I’ve bitten the bullet and created a Facebook page for Planetary Defense Command. Facebook considers PDC an “artist, band, or public figure”. I’m certain I’m not a band, and I’ve never considered myself an artist, so I guess that makes me a public figure — and I didn’t even have to put on a tie!
The PDC blog is almost three years old, so you might be surprised I didn’t expand onto Facebook earlier, especially since I’ve had a reasonably successful Twitter account for some time. I stayed away due to Facebook’s business model. As your followers increase, Facebook shows your posts to a smaller and smaller percentage of them unless you pay a promotional fee. (I make exactly $0 in revenue from the PDC, so I’m not likely to pay for promotion.) Facebook seemed like a lose-lose proposition to me: few people would see my posts because I wasn’t popular, or few people would see my posts because I didn’t pay.
My recent experiences with a stray dog softened my position on Facebook. The site was the go-to place for so many people searching for lost pets or their owners, that I realized good things can happen there.
With so many people searching Facebook for lost dogs, maybe a few are also looking for good science fiction. I now wish I’d created my Facebook page years ago, as thousands of Facebook users have probably visited PDC but didn’t have a convenient way to stay in touch, and wandered off into the wilds of the internet, never to return.
So, if you’re a Facebook user, hit the like button on PDC’s Facebook page. Sadly, PDC can’t like you back unless you are also an organization rather than a personal Facebook user, but hopefully we can all make some new science-fiction-loving friends.
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Other news around the PDC
I’ve changed the category names for my rated reviews. I’m still only using four categories, but I named the top two Five Star and Four Star to match the common 5-rank system. However, it now looks like I can’t count because I don’t have a Three Star category.
My next three posts will be a review of Children of the Different, an interview with its author, and a continuation of my Magazine Quest with a review of the first issue of Red Sun Magazine.
I’m not sure what I’ll post after that. I have nine other sci-fi mags I’ve read for the quest, but not yet posted about, and at least two more to read. I’ve fallen behind on posting reviews of short stories by Nicholas Rossis and GL Francis. I have several microfictions and settings articles I’d like to post, as well as reviews of several classic and more recent science fiction novels.
I’m currently reading the second issue of Cirsova Magazine, and I’ll follow that with the second Experimental Notebook of C S Boyack. During commutes, I’ve broken from my pattern of alternating science-fiction and non-fiction books, throwing some different stuff into the mix. I’m trying out mysteries and thrillers, both classic and modern, to see if I can draw any conclusions about their writing style vs. that of science fiction novels. I’m currently listening to Your Turn, Mr. Moto. It’s interesting enough that it may get an off-topic post here someday.
I took one of my paper books, Blueheart, on my trip to Maine, and managed to read 225 pages of it. It isn’t a bad book, but it hasn’t really “hooked” me, and there are still 300 pages to go. I don’t know if I’ll pick it up again.
OK, this post is starting to look like one of those horrible ’70s TV show episodes where they just patched together clips from other episodes, so I’ll quit writing now…
Planetary Defense Command 
Well done on setting up the Facebook page! I am looking forward to your review and to appearing on your site!
Thanks, I’m planning your review for next week, and your interview the week after that!
Heading for your Facebook site after this comment. Hope you’re having fun with the experiments.
Yes, it will be interesting to see how it goes. I’ve had a personal facebook account for years, but almost never visit it. I’m sure I’ll be at the site much more frequently now.
I’ve been meaning to set up a Facebook page for Every Day Should Be Tuesday for a while. I auto-post my entries to my personal Facebook page, but that’s set as private and I don’t get many hits from my friends.
The page setup was fairly quick and easy. Sometimes it takes me a second to figure out whether I’m interacting with others via my personal account or the PDC page, but I’ll get the hang of it after a while.
Now, I’ll have to see how hard it is to build up my facebook following….
Good luck with the new venue! I haven’t really tried cross-platform tricks like that so don’t know how they work in practice.
It’s really easy if you just want to rebroadcast your blog content to facebook (and/or twitter). I used to do some additional content on twitter, and managed to build a bit of a following, but I haven’t had time lately. I’ll have to get a bit more familiar with facebook to see what I can do there.