Not on Facebook, Still on Twitter

To paraphrase the Philistine poet, Mr If, we're "not on Facebook, still on Twitter."

I set up a Facebook page for Philistine Press a few months ago, but haven't done much with it, and I'm sorry to say I've now closed it down.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. I didn't really like it. I've never really liked social networking sites anyway - I just set this one up as a means of helping to promote Philistine Press. There seem to be a lot of unnecessary restrictions on there - they wouldn't even let me call myself FJ Riley, because you're not allowed to have initials in your name!

2. I haven't had much chance to update the page. Believe it or not, folks, despite my immense writing talents, I'm still working in my day job. The office where I work recently blocked employees from using Facebook while at work, so I haven't really had chance to update the page. It's like an unwanted child - I'd rather get rid of it altogether than have a page sitting there with no one looking after it.

3. Frank Burton informs me that according to the web stats, the majority of the traffic directed to the Philistine Press site doesn't come from social networking sites. I'm pretty pleased about that. We only have a few followers on Twitter, but it's better to have lots of people visiting the Philistine Press site rather than loads of followers on Twitter who don't necessarily visit the site on a regular basis (or, indeed, at all).

I was running a feature on the Facebook page called "Extract of the Moment," which featured selected poems and extracts from Philistine ebooks on a semi-regular basis. Seen as we're no longer on Facebook, I'm going to transfer that feature to this blog. Watch out for that, lit lovers!

If anyone else wants to start up a Facebook page, that would be great - perhaps you'll have more success than I did. I'd say I'd be happy to be a fan of it, but as I mentioned, I'm no longer on Facebook. So, that's that.

FJ Riley