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Adventures In Blogging: The SheWrites.com Experience

adventure

I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
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The SheWrites.com Experience

Having an opportunity to share my thoughts and or ask questions to the SheWrites.com community was a wonderful experience. I thoroughly enjoy reading and commenting on such periodic columns as Reality Check. I’ve learned so much from other authors who’ve been willing to share and put themselves ‘out there’ in efforts to improve themselves and help others.

 

When my chance arrived to contribute, I decided to pose a question and open myself up a little. I asked the question: Does redundancy work in social media? <-click here to see the original post

A few people where kind enough to leave some help comments and insights regarding this matter, and this is what I’ve surmised.

1. If you try to have fun with social media, it’s not that bad. Sure you want to promote yourself, but sometimes just connecting with someone else and not focusing on yourself leaves a bigger and better impression. Have fun!

2. Be yourself and be real. If you’re writing about something you are truly interested in (which you should be), let people see that. Show and share about your interests and appeal to others who are interested in the same kinds of things.

3. Good quality over quantity. If your ideas are well-developed, interesting, and well-written, people of similar interest will be drawn to you, whether quickly or slowly. Write and share good stuff!

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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AdventuresNBlogging

Adventures in Blogging: Word Count vs. Page Numbers

adventure

I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
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Word Count vs. Page Numbers

Aside from the fact that books have gone digital, I wonder whether there is any reason to have page numbers other than to distinguish one page from another in a print copy. It has become quite clear to me that page numbers are utterly insignificant to the actual length of the story. In this advanced age, what is the proper way to measure the length of a book?

Average reading time: Based on what as an average would this be viable? This concept actually works in terms of audio books because you know exactly how long the recording is (the listen time is given). That’s not to say that when you’re reading you read at the same pace as professional narrator, whether that be slower or faster.

Page Numbers: I’ve already stated that this doesn’t work, but here’s why. Not all books are formatted the same. Depending on page size, font type, font size, margins, bindings, etc…, there are just too many different variables for this to be a standard.

Word count: While this doesn’t take into the consideration the miniscule differences that would occur in formatting overall, the word count is probably the best way to determine or have an idea of how long or short a story really is- and pictures/graphics don’t confuse things.

Why isn’t the word count included in basic book stats on retail and social sites?

File size: I have no idea why file size is listed on retail and social sites. Let’s be honest, if you’re reading a digital copy of a book, you probably have an e-reader or compatible device that’s well equipped to contain that book and many more. If not, you could always delete some other stuff you’re finished with. Again, how does the file size really help to determine the length of the story? If there are images/graphics, intros and acknowledgements, plus extras (which most ebooks now have), the file size isn’t going to be indicative of the actual length of the title story you purchased or borrowed.

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So, what do these two books have in common? I haven’t given it much thought, but I know you can’t find a word count for either of them online (unless I’ve missed something, though Smashwords.com is on board with this)…

but more on these in a minute.

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Now, this whole idea came to me a while back when I read a book that seemed to be a fairly good length, but once I finished it, it seemed like a very quick read. It’s true that when you’re really into a book you can fly through it, but this was not the case. After reading a few more books thinking that they would either be longer than they were or shorter than they were, I began to look back at the books’ formats.

Most of the books I read range between 250 and 350 pages, but now and then I read an epic or scan a short story- I never considered that there could be a major difference in the length of what I was reading outside the two parameters I just mentioned.  After going back and looking at these books I realized that they all used different fonts, different font sizes, different paragraph and chapter spacing and more. While most of these books were in the 6 x 9 category, some were not, which again added to the deception…

Okay, maybe I’m getting a little carried away here. There’s no conspiracy to trick me into reading more or less than I want to, but surely you can understand why this issue has begun to slightly bother me.

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Here’s an example of why I think page numbers and file sizes are virtually worthless. Pay close attention to the differences in page numbers and file sizes.

Discovery of Witches– pages: 594, digital file: 1085 KB, listen time: 24 hours and 2 minutes, word count: unknown

Eternal Curse– pages: 272, digital file: 1529 KB, listen time: unknown, word count: 82,330 (provided by me, the author)

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What would be your guess as to what the word count for Discovery of Witches is? How long do you think the listen time would be for Eternal Curse? It’s not so easy to figure out; is it?

Is this solely my issue or does anyone else feel the way I do? Doesn’t anyone else wish the word count were offered up instead of or along with the page numbers or file sizes?

The books used in the example up top were chosen merely to show a contrast in the information publicly available. The information provided here came from Amazon.com and Audible.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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AdventuresNBlogging

Adventures in Blogging: Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves

adventure

I’ll be writing about my adventures, from my point of view, while offering my opinion on whatever the current matter happens to be. I hope you will enjoy it, if for no other reason, because you’ll get to see just how crazy my mind and reactions can be sometimes.
——————————————————————————————————————

Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves

When I visit a blog, there are certain things that turn me off, but I’m not too obstinate about my reaction to these. I realize that while some of these things drive me crazy, they may not brother someone else at all. In the end, good content always wins out, but…

If it’s troublesome for me to view the things I want to read, I don’t hurry back to read them.

Cool crazy fonts– These look good until you try to read something. Then it becomes a matter of interpretation. Is that an ‘o’ or is it an ‘a’; was that word supposed to be “bubble” or “babble”? Hopefully the context will help with this, but that’s only if you can read it well enough to understand the context.

Cool crazy wallpaper– For, pretty much, the same reason as above, complex background images drive me crazy. I am currently following one blog through Feedly, where 90% of its posts appear in the Feedly preview. Anything I can’t read there, I don’t. I made the mistake of visiting the actual blog to continue an article and I couldn’t read it. The background image interfered with the text to the point where it was hard to see the letters, let alone understand them.

Too much going on– This is something I constantly stress about on my own blog. I have lots to share, but I try really hard to keep it all well-organized and sectioned off so as not to clutter up my blog. There are many blogs that I stopped reading because there was just too much going on; it was too distracting. On the other hand though, one of my favorite blogs to read, is full of clutter and it drives me crazy every time I visit it, but the content is so good that I just bear it and move on.

Pop-ups– Advertisement is part of the blogosphere, so complaining about it is pointless. People do what they have to do to maintain their blogs and some of us are just stuck with the consequences of using particular services, but pop-ups are something else. Sure there is always pop-up blocker to help with that, but sometimes something gets missed, especially on pages your computer knows you visit a lot. It drives me crazy to be in the middle of an interesting article and then have someone walk across the screen offering me classes on how to write a book.

Last one, for today.

Hunting– Hunting isn’t a feature blogs have, but is the result of something they don’t. I really don’t like having to hunt down information on a blog that should be clearly displayed or searchable.

When I visit a blog and the owner of it leaves a message on the page somewhere, stating to the effect, “Contact me for more information,” but then I can’t find a way to contact them, it drives me crazy.

When I read a good article, which is clearly part of a series (such as this one), and would like to read more; it drives me crazy when all I have is an archive sorted by date to search through.

It really drives me crazy when I start to like a blog and want to know more about the blogger, but can’t find anything about them. I search their bio and find a one liner, “My name is Bob and I write this blog.”

So there you have it, for now anyway. These are some of my Biggest Blog Reading Pet Peeves.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords