per·so·na
1. a person.
2. the narrator of or a character in a literary work, sometimes
identified with the author.
3. (in the psychology of C. G. Jung) the mask or façade
presented to satisfy the demands of the situation or the
environment and not representing the inner personality of
the individual; the public personality.
4. a person's perceived or evident personality, as that of a well-
known official, actor, or celebrity; personal image; public role.
pa·ram·e·ter: (Mathematics)
a constant or variable term in a function that determines
the specific form of the function but not its general nature.
Wattpad, like any vivid venue, has its parameters, its ways of determining a User's form. These corner the User into being mischaracterized, though the User's gotta be okay with this. In other words, the Wattpad User, in his usage of Wattpad, agrees to be reduced to a persona, a facet of himself, selected by the geometry of Allen Lau's dream.
It's a fair enough trade I guess.
My persona around here as of late seems to have something to do with unselfishness. Do you know Jason? If you don't you probably should. He's a good one to know.
This persona is less problematic for me than tolerable, but it's still a reduction; it's a property of my general nature, not an encompassment of it. Whatever's informing my good-one-to-know-ness isn't shatterproof. I wish it were. For all you know it's schtick -- orchestrated by a user (in more sense than one, here) who only wants to be thought of in a favorable light, and who wants people (you) to believe a particular story (about me). Who knows what I'm really like outside Wattpad's sightly parameters?
Since each of us has been handed control of his or her own little media organization our task is to figure out how exactly we want to play this tech-dealt hand. And keep in mind, if you and I are going to be in business at all, we're going to be in the business of media.
echo chamber:
In media, an echo chamber is a situation in which information,
ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and
repetition. One purveyor of information will make a claim,
which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and
repeat again, until most people assume that some variation of
the story is true.
This is one way to go. The information you're repeating is the title of your book and where to find it; the idea you're trying to drive home is that people should read it / buy it; and the belief you want assumed is that they should be a fan of you. The more people you can beat over the head with this idea, the more fans you acquire, the more fans you acquire, the more the belief that you are worthy of fandom perpetuates, the more this belief perpetuates, the more books you ultimately sell.
In other words, use your personal media organization to promote, promote, promote (yourself).
Though this echo chamber, annoy-the-hell-out-of-everybody-except-for-the-people-that-don't-mind-it method can be pretty effective, especially in the short-term, and some writers suit it and are very good at it, most aren't. Most are catching flies with vinegar, operating this way. The flies that are caught aren't very savvy flies. But that's a whole other palaver.
