Ask Me Anything TOMORROW on reddit! (Plus reddit primer)

If you know and love reddit already, here’s the short short version:

Tomorrow (8/11/15) I will be on Reddit doing an AMA from 2-5 PST (5-8 EST) on /r/books. I’d love for you to join me!

If you don’t know reddit, you might need a more involved primer:

What is reddit?

Reddit is a website where people talk about, well, just about everything. Some people talk about football. Some people talk about cars. Others talk about knitting, politics, cat videos, just about anything under the sun.

As a massive catchall, it can understandably be very confusing to navigate. To help organize things, reddit is organized into topical categories, called subreddits. Some of them include:

• books
• Adorable pictures
• science
• Game of Thrones

I point this out because reddit sometimes usually is getting attention for bad things really annoying people do, and that scares some people off. Those people are on reddit as well, but if you stick to the subreddits where there are decent people talking about things you enjoy, you can avoid the purulent underbelly of gangrenous misogyny that makes some people nervous to check the site out.

What is an AMA?

One of Reddit’s claims to fame is their “Ask Me Anything” posts, where people from all walks of life go on to discuss their work, or experiences, or latest projects. Sometimes it’s an airplane pilot talking about their job. Sometimes it’s Woody Harrelson, or perhaps Elizabeth Warren. Sometimes it’s some guy who lost a leg in a tragic crocodile incident.

In the books subreddit, they limit their AMAs to authors, and this is what I’ll be doing tomorrow.

This is an opportunity for anyone to ask me about the book, the writing process, my dog’s cancer, veterinary medicine, what type of wine I prefer, my shoe size, literally anything. (That doesn’t mean I have to answer, if anyone was wondering whether I would answer what my weight is. No.)

For an example of a typical author AMA, here’s one from Robin Hobbs just a few days ago.

How do I participate?

Step One. Create a reddit account. It’s free.

Step Two. Come on to reddit.com/r/books between 2-6 PM PST Tuesday and find the thread (I’ll link it here too.)

Now here is how you do things on reddit. Let’s use this example of a post discussing an adorable baby bunny photo:

1. The post at the top is the topic everyone is discussing. Here it is a baby bunny; on Tuesday mine will be a description of the book. My username there, selected many years ago, is dogrelish. Get it? Because I relish dogs
2. The box underneath is where you add your comment/question. After you do that, hit “save” to submit the question. (ie Hey Dr V, do you still own the Jimmy Poos? etc)
3. If someone else has a comment you want to respond to, you do so by clicking “reply”
4. See those little up/down arrows? Reddit thrives on these. Clicking the “up” arrow means more people will see my thread. Clicking the “down” arrow buries it further down in the bowels of the internet. Use the arrows. They help!