Writing Inspirations: I Stole This From Roba

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I first met Jordanian blogger, trouble maker and Converse-loving spectacle rack Roba Al-Assi at the inaugural ArabNet Beirut. She's a sweetie. She was never to know that I am a habitual thief and stealer of people and souls.

Like wot I said, I'm doing a series of workshoppy talky things at the Canadian University in Dubai on the subject of writing, editing and publishing books. That, along with the WIP, has Mr Head pretty solidly in Bookland. And the writing workshop had me yowling manically at my audience of mildly concerned-looking students about writing scenes as if you're there: the feeling of a cold key in your pocket, the smell of summer barasti, the crackle of logs on a fire. That kind of thing.

Which took me right back to 2010, when I was writing Beirut - An Explosive Thriller and stumbled across a post on Roba's mighty blog, And Far Away. It was to become the soundtrack to the whole scene between Nathalie and Maalouf in the Casino du Liban. The post is linked here for your viewing pleasure. Roba's blog, incidentally, rarely fails to charm and delight.

The idea was basically to get you to open three tabs on your browser with three links. One here, the second one here and this here one here. I'm a simple bear, the whole thing delighted me and I had it playing as I started tapping out the characters that would form the words that would become my characters. It was still playing as I smacked the last full stop of the scene and shoved back my chair with a happy sigh.

Incidentally, it was also Roba who introduced me to Bar O Metre, the packed (and engagingly skanky) student bar on the margins of AUB which I didn't hesitate to steal for the scene where Lynch nabs the evil 'Spike'.

But it was the soundtrack thing that got me. I've posted before about how music is such an influence for me when I'm writing. And right now I'm doing an awful lot of Afro Celt Sound System and The Frames. For what it's worth...

Salam, Bloggers! The Arabian Nights Village in Abu Dhabi wants you!

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It's one of the most witless emails I've received in a long time, from a company calling itself 'Smart Comms' and a bloke who's given himself the job title 'Digital Scientist'. You can tell we're in trouble already, can't you?

David, the digital scientist, wants to offer all UAE bloggers the chance to qualify for a free-of-charge stay at the 'Arabian Nights Village', apparently a one of a kind cultural experience in Abu Dhabi. That's it, that's all the detail in the email. All bloggers have to do to 'qualify' is send David a list of their social media followers, specifically:

1) Unique Monthly Visitors to your Blog:
2) Twitter followers:
3) Instagram followers:
4) Facebook fans:
5) Other Social media footprint?

Based on these numbers, presumably - rather than any qualitative or content based analysis, David will work his 'digital science' and select bloggers to join in the 'exciting activities' at Arabian Nights Village.

Presumably David will find this post one day as he trawls the UAE's blogs to find new victims for his 'digital science'. So here's a message for him that is infinitely more satisfying than replying to his email.

Look, David. I don't want to go to 'Arabian Nights Village'. I don't know what it is, what it does, what it's like or even who's behind it. I'm not particularly interested, but you've hardly piqued any shred of residual interest I might have had. I certainly don't want to "take a first-class Desert Safari and stay in houses inspired by Emirati lifestyles from throughout the ages" - not that I'm uninterested in Emirati culture, far from it. But from the tone of your mail, I have the nasty feeling that whatever 'experience' you're offering consists of being hauled around with a ring through my nose and being forced to endure a number of humiliating encounters with something lacklustre before being beasted into posting about it in awed and gushing prose that you would, ideally, dictate. I could be wrong, but that's a chance I'm taking.

I have very little interest indeed in responding to your invitation to validate myself to you by proving I have sufficient followers, friends or other online contacts to jump over your arbitrary bar. Why on earth you thought spamming every blogger/social contact you could scrape from the web with a mail like this would get you any result other than opprobrium, I don't know. I mean, you didn't even take the trouble to address me by name or contact me in any way prior to this. What on earth did you think you were doing? What in the name of all that's chocolate flavoured did you think the 'social' is there in 'social media' for?

Maybe you'll get lucky - maybe there's some rube out there who'll trade his/her twenty followers for a night out with you and your village. But, for the record, David, it's a 'no thanks' from me. Best of luck with other 'bloggers'...

Indian Lecturer Held By Dubai Police For Defamation

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Gulf News' Bassma Al Jandaly reports today on the case of an Indian university lecturer who has been held by Dubai police, while on a visit to the country, for defamation. Arrested on the 5th May, two weeks later he's still in Dubai, out on bail but with his visa held by police.

