social media – Page 2

Social media is like chasing the White Rabbit.

Social media is a necessary evil for all writers. If you are serious about driving sales to your book, you’ll know that social media is the hard work and that writing your book was the easy part. I spend a few hours a day on social media, socializing on Twitter, trying to drive traffic to this website. I need to start working on my Goodreads account and thinking of things for my FB author page. This social media is planned work, not something I do during my leisure time. In fact, my leisure time is reading and being with my fiancé.

How do you navigate this maddening world of social media? I can only give you my experiences, but hopefully they’ll be of some service to those drowning in the social media cesspool.

For one thing, a blog is a great thing to have, especially on your website. I use WordPress as my website because there are more templates available, they have a cleaner, professional look than BlogSpot, and it is so easy to follow others and leave comments without having to go through the annoying captcha crap because BlogSpot doesn’t have a good spam filter. Eventually I’ll buy the domain and change it, but I’m saving up my money. Having a blog on your website helps drive traffic to your other pages: your about me, your writerly works, and so on and so forth because it’s all right there. No need to have your website and blog separated. Heck, WordPress allows you to create your own template if you or someone you know is HTML efficient.

You can use your blog to update on you, your life, your writing life, you in general. You can do guest blog posts, interviews, book reviews, and giveaways. I’ll be doing a giveaway once I hit 200 followers. I’d like 1000+ by the time my book releases, but we’ll see. You’ll also want to give back. Comment on people’s replies to your blog posts. If you don’t have time, please mention this as a courtesy to your followers. If time allows, comment on their blogs. Go to the Reader and find blog posts there. Make Followers. Don’t expect anyone to follow back or read your stuff.

Get a Twitter account and use it correctly. I have been having genuine conversations with people on Twitter and have been gaining more followers as a result. Link your Twitter account to your blog so you can get more from there. Share links to your blog on your Twitter account, but only after you’ve conversed with people. Don’t spam your Twitter feed with links.

Get accounts on other popular social media sites, like Instagram and so forth. Keep blogging. Blog as often as you want and/or can and/or what works for you. Be persistent. People don’t build a following by sitting back and waiting for people to come. You will have to do some serious leg work to build a following. Quality blogging/Tweeting/whatever is first and foremost. Create something your gut tells you people will want to look at. Also, join writing forums to get you and your book out and around. While I’m not wild about AbsoluteWrite, it’s a great forum to converse with other writers and talk about your book without being branded as someone tooting one’s own horn.

Do whatever you can think of in the social media sphere. You and your book will thank you.

Tomorrow I’m taking a break from blogging and social media in general. I’ll probably write an epilogue for When Stars Die, but that is as work-y as things will get. I’m also going to finish a gothic-ish design of When Stars Die’s MC Amelia that I’d love to have on a shirt. The drawing itself sucks, but the paint will totally make it come alive. I’m also hoping to receive a certain item that I can use for a new, better cover design for When Stars Die.

So I’m not exactly taking a break, but I do need one from social media because it can be hectic and trying. Plus, I have 80 followers, so I’ve earned a rest from it. In any case, any kind of art is therapeutic for me and not really work like social media is.

All of us as writers need to rest once in a while and get away from things that start to feel like work to us. Social media is one such thing for me. I don’t want to burn out on it, so I’m disconnecting myself entirely tomorrow. Instead of doing social media during lulls at my job, I’ll be reading or writing. I need to finish a certain book anyway so I can do a review of it and put it here.

Burnout in our line of work is common. Burnout happened to me last summer. It wasn’t just the depression that made me not want to write–it was total burnout. I obsessively write and edit for a long period of time, then go for half a year not doing any kind of writing because I’m so drained from it. My dad is always warning me even our passions can drain us, and he has never lied to me. He’s too right.

Now that I have a contract, it is crucial I don’t experience burnout, so I’m going to allow myself rest. It’s even more imperative considering I’m dealing with fibromyalgia and just got over a bipolar depressive episode. I’m doing my best to learn to not obsess over things. My therapist is helping me too through weekly goals. Not obsessing is one of them. I do find myself obsessing with stats on my website, so I’m pulling myself away and am going to try to train my brain not to worry about stats and just blog and read others’ blogs when I come back Saturday.

I used to be so fast with my life, so set on the future and reaching my goals as fast as possible. If I have learned anything from fibro and depression is that it is okay to slow life down and save the future for another time. So I am slowing down, breathing in, breathing out, and am going to relax with some art tomorrow with no worries about social media: e-mails, my website, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, ect. We all know social media is important, but we all know how draining and trying it can be.

Slow down. Take a break when you feel your nerves becoming frazzled. It’s okay. We’re human and we’re not meant to go, go, go! I’ll see you all Saturday!