's post plus message.