What I said at the Book Fair… (because people have asked):

“Hi, everyone. I’m Nick Harkaway, I’m an author…

…And a while ago I bought a laptop bag. Here it is:

As you can see, it’s been through some stuff with me. I have sat on it at Paddington Station. I have put it in the hold of aircraft and dragged it along pavements. I have carried it over my shoulder in a place where the rain comes down pretty much black.

Does anyone feel the urge to touch it?

[No one did, which was something of a relief.]

The reason I bring it up is the same reason I bought this bag in the first place: the orange panel on this bag is a fragment of the re-entry parachute of a Soyuz TM-8 space capsule from a Mir Mission. This bag is the closest I and probably any of you will ever get to being in space.

So now… does anyone feel even a brief flicker of interest? Does anyone have an urge, however minor, to touch it now?

[Laughter and nodding. Which was also a relief.]

As human beings, we crave connection. We like to touch things.

We go to see the dinosaur bones at the Natural History museum and we want touch them. We want to touch statues and stalagmites and stalactites. We’re tactile. We want a handshake with the past, with the thing itself.

I believe that that experience is what people want from a social media connection with a writer. They want to continue the dialogue which was established in the book. So, as a writer, you have to be there for them.

And that’s the most important thing I’m going to say today. If you take nothing else away from my bit of this panel, please remember this:

The internet is not a broadcast medium.

It is not TV or newspaper advertising. It is about that connection. Many author websites feel very flat. They’re the internet equivalents of a poster at a bus-stop. They remind me of that moment when you buy a CD (assuming you still do) and you take it out of the case and look at it and think “do something!” and it doesn’t. It can’t. You need your CD player. It’s frustrating. The difference is, no one can blame the CD. It does what it’s supposed to. A boring website is a website which doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, and it may make people grumpy.

Grumpy people, by and large, do not shop. Except sometimes for shoes.

The Internet is not about Us telling Them about stuff they should do (or buy). This image sums up the ethos you need to avoid:

Social Media is about everyone talking. It is almost exactly not, in fact, like the layout of this panel discussion, with three people talking and everyone else listening. It is more homely, more chatty. And this is the second important thing I have to say.

Everything is going to be okay. Social Media is not a foreign land. You should not be alarmed. It is a familiar place.

Social Media is a giant pub.

In this pub, you get to choose whose conversation you listen to, and join in with. They, of course, may not choose to listen to you; there are no guarantees. On the other hand, it’s a friendly pub. They probably will if they can.

As with any pub discussion between people you don’t already know, you have to be sensitive to tone, and listen a bit before you jump in. 

Twitter is the most interesting of the new social media to me, and the curious thing about it is that it isn’t what it calls itself. 

Twitter is not really a micro-blog.

It’s not a rolling statement of things you are doing – you probably won’t get anywhere twittering about brushing your teeth. It’s actually a massive social network in real time. It’s speed-dating for the brain. You read, you respond, you make connections, you learn, you recommend, you get recommendations. You become a person to people you have never met, and they, in turn, become people to you. Connections again.

Someone mentioned earlier that Facebook is getting older. I heard via Twitter – while I was in the cab on the way here – that the same age group which is moving into Facebook is also the one which accounts for two thirds of book sales. That example means two things to me: first, that I’m able to contribute something to a discussion in an area I don’t know much about – sales demographics and social media – and second, that there is a backchannel of useful information and comment about this Book Fair and the discussions taking place here to which I have access via Twitter.

[I've created a Twitter Quickstart Guide for anyone who is inspired to get into it by this post or the panel.]

The important thing is that it’s not about beaming your pitch into someone’s head. It’s about dialogue.

So people want connection – they also want content.

This is pretty unstartling, too. It’s worth remembering that the people who use Twitter, read blogs, chat online are all the same people who do everything else. They’re not different in this situation. If someone comes to my website, it’s because they’re interested. They want me to do my thing. So I do.

Cory Doctorow gives away electronic copies of his books. He feels it increases sales, that people aren’t about to replace paper books – they just go ahead and buy a paper copy if they like what they see. I absolutely understand the nervousness of publishers on this score, and I’m not sure Cory’s model holds up over the next five years, say. What I’ve done instead is start putting together content specifically for the internet. I’ve created a pulp series – Franzavius – and the idea is that I will eventually bundle some of these stories together and put them out as an eBook. I want the Franzavius stories to be swappable, fun, easy-reading. I write them fast, the way pulp writers are supposed to. They do not represent a massive investment of time, but they’re a giggle and – I hope – they get people interested.

That aside, obviously, I maintain a blog. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it, but I love it. And this is another thing – if you’re in the business of trying to persuade authors to do this, you need to let them know how much fun it can be. Seriously – interact with people who love your work; get recommendations about stuff you might enjoy yourself; kvetch about the government, pimp your favourite cause, amuse yourself by writing silly bits of stuff which make people laugh (which, of course, makes them like your work). What’s not to like?

The other quality of Twitter and Social Media in general is that it’s a massive distributed focus group, problem-solving apparatus, and support network.

One thing I’d like to try: crowdsourcing cover copy.

The Gone-Away World was a hard book to define. People found different things to love (and hate) in it, and they weren’t always the things we would have predicted. Writing cover copy/blurb/a synposis – whatever you want to call it – is hard enough with a book with a linear plot and no twists. With TGAW it was a job and a half. I’d love to see what we’d get if we asked people who loved it, via Twitter and on, what that copy ought to say. 

Actually, I’d love to see what they’d come up with as cover art for a book of mine some day. There are some shockingly talented people out there. I’m really tempted to see whether I can persuade Heinemann and Knopf to play with that for the new book when the time comes.

Inevitably, though, my most revolutionary suggestions will be conservative – I mentioned this idea to Jason Arthur, and he’d already done it once. So what I would say to you is: go nuts. Reach out to people using the internet and see what they can do for you. Because they will do stunning things you haven’t even thought of.

And one last point…

If you’re a writer… write about writing occasionally. It sounds daft, but people often don’t – I didn’t initially, because I was embarrassed – and people often do want to know. If I write about writing, my pageviews spike a bit. It’s obvious when you think about it. Writing is an experience, a life. It’s an interesting one – and writers possess the tools to talk about it interestingly. So they should.

Fundamentally, it’s that simple. You just have to be there. Be a person. Do what you do. Everything else follows from that.

Thanks for listening.”

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