Red Room for Writing

As far as I've noticed, Red Room is the latest social networking site for writers that is high class and high caliber in terms of participants and functionality. It's in the stratosphere, it's so high. When PR flack Veronica contacted me last month, she said:

It's an online community for authors and readers, and has been called a 'literary MySpace'. It's getting a lot of attention in the investor and writer community, and the founder, Ivory Madison, has a great story to tell about how she turned her local writing studio into a global community for writers. Already building the community are household names like Maya Angelou, Amy Tan, Salman Rushdie, Jane Smile, Alice Walker, Po Bronson, Khaled Hosseni, James Patterson and hundreds more.

Yeah, sure, I thought. After examining the place, I'm wondering how they persuaded top-selling, already-famous authors to participate, and what does that part about "investor" really mean? Usually investors are interested in ways to make money, not charitably fostering literary connections.

The rest of Victoria's release (no last name given) quotes from Madison on a major political candidate (way to alienate half the nation!) and stressed that Red Room is a "creative social network" that provides "community between authors and readers". I can find no way for two-way communication, unless you count comments on blogs. Just finding a particular writer's blog requires searching and wading through layers of menus. Sadly, most everyone's fave, Stephen King, is not listed, although many, many others are.

So, I'm suspecting this is an enterprise set up, perhaps, with publishers or publicists, and the anticipated investors are advertisers. All in all, it offers about everything a writer could want in the way of promotion and marketing, including the ability to link to your own website. Oh, and no cost is mentioned.

If anyone reading this post is a member or regular user of Red Room, please let us know about your experience and impressions of the service.