Admin Note: About Argh Author

I just realized that it’s been awhile (years?) since I explained what the Argh Author posts are about.

They’re about about this community. They’re about the people who post in here on Working Wednesday and Good Book Thursday, who engage in conversations, who are a visible and active part of the community. Those people. And the Argh Author goes up whenever one of Those People has finished something that’s ready for the rest of the community to look at and read. Which means that I don’t care if it’s traditionally published or self-published or fan fiction or a deck of tarot cards, I care that it’s something the community is interested in because they know the author.

You may have noticed from my books–those of you who read my books, that’s not a requirement to hang out here–that I’m a bug about community. So I am not interested in letting authors who are not part of here just drop in to push a book. But if you’re active here and you’ve got something to share, don’t hesitate to e-mail me and say, “I just finished this and here’s where the Argh people can find it.” You don’t have to apologize for asking, and you don’t need to qualify it by saying, “It’s not a book, it’s a tarot deck” or “It’s not a whole novel, it’s just a short story,” or even “It’s my master’s thesis and I’m damn proud of it.” As you should be. I look at it as the same as sharing pet pictures. It’s something we want to see. We may not read it or even buy it, but we want to know what you’re doing. Because it’s us. And you’re part of us.

So here’s what I need in an e-mail if you want an Argh Author post:
Your user name here on Argh.
The name on your book or whatever if it’s different from your username.
The blurb from your book, which I may cut if it’s longer than the book itself.
The website (probably yours) that has the book info on it.
Buy links, or the links where the thing you’re sharing can be found.
Anything else you want included.
Sent to jennycrusie@gmail.com. (Please do not write that on any bathroom walls.)

And then I just cut and paste right from the doc you send me into the blog.

And now that we’re talking about this, I’ve been thinking we should consider doing a variation on this called Argh Artist. We have at least one master quilter on here, and at least one really good painter, and I’m not sure how many other artists are on here because we’ve never shared that. So maybe we should do the same thing for visual art. It’ll be like Argh Author, not a weekly thing, just whenever somebody has something they want to share with the community.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve been dealing with PR now that we’re self-publishing (although from what I hear even trad published writers are having to do that) which has made me think what this blog is about. My nod to that is Facebook, and I should probably be doing more than that, but not in here. Although I do mention my books here when they come out, since I previously did one a year and then nothing for ten years, it’s obvious that PR is not what this blog is for. For whatever reason we started it back 2006, it’s a community now and it’s going to stay a community where we talk about what we’re reading and what we’re writing and what else we’re working on and our animals and our good times and bad. And I kind of what to do Argh Animal posts because I like animals and I love seeing the pictures, but I don’t want to overload this place.

The big thing for me is that since I just cut and paste, these community posts aren’t a lot of work–you do the work and send it to me–and I think they might be good. But if you’re already getting too many Argh posts in your mailbox, and you want to keep the focus on reading and writing, then new Artist and Animal posts would be too much. Don’t mess with a good thing, Jenny.

This is your space. I just hang out here to see what you all are doing. So tell me what you want in the comments, please. And while you’re at it, let me know any other way things could be improved here.

And I thank you for your support.