Well it’s been more than few weeks since I’ve participated in the blog challenge. I took my kids to Holland for Spring Break (hint: don’t take five-year olds to museums if you have any intention of actually seeing any of the paintings), then I turned around and went to Germany for a week for work, and life just kind of rolled over me for a little while.
But I’m back and this week’s question is “favorite social media platform”.
I like Pinterest for recipes and crafts for the kids. My son LOVES doing crafts and projects so finding recipes for home made play dough and slime has been a life saver. I also storyboard my books on there and save pictures for inspiration for characters and locations.
I spend a lot of time on Facebook because it’s a great way to keep up to date on family and friends and celebrate their milestones, especially this time of year when teenagers are graduating high school and younger kids are “graduating” Kindergarten (that would be my kids). I love the messenger feature for being able to quickly get in contact with people without it getting bogged down in email (note to self: clean out email). It’s a great way to share information about signings I’m attending, upcoming books, and teasers with my fans and readers.
Last week however, my favorite social media platform was Twitter. If you’re at all connected to Romancelandia, I’m sure you saw all the hullabaloo around #Cockygate. In case you’re not, a self-published author trademarked the word “cocky” for use as a series title and then proceeded to send (herself, not her lawyers) cease and desist letters to authors who had “cocky” in their title, telling them they needed to retitle their book.
There was a huge uproar. NOT because (as the author claimed) people were jealous of her or trying to copy her, but because of the manner in which she approached authors and tried to arbitrarily apply the trademark against authors who’d published well before she had. There is a lot more to it and if you want to know all the salacious details, search for the hashtag #cocky #cockygate and #byefaleena – it’s all there.
I believe Twitter played a huge part in spreading the news of this egregious application of a trademark, which helped bring it to the attention of a retired intellectual property rights lawyer (and author). He promptly filed in opposition of the trademark of the word “cocky” without any expectation of reimbursement because he understood the implications of trademarking a WORD.
From that debacle, someone created @cockybot on Twitter to search for trademark applications in romance, fiction, ebooks, and some other categories, so authors don’t have to go scroll through the trademark application page themselves.
Social media can be the devil. I think we all realize that at this point. But it can also be a great tool for social and political change. It has helped families reconnect by finding birth parents or biological siblings; alert a local community of a Veteran who will be interred with no family so they can be properly honored; help a family find a lost pet; or just share funny, happy, heartfelt stories or memes.
If you want to follow me, I’m on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/tarinadeatonauthor and Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest as @TarinaDeaton.
What’s your favorite social media platform?