Falling in Love With Social Media (In Spite of Yourself) by Nancy Gideon

When I started out as an author, social media was simple – Type up a newsletter, make copies and tuck it into an envelope. If you wanted to get fancy, you’d include grainy photocopied images of yourself and your cover. Contact with your readers was through those scrawled fan letters or face-to-face at local bookstore signings. And, if you were lucky, the local paper would do an article on you, usually with the slant “Housewife (or Stay-at-home Mom) Pens Happily-Ever-After Love Stories.” Isn’t that cute? Then Romantic Times(RIP!) and Affaire de Coeur coaxed me to spend my hard-earned royalties on magazine ads which quickly spiraled into the bookmark and romance trading card crazes for collectors.

Then, socializing with your reading public went electronic. And time management hopes went to hell in a hurry!

I fought it tooth and nail – first the writing loops (on Prodigy!), then the social groups, springing up like weeds everywhere you looked where you were expected to join and post and chat and still, somehow write those books you had to promote. There were conferences (both professional and fan) where you had to giveaway clever attention getters (my vampire teeth were always a hit!) and smile until your face ached worse than your feet.

Then, suddenly, you never had to leave your laptop. It was all right there with a click of the mouse. My Space, Facebook, chapter and genre loops and groups, Pintrest, LinkedIn, Instragram, Twitter, Wattpad, Snapchat, YouTube . . . and on and on and on. A website wasn’t good enough. You had to blog, and Hop and do events. You couldn’t just write a book, you had to promote it with SWAG and tours and booktrailers and playlists and banners and excerpts and Street Teams. You had to learn about alga rhythms and click-throughs and GDRPs. You had to not only write the book but pitch it, produce it, advertise it, hand sell it, design it, find editors and BETA readers and learn about tag lines and pull quotes . . . And still have time -and the energy- to write.

I confess, some of all the hoopla is really fun! I’ll never, ever enjoy hand selling my books to the public. I’d rather conceive and create in the privacy of my own office. That aspect of social media I adore. From my first bootlegged copy of Photoshop to my subscriptions to Deposit Photo, Neo Sounds, QuotesCover and Canva, I’ve become a graphics whore. An artist by no means, I still love to play with details of text and color and images and sound. Even though I have a Virtual Assistant, I find myself doing much of the leg-work myself because . . . I enjoy that creative aspect of my writing (and I’m somewhat of a control-freak!). I’ll devote my lunch hour to designing banners like this one, endlessly tweaking with text and tone:

I’ll browse graphics for hours, hunt for book trailer music clips and pace the text and images over and over in my mind. I’ve even become addicted to creating YouTube music video playlists for each title.

I could be writing . . . but I’m having too much fun.

You have to draw the line somewhere or you’ll have no product to promote. Creating one flashy bit of text with a buy link and graphic that you can use over multiple medias in a planned approach seems the smart way to go. I’m still learning. Now I know what I can do, what I can tolerate, what I can farm out, and what I’ll let pass without regret.

But I never forget . . . it’s all about the writing. And if nothing’s written, there’s nothing to promote.

What are your favorite media outlets (or distractions)? Best bang for your buck or suck on your time?

Happy Loooong Weekend (with a birthday thrown in for me – Yay!)!

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Seducing The Reader

Today's post is inspired by a tweet I fired off last week: Promo is about seducing a reader, not slapping them in the face. As a confession, I had to edit the tweet a few times before I finally sent it because what I said originally wasn't...ladylike.

The undeniable fact of the matter is, there comes a point in every reader's life they will encounter author promotion. With the tough economy and even tougher publishing atmosphere in today's market they're even more likely to get bashed over the head with it. Add in the popularity of social media growing by leaps and bounds every day, and author promotion saturates the interwebs.

This seems to breed the idea that authors have to work even harder, saturating social media by blasting out propaganda to brainwash the masses to buy their books. As a reader, this completely and totally turns me off. So it has the opposite effect the author intended. Instead of having me remember an author's name positively when I go book shopping (be it in a brick n mortar store or online) I'll see the name and remember negative things. In turn, I would not buy their book.

