As one of the authors who joined SL for the express purpose of promoting my works, I thought I’d chime in here and add my two cents…:)

SL has great possibilities and you’re limited only by your own imagination. I do live readings of my work using streaming technology (which, let me assure you, is incredibly easy! Took me about 1/2 hr to get my mind around broadcasting and I was off and talking!). Currently I’m offering writing workshops on Book Island, one of several sims dedicated to publishers and writers. It’s loads of fun and I get to meet readers in a way I never thought possible.

You may hear SL is a lot of sex clubs and to be honest, there ARE a lot of them. So why not make them work to your advantage? I have a shop in Damsel where I post VERY explicit excerpts from my erotic romances…and also provide the toys mentioned in the excerpts so people can bring along a loved one and re-enact what they just read .

The one point I want to make, though, is that SL is NOT a game. It ceased to be that years ago, morphing into a true virtual world where everything you see was created by a real person sitting at home on the other side of their computer screens. Every person you meet is a real person…there are no computers to talk to who give you canned responses. One newbie I met was astonished that she’d had a conversation with a bartender that seemed like he’d really been listening to her. She was used to true games (like World of Warcraft, among dozens) where NPC (non-player characters) were controlled and scripted by a computer. When I explained to her that the bartender was a real person sitting at a computer and talking to her, it blew her mind.

Come on in…I’d love to see you in-world and get a chance to talk with you!

Diana Hunter (Diana Allandale in-world)

I was skeptical of the whole Second Life thing as well, but as I’ve seen how real humans are interacting with the virtual world, even my natural cynicism has been abated. Granted, my poor little laptop doesn’t have the oomph to enter the world, but I do steal my husband’s mega-machine to check in. I am truly fascinated by what authors and publishers (and other businesses) are doing. And it really is cool!

Also, given the way mission-centered offline games suck up my time, I’ve developed a very legitimate fear of open-ended real-time games. When I want an engrossing alternate reality, books are still my preferred method of escape. They may suck me in, but they’re naturally self-limiting. All books end sooner or later – even The Baroque Cycle

I’ve picked money off trees, know how to fly (although like you, I have bumpy landings), somehow always walk too far and wind up in the ocean or in a wall, have danced the night away at a club and have done some serious shopping. BTW, their linden currency can translate into actual money, which is why the IRS is looking into SL business transactions.

I already wrote about my first experience as Elayne Janus in Meet Elayne Janus at my blog. My first article will be going up at MMOGazette.