His presents filled the room.

This week Sara-Jayne of Inspired Quill and I went over ‘groundwork’. It’s basically a measure of my online presence, to help with marketing and networking. It involves keeping me active on various social media, as well as providing a platform for me to talk about my ninja squirrel encampment work.

It’s pretty straightforward. I need to blog at least once a week – technically this post counts! – as well as post on my Twitter once a day and use various writing forums and websites to keep up a communication with people. I also need to keep my new Facebook fan page updated.

Yep. Fan page.

They’ve changed the term for it (you now ‘like’ a page instead of becoming a fan of it) but it’s the same concept and people are generally intelligent enough to realise that. I understand it’s a publicity and advertising thing, but it really does make me cringe a bit. I’m generally not someone who enjoys making a big deal of myself. I’m not trying to say I’m humble... Well, I am, but that isn’t the point. I mean that I’ve always tried to keep away from the ‘look at me!’ aspect of whatever I do. When I was travelling I’d post pictures and make status updates and send emails and that would be enough. I wouldn’t need to actively draw attention to the fact. People either took notice of they didn’t. Same as when I worked at Blizzard – people either found it cool or they couldn’t care less. It wasn’t up to me to try and make them think I was cool.

Now I understand that the point of a fan page isn’t to show off. I’m not putting it up for my old school friends on the basis that they’ll think I’m all successful and whatever. I’m not bragging to my peers. It’s purely another aspect of online presence to help me provide information on myself so I can hopefully sell a few books and make a few contacts. But there’s still that (Alan Rickman) voice in my head saying ‘All your friends are going to think you’re a conceited arsehole.’ Which is dumb. But it still happens.

We also covered the first steps of cover art. I’ve had an idea in my head for Queen of the World for a while now, so we’ll have to see how it matches up with what the publisher thinks. I’m open for compromise of course, but I’m glad Inspired Quill have given me some say in what will go on the cover. Apparently a lot of publishers just give you a cover and that’s that. If all else fails I’ll just demand a picture of Batman on the cover. People always buy things with Batman on the cover.

In other news Halloween was quite fun, if messy. I’m making plans to be home in Essex for Christmas. And I found a credit card at the feet of some young lady at a bar. I thought it was hers, so I tapped her on the shoulder and offered her the card. She smiled and put it into the card machine, thinking I was offering to pay for her drinks. It was only when I tried to explain to her that I thought she’d dropped it that she pulled it out, turned it over and handed it to me. On the back was a picture of the owner, a hairy fella named Andreas. I think she was quite insulted but I couldn’t understand what she was saying, so I ran away. Hah.