Okay, Which Way Do I Go?

Some umphteen years ago when I started on this bumpy journey as a writer, I thought all I had to do was write a good book and then another and another and my career would be all rainbows and roses. I’m content to work at home and be by myself. In fact, I love being home and setting my own hours. But, HA HA! It didn’t take me long to realize that writing a good book was only half the job of being a published author, at least it is in today’s world.

An author not only has to write, edit and sometimes publish their own work, but they also have to market themselves, 24/7/365. (I had written almost but backed that little word out) GONE are the days where publishers backed every author they published with publicity team. GONE are the days where maybe a hundred books were published a month and your stories were easily found by libraries and book clubs. GONE are the book tours and huge book signings where the book store owners were all happy to have you in their store and told their customers weeks ahead that you were coming. We have websites and Facebook Author pages and newsletters and tweeter feeds and Pintrest boards and my space and...... (HOLDING MY HEAD)

I don’t know about other writers (And I hope writers reading this throw their two cents in) but I find the task of ‘putting myself out there’ every single day draining. Not just tiring, but muse sapping. When I'm working on a book, I'm working on that book 24/7-thinking and writing. To make my creative muse think of what to write for a blog, a tweet or a FB post is detrimental to my real purpose. But you must soft sell yourself every day, otherwise readers seem to forget you in their social circles. With a click of a key, your dropped from their watch-lists.

Working the social media is time consuming. Some writers I've heard only spend a twenty minutes on social media. I can't do that. I’m the type of person who if a reader takes the time to connect with me, I want to answer them. And when another author re-tweets or shares my posts, I try to remember to share their news with my circle. When you have thousands of people as friends and twenty or fifty connect with you, how can you do it all?

I can see why STARS need a whole staff whose job is to connect with their fans for them.

So tell me, if you’re a writer, how do you handle social networking?

And if you’re a reader, do expect the person your following to answer you ASAP, or at all?

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