An introvert’s survival guide to book publishing

Kindles make it easy for me to be an introvert even on camping trips. Summer 2010.

To people who don’t know me very well, I think the notion that I’m an introvert might come as a surprise. In moderate doses, I can be as sociable and outgoing as any extrovert. But a long time ago, a teacher explained the difference between introverts and extroverts in a clear and simple way: extroverts gain their energy from being with people; introverts gain energy from being alone. I’m definitely the latter. Parties and large groups of people, while fun, inevitably leave me exhausted at the end of the night. Afterwards I need to recharge my battery by going for a solitary walk outside or snuggling with the dog and a good book or movie.

But book publishing is a social endeavour. Your days are filled with meetings, collaboration, phone calls, and, later that night, book launches and parties. How can an introvert survive in a world full of, well, people all the time?

I decided at the beginning of university that my introversion wouldn’t stop me from making friends and participating in activities and clubs that interested me, and since then I’ve picked up a lot of tricks to help me cope. I’ll share a couple with you, and maybe you can leave a comment to share some with me, too.

1. Don’t treat your introversion as something to “cope with.”

Yup, I made mistake #1 just in the last paragraph. Although a lot of businesses place an emphasis on extroversion — or, more broadly, “people skills” — I’ve found that my introverted tendencies benefit me just as much in the workplace, and in social situations, as other people’s extroverted tendencies benefit them. Introverts aren’t socially inept. We’ve got people skills. We just use them in a different way.

Extroverts light up the room and can quickly meet everyone present and make a good impression. That’s a great skill to have — but you know what’s another great skill? Listening to others, asking questions, and making a few deep, meaningful connections instead of many shallower connections. And guess what: listening, asking questions, and bonding well with a few people are things that introverts excel at. Those skills have come in very handy for me over the years, and although sometimes I wish that I could go-go-go like some extroverts I know, I’m also aware that my introverted skills have given me tons of opportunities for learning and meaningful friendship (and networking). It’s not a matter of which ‘type’ is better; it’s just a matter of exploiting your strengths and recognizing your limitations.

2. Treat socializing as part of your job.

Sure, you’ve been hired to edit books or help with marketing campaigns. But in a more general sense, you’ve also been hired to contribute positively to the company — and that means contributing positively to relationships, too. You’re not just there to do your job; you’re also there to work constructively with other people and, if all goes well, befriend them!

Depending on your level of introversion, this can be more or less difficult. I can manage a good ten to twelve hours of hardcore socializing and people time at once (so long as I know I can crash a bit at the end), but for others, being consistently open to chatting and meeting up with co-workers can be stressful.

The trick here is to know your limits and work within them. Don’t push yourself! But do make an effort to smile, say hello, and ask how someone is doing — every time you see them. You don’t have to eat lunch with other people every single day. But you should make an effort to follow up on other people’s lives — out of a genuine interest in them as friends and people, not just as career stepping stones. This might be uncomfortable at first, but as you develop those relationships, asking how they’re doing and what they’re up to will feel more and more natural.

3. Arrive early or volunteer.

When you’re getting ready to attend a large event outside of your comfort zone, take the time to find out if there are any volunteer or support opportunities that you can help out with. I even do this at gatherings with friends and family: helping with the dishes or cooking, etc. It gives me something to do other than socialize, and for me, at least, helping people always eases my mind at social events where I don’t know anyone. It’s also a great opportunity to befriend the other volunteers.

If there are no volunteer opportunities, then my next trick is to arrive earlier rather than later. That way, I have some excellent one-on-one time with other people as they enter the event. I feel more “in control” of what’s going on, and it’s a great chance to learn people’s names before the event turns into a crowd.

4. As much as possible, treat your home like a sanctuary.

After work or a big social event, it’s important to find a place where you can retreat and recuperate. In university, living in a large household, my bedroom ended up becoming my sanctuary. I kept it peaceful — candles, music, soft things and favourite books — and I allowed myself to be there in solitude, without interruption, until I felt like being with people again. If you have a family or small children, it might be harder to make your entire house into a personal sanctuary, so the notion of treating one room as wholly yours — the bathroom, maybe, or your bedroom — is really helpful. If you force yourself to act outside of your normal personality for too long, you will likely get cranky — so be kind to yourself at the end of the day. I also find that it helps me during the course of the day to remember that when I go home, I have a lovely kitchen and armchair waiting for me!

These tips have kept me happy, sane and sociable for the past five years. What about you? How do you keep your energy level  charged up? What tricks do you use while networking?