The lecturer worked for a "private university" in Dubai's Academic City. According to the story in GN, police confirmed the man had his contract terminated without reason by the university - Dubai courts found in his favour and he had received his end of service benefits.

However, returning to India, the lecturer appears to have indulged in the activity known as the grinding of the axe. I think I found his blog, which makes for highly entertaining reading and lets the university have it in no uncertain terms with remarkable vigour and an almost obsessive degree of staying power. Although comments are turned off and the YouTube videos have been made private, the rest of the content is up there and there is certainly plenty of 'masala' on offer.

The university's response was apparently to lodge a defamation case against the man at Rashidiya police station. And so when he travelled from the US, where he is based according to GN, to the UK and stopped off to see his Dubai-based wife, his collar was comprehensively felt.

In a rare moment of sheer cravenness I'm not going to link to his blog because I can't be entirely sure this is indeed the blog in question (given there are no names in the story, I found a blog that seems to fit the bill quite nicely by Googling "dubai university lecturer india end of service", as you would) and I'd rather not be joining him over at Rashidiya nick trying to defend myself against a charge of sharing links to material alleged to be defamatory.

It's interesting (and noteworthy bloggers, tweeters and all you other online commentators - as I pointed out in my last post, in fact) that in the UAE, defamation remains a criminal rather than civil matter. Now covered by the provisions of the UAE's cyber crime law, the mere accusation of online defamation has resulted in this man's liberty being taken from him. He can now look forward to a lengthy and expensive trial process unless the defamation case is dropped.

In choosing this course of action, I would argue that The University That Must Not Be Named has ensured greater reputational harm will ensue from this affair than if it had chosen not to pursue a criminal case of defamation in the UAE.

However, in the meantime, our lecturer friend would appear to be in rather a lot of hot water...

Win LitFest Tickets!

Win? Yes, win! LitFest Tickets? Yes, LitFest tickets!

To The Blogging Panel at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

5.30pm on Thursday 7th March will see yours truly onstage at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, hosting four most excellent people in a discussion about the world of online and its role and relevance to their lives and work - the blogging panel. And I must say, they are a most interesting bunch.

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Shobhaa De is a bestselling author and Times of India columnist, a former model and magazine editor and a well-known Indian socialite and public figure. She is the author of some seventeen books, the latest of which is the hard-hitting political novel Sethji.

Long a consulting editor for Penguin Books in India, in 2010 she launched her own imprint under the Penguin brand. Her popular blog (linked above) carries notes from her life as well as her columns. Interestingly, in a recent post, she asked the question, "What’s a Lit Fest without at least one juicy controversy?"
What indeed!

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Cathy Shalhoub is a little bit of Lebanon in Dubai. Well, a little bit of Lebanon and Poland via New York and Boston. She can design submarine robots, has engineered marine optics but prefers to write books, which is a choice many at the LitFest would admire. Her first book, Life as a Leb-neh Lover takes an amused look at the Lebanese identity in diaspora and was actually based on her blog.

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Caroline Faraj is a seasoned journalist and is well known as the editor of CNNArabic.com. Formerly the senior political reporter at Jordan's Al Rai and managing editor of The Jordan Times, she has also worked for Dubai TV and Bahrain TV. She has her feet firmly in two camps - 'traditional' journalism working for a major global news organisation and working with online properties - CNNArabic.com turned ten last year.

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Boris Akunin has sold over 25 million books in Russia alone. It's actually a pseudonym - his real name is Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili. His Erast Fandorin novels are fascinating romps through the late C19th, set in Russia and Japan and zing with intelligence, energy and constantly twist and turn like twisty turny things.

Fascinatingly, Akunin became a social activist at a time in his life when he would be forgiven for sitting back and enjoying the fruits of his literary success - Akunin has been a key figure in the anti-Putin protests in Russia and memorably used his blog to publicise a walk around Moscow's statues of famous poets in a test of freedom of movement. Calling a couple of author friends and dropping a post on his blog (linked above - you'll need Google Translate, Boris blogs in Russian) to announce the walk, he arrived on the day to find ten thousand people waiting to join him.

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Four very different people with very different outlooks on life. One hour. And a troublemaker. I'm looking forward to this mightily.

So how can you WIN yourself two SMASHING tickets to this most fascinating session FREE? Simply by clicking on this link, signing up to The McNabboGram, my lovely emailer, and answering the question in this Friday's LitFest edition of the mailer. There'll also be interesting book links and a freebie, too. What larks!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP!

How To Sell To UAE Bloggers

I'm doing quite a lot of 'how to'ing recently, am't I? Don't worry, this isn't a book post...

