Enter through the Digital Backdoor
I love books and pencils and paper. As long as I can remember, I've been reading and writing things down. I didn't consider myself a writer, just a reader who wrote things down. Most often, I was the only one to read them (and in all honesty, probably the only one who could read them, due to my atrocious handwriting back in the day).
As I got older, I would begin various writing projects (I always called them projects, not books) but would never pursue them to any sort of logical conclusion (as in, finishing them). And like so many writers, most of my sentences ended up in the fireplace or trashcan, not in front of a reader.
Which is probably a good thing.
But I got to wondering, if nobody is reading our work, then are we really writing? As a writer, don't we need readers? Doesn't it take someone else to enjoy or love or hate or play off of what we've done?
Perhaps it doesn't in the purest sense - we can simply write in order to write, not to be read - but I realized that I felt as if I wasn't truly writing until I had a reader or two.
So I determined that I was going to have readers, by golly, and I started off by learning about the publishing industry, and self-publishing and print-on-demand, and how to pitch your manuscript, and all of the stuff you don't need to know about until you've actually written something. It was kind of depressing. I wasn't any closer to getting readers.
But then one day I came across these things called blogs. Perhaps you've heard of them.
Average, everyday people like me were publishing newsletters, articles, editorials, pictures, and videos about a huge range of topics, whenever they wanted to, however they wanted to. No publisher, no printer, no distributor, no editor. No gatekeepers.
We no longer had to wait for the printing presses to roll, or for the morning paper to come out, to learn about the events shaping our world, the reactions to them, or even to write our own response.
I picked topics that I knew about - fatherhood, parenting, natural living - and began posting articles almost every day. Months went by. And then I started getting some readers - readers who left comments and feedback for me. It took some time and some effort, but eventually I got gigs to write stuff for other people. I got published. I got paid, even.
I started connecting to people on Twitter and Facebook and leaving comments on their articles, and in a relatively short amount of time I was hooked in to a pretty diverse group of people - people I've never met face to face, and would probably never meet in person.
Fast forward a couple of years, and now, through my involvement with the Domino Project street team, I get to not only read an advance copy of Poke the Box
When I think back to my first Tweet, it's been quite a journey. I've been able to enter through the digital backdoor, take a ride on the serendipity engine, and experience the 'disruptive' nature of the web for myself.
I still love books, but I'll probably now learn about the newest titles on topics I care about via the web, not the newspaper or the bookstore. And then use social media to cultivate a direct relationship with the authors and fans of the books I enjoy.
I still love pencils and paper, but I'm still more likely to write an email than a letter. And I figure it's better that way, as you'll actually get an answer now.
I'm still looking for readers, but now I refer to my projects 'books'. And thanks to platforms like blogs and social networking sites and the Domino Project, there's never been a better time to finish them than right now.
Because the digital backdoor is open.
