A to Z - Networking

Earlier this month author Robison Wells (Variant) wrote a great post about marketing that also touched on networking. He said it was a rant, and it was, but I think it was a good rant. Rob's day job for many years was marketing, and he has a lot of good information in the post, so I highly recommend that you go read the whole thing. But I want to share this from the post:

"So, let’s try to hammer one thing into our heads. If get nothing else from this blog, get this:

When you see the term “social networking”, ignore the word “networking” and focus on the word “social“. Some people act like Facebook and Twitter and blogging are a chore, and if you have that attitude, then you’ll always hate social networking. But I don’t see it that way. I log into Twitter the first thing every morning to see what my FRIENDS are talking about, and so I can join the conversation. And a lot of these friends are people who I’ve never met in real life. Some are fellow authors. Some are readers. Some are just fun people who I’ve met and built a relationship with.

Yes, that took time, and in those early days when I had few Twitter followers, it wasn’t as much fun. But it’s definitely worth the investment. Now, I feel like I always have someone to talk to, or someone to hear a joke from, or someone who has something insightful to share. It’s like hanging out with your friends all the time.

It’s not a friggin’ chore. It’s a delight. It’s SOCIAL.

And if you don’t like Twitter, then blog. Build your SOCIAL network there, and interact with your commenters. Or on Facebook. Or on YouTube, or Google Plus, or Friendster, or whatever-the-heck else. It doesn’t matter which platforms you chose. Just chose something, and have a good time. Be social. Be fun. Be interesting.

You’re a writer, for crying out loud. If you can’t be fun or interesting for ten minutes a day then maybe you’re in the wrong business."

How do you feel about social networking and how it relates to marketing your books? Is it just a huge burden or are you having fun?

Querying Update and Building Your Platform

 Querying Update

 

I got my very first rejection -- a form rejection. 

Phew. I've truly been initiated ! I'm really a writer now.

One down, nine to go and I take hubby out to dinner.

Building Your Platform

You've all heard it. In today's publishing world, if you want an agent and/or publisher to consider your book, you'd best have an online presence.

So, you sign up for Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Google+, and whatever else out there strikes your fancy. You begin to stalk agents and other writers/authors to see what they're up to.

You begin blogging about your writing journey and start following loads of other writers, hoping they will follow you in return. You sign up for bloghops and contests. You're starting to get some regular followers who consistently comment. And, of course, you have to visit all their blogs and comment back. That's what it's all about, right? Networking?

And you find that you're having so much fun. The Internet has introduced you to hundreds if not thousands of interesting, entertaining people--and you've connected to many of them. You can't wait to read their next posts.

Then it starts to happen. You wake up in the middle of the night, wondering if you remembered to schedule your next post. Or worse, you wake up in the middle of the night because you can't think what to write for your next post.

The pressure mounts. What if your post is stupid? What if the people who've been commenting find other blogs they like better?

Your hands begin to shake when you haven't had your daily Internet fix. You're dying to know what everyone's up to, what things might inspire you in your blog posts.

And your writing?

When's the last time you actually sat down to write? Or when you did, your hand moved to the icon for your web browser? You didn't even realize it was moving of its own volition. Suddenly, a hour's gone by. Or two. Hours of precious time that you promised you'd spend on your book.

Because the whole point of all that platform building has been in preparation for your book.

Right?

 So, what do you do

to keep social media

from taking over

your life?

Social Media

Today's post was inspired by a discussion going on in my writing group at Dave Farland's Writing Groups. One of our members, Justin Jeppesen, who is new to the Twitter thing (me, too) asked for some suggestions. I'm going to share Robin Week's response because it's so good:

For Twitter:

• Participate in the hashtag chats, like #yalitchat and #askagent (when you see one going, click on the hastag and it will take you to a screen where you can see what everyone else is tweeting with that hashtag)--everyone there will see your tweets and you'll pick up followers that way.
• Comment on others' posts, start up conversations, etc--don't just tweet about your books: be interesting
• Follow the people you'd like to have follow you--an email is sent to everyone you follow (well, depending on their settings) and a lot of people will auto-follow or will at least check you out for a possible follow if you follow them first
• DON'T connect Twitter to Facebook--it is annoying to those who follow you in both places. Use Twitter for little things and Facebook for larger things and, for huge things, post separately on both.

For the Blog:

• Have a regular schedule of posting, so your followers can anticipate your posts (I've just started posting Tuesday night and Saturday morning--if I can keep it up for a few weeks, I'll post my schedule on my blog), too.
• Interesting titles, to entice followers and others to read your posts
• Participate in blogfests--those are when you register your list your blog on the host's blog with the other participants and then do something specific with your own blog--there's an April A-Z blogfest going on in April, if you're interested: posting every day but Sundays in April--then everyone is encouraged to visit the other blogs in the fest
• Tweet about your new blog entries (this is where your interesting titles come in) with a bit.ly link to the blog post

In General:

• Social media is SOCIAL--you need to get out there, comment on others' blogs, comment on tweets, etc. Elana Johnson (who has almost 2000 blog followers) went through a period where she commented on 50 blogs a day!!
• Don't diss others--everyone can see your tiff and no one thinks you're cool when you're whining

And as Robin also suggests, you can check out Beth Revis' post on this topic here.




How comfortable are you with social media? Do you find it difficult to balance all the other aspects of your life--like writing--with the time it takes to Twitter, Facebook, Blog, etc.? How are you making it work for you?