Twitter is a hundred and forty characters of instant gratification. If I get good news, if I get a good review, if I’ve just posted something—it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll let the world know first on twitter. The benefit of this is that you’re more likely to get news about me as soon as it happens.
The downsides are the sheer speed twitter news can fly by, and the fact that I’m inclined to get wrapped up in conversations about zombies or super heroes or whatever manga I’m reading at the drop of a hat.
My website
This is the most stable portal. My books and buy links are listed. Links to all the other portals are listed. There’s a straightforward news page. I try to keep it as clean and professional as possible.
There’s no real downside, except that every once in a while there’s a piece of information I forget to put on the news page. It doesn’t happen often, though.
My newsletter
After twitter, if I’ve released a book or posted a new installment to a story, my newsletter is the first place I send the message. So if you’re signed up to that, you’re going to get a message whenever the new stuff is up. And while the information included in the updates there are more detailed, I try to keep everything strictly writing related.
I’m not sure if this is an up or a down side, but I don’t update the newsletter unless something specific has happened in my writing life. I also like to have the letters include an announcement to, you know, some sort of STORY, so sometimes if I have news that doesn't I hesitate unless it’s a lot of news. Those two factors tend to keep the number of newsletters that go out per month low.
blogs
My home blog is on Blogger, accessible via http://rowanmcbride.blogspot.com/ and http://www.rowanmcbride.com/blog. It includes the updates featured in my newsletter but also carries the qualifier of “ramblings” in the title, so I often write about things that catch my attention. Blogger also lets me schedule posts in advance so sometimes I’ll have rambles set to go days or weeks in advance, which is good for me because I get to appear as if I put out (in theory) regularly spaced content, and it’s good for you because you don’t have to deal with those bursts of “blogging mania” I sometimes have and endure ten updates in less than a week.
You can also subscribe to my blog via google reader, feedburner, or RSS feed. There are probably other ways as well, but lately I’ve fallen behind on the tech. In fact, I think google owns feedburner now, so the first two options I listed might very well bottom line at the same thing at this point.
Edit 6/14/2012: I no longer use the MySpace portal.
goodreads
Although I do have a goodreads account, so far I haven’t used it for much more than popping in on occasion to update my reading list and to drop a few thoughts on whatever manga I've just finished. I actually haven’t figured out most of the functions there yet, I’m sure.
There is a blog function there and the beautiful thing about it is that it automatically updates when I post on Blogger.
deviantArt
I very, very rarely post any information of use here. I just dink around and draw. :)
3-16-2012 ETA:
Tumblr
More or less a repository for my ADD. Pretty pointless if you want any writing news about me. But, you know, it's a thing. :)
So… I think that’s pretty much every one of my portals. How are you doing? Still awake? Lol.
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