The expat divide: digital world citizens bridge an opportunity gap

13 comments

in American culture,ANASTASIA ASHMAN,culture,identity,society,women

By ANASTASIA ASHMAN

Expatriatism is often a life apart. Consider the recent professional panel advising Istanbul’s foreign writers on the business of writing. One speaker, a guidebook veteran, actually dwells in a cave. Imagine, career advice from a troglodyte.

So how does a writer abroad get up to speed and compete in her home market? I answer in a guest post at former Writer’s Digest editor Maria Schneider’s blog Editor Unleashed.

“Publishing and the Digital World Citizen” considers the fortuitous intersection of expatriatism, epublishing and digital citizenship.

In 2000 I had the publishing beat at an Internet business magazine, doling out tough-love to content owners peering timidly across the digital divide. I’d parachuted into the dotcom boom from Southeast Asia where I was plagued by weekly power outages and wrote by candle light. When I finally got online the possibilities of global and real-time connection revolutionalized my estranged life.

Now that connection powers my career too. As an expatriate, geographic disadvantage demands I compete in my home market virtually…and my global audience is now virtual. So I’m shifting to new school thinking in distribution, promotion, and sales.

Just as Internet access equalized my ‘90s expat reality, now Twitter closes the professional morass. Tweetdeck columns resonate thought leadership across publishing, technology, and marketing. I’ve got Web 3.0 plans for my second book not only because as a contemporary author abroad I must connect with readers and offer dynamic interaction with the material, but because as a digital citizen I can.

Are you culturally or geographically challenged? How do you level the playing field?

+++++
Anastasia Ashman is a California-born writer/producer of neoculture entertainment based in Istanbul. This series covers what’s crossing the mind and desk of expat+HAREM’s founder.
+++++

Read the whole essay “Publishing and the Digital World Citizen” here.

Related posts:

  1. Publishing and the digital world citizen
  2. She said, she said: quotables of expat+HAREM’s founder
  3. Creatives surviving & thriving abroad: lowering barriers and raising your game
  4. Social media as self actualization: how has it launched you?
  5. New year’s evolution: our metamorphosis chooses us

Tagged as: Anastasia Ashman, author, authorship, cultural challenge, digital citizen, digital divide, digital nomad, ebook, editor, Editor Unleashed, epublishing, expat, expat+HAREM founder, expat+HAREM founder series, expatriate, expatriatism, founder's desk, geographic challenge, global citizen, global niche, Internet World, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Maria Schneider, market, Multimedia Supercorridor, publishing, social web, troglodyte, Turkey, Tweetdeck, Twitter, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, world citizen, Writer's Digest, writing

  • Pingback: Prescient Perspective

  • Pingback: Missing the home court advantage?

  • Pingback: Missing the home court advantage?

  • http://www.retaggr.com/Card/AnastasiaAshman Anastasia M. Ashman

    Thanks for the feedback Tara. Global niche sounds like a brain teaser but makes sense to me in several ways. I’ve now employed the idea of a global niche anew…at expat+HAREM, which is now a neo-culture hub — and multi-author blog — to explore the dichotomies of our hybrid lives.

  • http://www.expatharem.com/identity-messages/ Anastasia

    Thanks for the feedback Tara. Global niche sounds like a brain teaser but makes sense to me in several ways. I’ve now employed the idea of a global niche anew…at expat+HAREM, which is now a neo-culture hub — and multi-author blog — to explore the dichotomies of our hybrid lives.

  • http://www.taralutmanagacayak.blogspot.com Tara

    Yes! So well said … “Our home market is actually our global niche.”

  • http://www.taralutmanagacayak.blogspot.com Tara

    Yes! So well said … “Our home market is actually our global niche.”

  • http://www.retaggr.com/Card/AnastasiaAshman Anastasia M. Ashman

    Thanks Robin (and congrats on the re-release of your ground-breaking book about the lives of expat women A Broad Abroad http://tr.im/xMfI )

    Tara, you make a good point that “home market” requires a new definition — not just for expats, but everyone operating in this digital age. Our home market is actually our global niche.

  • http://www.expatharem.com/identity-messages/ Anastasia

    Thanks Robin (and congrats on the re-release of your ground-breaking book about the lives of expat women A Broad Abroad http://tr.im/xMfI )

    Tara, you make a good point that “home market” requires a new definition — not just for expats, but everyone operating in this digital age. Our home market is actually our global niche.

  • http://www.taralutmanagacayak.blogspot.com Tara Lutman Agacayak

    Anastasia, I think the keyword is your term “home market”. What is that to an expat?

    Geographically you can aim for the market that you came from. But as an expat – a person who understands that you can connect with people not just because of their physical or geographical location, but because of shared values and ideals – that home market has different coordinates and boundaries.

    My answer to your question – how does a writer abroad get up to speed and compete in her home market? I think by redefining it. And all those tools and strategies you mention in your post are great ways to tap into it once you have.

    Thank you for sharing, I learned a lot from your post.

  • http://www.taralutmanagacayak.blogspot.com Tara Lutman Agacayak

    Anastasia, I think the keyword is your term “home market”. What is that to an expat?

    Geographically you can aim for the market that you came from. But as an expat – a person who understands that you can connect with people not just because of their physical or geographical location, but because of shared values and ideals – that home market has different coordinates and boundaries.

    My answer to your question – how does a writer abroad get up to speed and compete in her home market? I think by redefining it. And all those tools and strategies you mention in your post are great ways to tap into it once you have.

    Thank you for sharing, I learned a lot from your post.

  • http://www.expatexpert.com Robin Pascoe

    Anastasia

    I just discovered your blog and of course read your excellent article today about Publishing and the Digital World Citizen …fantastic both and feel honoured that I got to have lunch with you in Istanbul back in June.

    I think your own work should serve as an inspirational example of how an expat writer can get up to speed with Expat Harem serving as a good role model, never mind everything else that you are writing and planning to write!

    At the foundation of all your writing from abroad is a combination of cultural curiosity and just plain hard work, which many people–who would ‘like to have written’–tend to forget!

    Keep up the good work!

  • http://www.expatexpert.com Robin Pascoe

    Anastasia

    I just discovered your blog and of course read your excellent article today about Publishing and the Digital World Citizen …fantastic both and feel honoured that I got to have lunch with you in Istanbul back in June.

    I think your own work should serve as an inspirational example of how an expat writer can get up to speed with Expat Harem serving as a good role model, never mind everything else that you are writing and planning to write!

    At the foundation of all your writing from abroad is a combination of cultural curiosity and just plain hard work, which many people–who would ‘like to have written’–tend to forget!

    Keep up the good work!

Previous post:

Next post: