Typically, only one out of every seven or so of The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs columns is actually funny, but this week’s is pretty good. Written by humorist Ellis Weiner, “Our Marketing Plan” satirizes the dilemma of an author whose editor is insisting he participate in ridiculously extensive social media strategies in order to self-promote his latest book (whose title the editor doesn’t even seem to know). It’s written in the form of a letter from the editor to the beleaguered, old-school scribe. Sample ‘graf:

If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.

The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.”

Ah, Facebook humor. Still, you get the idea. While Weiner’s clearly on the side of the poor writer, portraying him as a victim of the social-media-and Web 2.0-obsessed publishing world — someone foolish enough to think that if he published a book, people would find it and buy it the old-fashioned way (i.e., with no help from devilish things like blogging) — this piece reflects how thoroughly and intensively social media has saturated the creative marketplace. (By the way, is spray-feeding URLs in niblets, like, a thing?)

Though I laughed at Weiner’s send-up in several places, I couldn’t help but think about a recent trip to the Strand while I was on vacation to New York. In the legendary bookstore’s graphic novels section, I came across a signed copy of one of my favorite books of the year: Michael Kupperman’s gut-bustingly hilarious Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Vol. 1. I’d been in love with the book ever since discovering it the old-fashioned way (on the shelf in a bookstore) and giving it to a friend for his birthday. Finding a signed copy for myself was a delight.

Later, at the hotel, I looked up Kupperman on Twitter linked him in a tweet. He didn’t respond — he’s no doubt busy thinking up the next Snake ‘n’ Bacon caper, or perhaps he didn’t notice the Tweet — but it still felt pretty cool. And from the creator’s, who wouldn’t want to know that someone’s excited at having found his book … or album … or product in general?

There are quite a few literary celebs embracing the new media — not all are like the hypothetical sap in Weiner’s piece. Here are just a few of note:

Neil Gaiman
Susan Orlean
John Hodgman
Chuck Palahniuk
Paulo Coehlo
Harlan Coben
Diablo Cody

Do you follow any famous authors on Twitter? More important — do you interact with them?

Beatles cover courtesy Marxchivist’s Flickr.