The trick, as always, is finding a balance where you're not screaming in the reader's face, but you're also not wilting away in the darkness because you do nothing at all. It's a precarious tightrope to walk and usually you can only find that balance when you experiment and figure out what works. It doesn't help, of course, that what works for one person, doesn't work for another. Though, IMHO, constant tweets/posts/blogs where it's all promo, all the time, no matter the book, doesn't work for anyone. Social media is SOCIAL for a reason and it's not to saturate your tweetstream or Facebook timeline with 90% promo. Really, you're not doing yourself any favors by abusing a free avenue of promotion this way.

Chatting about everyday things with readers in those places is promo. It's subtle and it works. Sometimes more effectively than any promotion an author pays for. That bit of personal contact can mean the world to a reader (and hint: it usually means a lot to the author as well).

Oh No They Didn't...

I’m an observer of life. I think this is why I’m a writer because there’s so much going on around me that I must take it all in.

It’s not uncommon for me to turn to my hubby and say “Did you see what that woman just did?” And most times he won’t. That’s okay. He’s not an observer.

I am.

To this end, I’ve been shocked at what I’ve observed around the web in this week. It wasn’t big, newsworthy items, just smallish things that I’ve seen in the writing community.

An author I formerly respected has built herself into quite a spectacle on a social networking site and seems to be her own biggest fan. That’s okay for her but for me, a potential reader, it’s annoying and off-putting. To “read” her, you’d think she ranked right up there with Mother Theresa. Excuse me. I think just vomited a little in my mouth. Have I bought her book yet? Nope. Still deciding. After all, I can wait months until it comes down to a decent price, but I have decided to drop her from my acquaintance base on the site.

Enough is enough.

Another person, respected in the publishing world, had a big old-fashioned hissy fit on a social networking site this weekend. It doesn’t matter what side of the issue she falls on. The fact remains that she demonstrated less than professional restraint by beating the issue into the ground. Does it affect the way I see this person? Maybe, but then, I’m not impressed by titles and who a person thinks they are. To my way of thinking, respect is earned—not automatically given. Is it disappointing? Yes, but not unexpected. Fame and notoriety is addicting and some people love the power.

Moving on.

And still a third person, and a writer to boot, seems to be a literary “groupie”. You know the type. The ones who follow the “popular, best-selling” authors or agents and editors around the web, comment on their every little thing, post on their blogs, forums, whatever, rave when these folks spit out a wad of gum, etc. Really? I’d say you nailed the whole sycophantic thing. Good job. There might be a restraining order—or four—in your future.

Yes, every person in these instances is human. I get that. We all are, we’re curious, we want to be liked, to fit in and we make mistakes. We’ve all been in these exact situations. The key is to live and learn from them--and don't repeat them.

So what’s my point in doing this blog post? Well, here it is. If I’m noticing these things, you can bet other people have noticed them as well.

Whether we want to believe it or not—and maybe we forget from time to time—but once we have a book published, or we’re a blogger, agent, editor, publisher or anyone else involved in this very small writing community, we’re "out there". In the public eye. In front of our peers, readers and potential bosses--and yes, an editor and publisher is a boss.

We're all being observed.

It’s vital to behave with respect at all times, no matter how much of a fan-girl or boy we want to be, no matter how cheesed off at the world we’ve been, no matter how wonderful we think we are, people are watching and they’re taking note.

And they’re forming opinions and making decisions.

In this day and age, when money is tight and admiration is hard to come by, we need to handle our public identity with grace, dignity and common sense. The world won’t come to an end if we don’t announce to everyone the subject of our current angst. Do it sparingly. This community does rally together around a common complaint, but know when to draw the line and walk away. Sometimes silence is the better part of valor.

Show your love of a good book, but don’t get too chummy with the author. Bond with the movers and shakers in the business but don’t become a nuisance. Comment and walk (or surf) away. Realize you don’t actually walk on water and you will sink if you try.

Always remember, I’m watching you—and so are others.