Raus! Untoten! – Or, social media and how I became an editor

Facebook, social media as a whole is one of the most positive technological developments that I’ve seen so far. Granted, there are some absolute idiots on Facebook, unfortunately they actually mirror society. The amount of illiteracy, bigotry, hatred, stupidity, gullibility, hell, any ‘ity’ you can think of would be depressing if – like me – you were intelligent enough to realise just how sad it all is.

But, at the same time it enables people to connect like never before. I truly do not know how people managed to make international friends and connections back in the old days. How did someone know where to look, in order to find out where to look to track down an author, or a Kung Fu Master?

If I like the writing of someone like, Chuck Wendig, for example, not only can I Google him, but I can stalk him on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr. Heck, I could probably track him down and find out where he lives using the internet. Which is actually something I once did for a friend when he found out his wife was having an affair with an american. This was back in 2000, and I had the man’s home address and telephone number within 45 minutes. Go me.

If I want to find out how Guy Haley spent 16 years trying to get published, I can go to his blog. Just like you’re reading my blog (I hope, otherwise I’m just typing to myself). Stuff going to the newsagent in the vain hope that they’re stocking the magazine you’re hoping has the contact details of the person you’re looking for. Google the name of the person, add a key word or two and bang, you’ve found them. Use me, for example, Google Matt Sylvester, add author, martial arts, and awesome and BANG! I’m all over the results like a rash. Granted, I’m a bit of a search engine optimisation monkey, so I know how to make sure I turn up in results, but you get the idea.

So, I was on Facebook, and Fringe Works - a publisher that had accepted my submission to the Grimm & Grimmer anthology – was looking for titles for an idea they had regarding Nazis, and Undead. Needless to say, I got a might excited about this. Nazis are cool (not their ideas before all you anti-nazi-nazis jump on me), and the Undead are cool. This makes Undead Nazis DOUBLE COOL.

Before I know it, a comment pops up. “Do you want to edit this?”. FUCK YEAH! I positively sqee’d when I saw that and replied with a very polite, “Yes please.” Bang. I’m an editor. I’m an editor working on one of the coolest short story collections evah!

If you’re as excited about writing for Raus! Untoten! as I am about editing it follow this link to find out more, join the event and get writing!