And for those of you who are interested in other articles …

• Q&A With Devora Zack: The networking perks of being an introvert on SmartBlog on Leadership.
• Why Introverts Can Make the Best Leaders on Forbes.
• How to Manage an Extrovert … When You’re an Introvert on Business Week. (This article goes for any interaction with highly extroverted people — not just if you’re their leader.)

Weekend jackpot

All from the local indie, Booklore in Orangeville.

Note the powdered icing sugar mini-donuts and the package of Werther’s Original. Yes, folks, this will be a fantastic weekend in good old Caledon East.

Review: The Art of Immersion by Frank Rose

From the blurb:

Not long ago we were spectators, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. And while we watch more television than ever before, how we watch it is changing in ways we have barely slowed down to register. No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach television shows, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate—as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will. In THE ART OF IMMERSION, longtime Wired contributing editor Frank Rose talks to the people who are reshaping media for a two-way world—people like Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (Lost), James Cameron (Avatar), Will Wright (The Sims), and dozens of others whose ideas are changing how we play, how we communicate, how we think.

I picked up The Art of Immersion out of personal interest and out of some vague, low-lying desire for this kind of immersive storytelling in my own life. (Embarrassing fact: Much of my life has been spent playing The Sims, one of Rose’s favourite examples.) The book fails to cover much in the way of novels, instead choosing to focus more on worlds that begin on the screen: Star Wars, Avatar, The Sims, FarmVille, among many others. Of course all of these worlds begin with text in the form of scripts, and, in some cases, these worlds sprout their own novels and comic books later on — but I’m still excited to find a book that deals with text-based stories and how even that’s becoming more participatory (e.g. online role-playing games and collaborative world-building).

The Art of Immersion is an excellent introduction to the topic of transmedia and immersive story-telling. There were a lot of examples that I was unfamiliar with, either because they occurred slightly before my time or — in the case of an online game for The Office — because I was too busy watching and re-watching the show to play! Rose hesitated to get very critical of the failed stories, games and marketing campaigns, instead often calling them simply “ahead of their time.” But for a newbie to the field, just hearing the basic gist behind some of the top thinkers and story-tellers of the day was a real treat.

The really good stuff, though, only came out at the end when Rose delves into the psychology behind gaming and stories. He could have easily expanded those few chapters into an entirely different book, and I would love to read it. Again, however, his hesitation to criticize and his unquestioning love of the subject leads to a couple of missed opportunities.

In one case, Rose describes Skunk Works’ Gunslinger: a holodeck game set in the Wild West of the 1880s. It’s “essentially a stage set,” complete with three life-size projections of characters: burly bartender, cowering bar help and the nastiest, fastest gunslinger in the West glowering in the corner. Players were sent in to interact with these screen characters, and ultimately told to bring out the gunslinger under arrest. Well, turns out 40% of the players chose to shoot on sight (prompting the gunslinger to inevitably win the draw contest and kill the player in the first few minutes of the game), and several declined to fight at all. Rose shows this example in just a couple paragraphs, and ends it with a quotation from Kim LeMasters, the creative director: “How do you get a human being to behave the way you wish them to behave? In a normal story, I have complete control over all characters. In this story, I have control of only three characters. The other character has a human brain.”

So the issue becomes one of control, reflecting back on an earlier chapter of authorship. But I have some more questions: Is there a certain point where people don’t want to be immersed any more? Can games and stories become too immersive, and when will game producers, story-tellers etc. face that backlash? Will the typical superheroes at the heart of videogames have to change at a certain ‘immersion threshold’ and players start acting more, well, like themselves (regular human beings: cowardly, selfish, clueless)? Rose only barely touches the surface of these questions in the last chapter, but to me these are some of the most interesting questions to ask.

What would have made this book really great, for me, would have been a list of recommended reading at the end. Rose provides the introduction; I wish he also gave a guide for more in-depth work to really chew on. The one must-read I’ve come away with is Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins — but I’ll wait for a few more weeks before starting that one. I need time to digest! The Art of Immersion has only whetted my appetite and after Rose’s breezy style, I think I can handle some more density (and substance).

Review: Hounded by Kevin Hearne (Iron Druid Chronicles #1)

Hounded is the spectacular first novel in The Iron Druid Chronicles by debut author Kevin Hearne. A unique urban fantasy with a Celtic bent, the Chronicles follow Atticus, the planet’s last and certainly most charming Druid. This young Irish lad – well, he looks twenty-one, but he’s actually a couple of millennia old – has plenty of enemies scattered around the globe, but he just wants to spend his days working at an occult bookshop in Arizona with his talking Irish wolfhound. Unfortunately the badass Celtic god of love is in serious need of his old magic sword, and Atticus really doesn’t want to return it…

Read more at The Ranting Dragon.