Make it easier to see Member's books

BWFoster, that seems to me like a disservice to the many, many conversations that have been held here trying to help you become a better self-published writer. I can appreciate that you want more than to "chew the fat," but I think you're reading way too much from one comment.

 

Thinking a little bit, I want to see if I can expand a little on Black Dragon's comment, and he can tell me if I'm off base.

But Mythic Scribes is not a place where an author should come just to help sell books. We are a community of fantasy writers, and that community is our strength. That tighter community is what separates us from a place like Kboards, or most other places on the internet. People here get to know each other and build up respect for one another, despite and because of our differences, including our different places in the path to publishing.

I think the big concern with including images in our signatures is that it risks making our posts more about advertising than about building up that community. What we don't want is to see authors come to Mythic Scribes and post here in an effort to spam their signatures. That would be bad for the community, our "competitive advantage," the thing that makes us different.

It's a leap to go from there to assuming that we don't want to build each other up.

But I've heard Black Dragon talk about this before - the goal is to be a place for writers to collaborate. We have come together on challenges, brainstormed solid stories, recruited one another for anthologies, talked about our work, pushed each other further, and shared data and insights on the publishing industry. We put together an article team which publishes weekly and, I feel, has demonstrated tremendous insights into the writing process, motivation, mythology and warfare, and more.

I look forward to the next thought-provoking discussion, challenge, and collaboration, not simply to make small talk, but because they push me to organize my own thoughts and to test them in a community with others.

 

@Devor

I think that's exactly right. We're focused on all aspects of writing and publishing. The craft, traditional publishing if you want to go that route, self-publishing, etc. I think the discussions in the forum bear that out. We have also had discussions focusing on marketing. So all of the aspects of writing and publishing that are important in terms of learning the craft and business are focus areas for the site. We're not a site focused on being a vehicle for advertising your works, however. Nor should we be, in my view. There are plenty of such sites. This is a place for writers, aspiring and established, to work together, discuss the craft and business of writing, and build one another up. That's the core of the community and what makes it so good. We don't want those aspects of the site to be overwhelmed by members trying to sell their books to one another. Which is why if we're going to have any section to focus on member works I think it should be a thread or area dedicated to that, where the information is easy for someone to find when they click the thread but not rampant in all of the posts on the site.