This advice doesn't come from someone that runs amazing professional 'blogger outreach' programs because I don't really do very much of that. It comes from the other end of the horse - the blogger at the receiving end end.

While it's lovely to find you have been added to the Cision media distribution list and positively feted by PR people, many of the approaches seem to miss some reasonably basic thinking when it comes to seeking the engagement of people with blogs, popular Twitter accounts or much-liked Facebook pages. So these pointers might be helpful for future approaches.

1) Bloggers are people too.
I almost fell into the trap of labelling this one 'bloggers are not journalists' but this misses the fact that journalists (no matter how it goes against the grain to admit this) are also people. Little I have to say about approaching bloggers doesn't also apply to approaching journalists.

So by saying we're people too, what do I mean? I mean, for instance, that it would be nice if the approach were individual to me rather than generic. Saying you enjoy my thought-provoking blog is all very nice, but that hardly tells me you actually give a hoot or have ever read anything I have written.

If you had, you'd be aware that I'm much more likely to bite you than let you pat me on the head.

I am naturally going to feel more interested in helping you out if you've been a regular reader/commenter on this blog. Even a few words referring to why you think this blog would be interested in your new perfume line for dogs - ideally linked to some content I have posted here - would let me know you've at least had a stab at mapping the relevance of what you do to what I do. Shared interest is good. Irrelevance is bad.

2) Bloggers aren't there to cover your products
I know, it's amazing isn't it? But the majority of what I write in this blog is peculiar to me and the world around me. Inviting me to the Armani hotel to attend the launch of a new range of bamboo shopping trolleys will not have me gushing and bright-eyed at the prospect of going to such a wonderful place. I have never written about bamboo shopping trolleys before and have exhibited no interest in these items in the past (although now I'm quite sure Klout will include it in my areas of expertise and I'll own the category in search).    I don't write about products or review products. Ten minutes spent browsing the blog would mark me as a non-target for shopping trolley launches.

Fashion and food bloggers are more susceptible to these types of invitation if they relate to fashion or food and if they are somehow interesting and/or innovative. Food product launches are not likely to cut it. Fashion bloggers are (sorry guys, but you are) incredibly spoiled and will need something out of the ordinary or a great relationship having been established.

3) Bloggers have day jobs
There are few people in the Middle East making money out of blogging to the extent they don't have to earn money by doing something conventional like, say, working. So a Tuesday afternoon event is likely to be out of the question - an all-day gig mid-week, even if it's exciting and deeply tempting, will likely not cut ze mustard. We have jobs to go to. That means if you want to organise an amazing all-day event targeting bloggers, you'll probably have to work on a Friday. Altogether now? Aaaahhh.

4) Slowly slowly catchee monkey
An individual approach that is contextual will be much more likely to reap rewards than scatter-gun event invites. A great example here is how Nokia's PR agency, d'Abo & Co, used my recent highly public Twitter meltdown with my HTC Android mobile (there's nothing like a mobile perma-crashing and telling you it's 'quietly brilliant' every time it staggers back to its feet to get a chap's goat) to slip a Nokia Lumia into my life. It was a risky strategy, they had to have had real confidence in that product - but, having the expectation I'd hate the Lumia I actually loved it and didn't mind saying so. I don't feel beholden to them for lending me a mobile, but I did think their timing and smart approach was very well managed. I don't mean to be difficult, but I am generally brand antithetic. Some bloggers I am sure will love brands. Love 'em to death. Positively fawn over  'em. Let me know when you find one, eh?

So it's a matter of monitoring conversations (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, whatever) and mapping out your influencers (who IS an influencer?) before making an approach that is generally, as with any conversation, led by a contribution of some sort. Give forward to earn a place at the table.

By the way, most UAE blogs have relatively small readerships.

5) Build a community by being a member of the community
What is an influencer? A Klout score? Number of followers? Number of comments? You need to establish some metrics to decide at what level of influence it's worthwhile bringing someone onside - because you'll need to invest in the relationship. It's not a one-hit thing, the key word is the R one - relationship. Approaching a person, inviting their involvement and engagement with you, facilitating that engagement and maintaining a respectful (ie not 'we're targeting product messages at you because we think people listen to you') dialogue. That way you can bring influencers on board, typically one by one, and maintain that conversation to the point where you actually could organise a tweetup or other event and people would be happy to come. That'll take time and investment, but it's so much more effective than pumping out generic materials in the hope that bloggers will slavishly act as botnets for your product messages.

That's my 2p worth. I genuinely hope marketers out there find it useful.