Comments on: Writers And Social Media: The Should NOTs

By: Dawn Y.

Dawn Y. — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:15:19 +0000

Lili,

I thought you did a good job with your post today. You warned about going off on a rant, but I thought you were remarkably well restrained. Enjoyed the words of advice and wisdom. Thank-you for sharing!

By: Ban

Ban — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:40:15 +0000

UGH yes, the ‘comment’ spam !!! Gotta HATE those … (#6, very funny )

‘loved the post, so relevant – will have to send my friends here. (post is about author’s cat who swallowed an eraser) wrote something similar in my last book, come to my site to read a snippet …’

By: Alexia561

Alexia561 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:37:57 +0000

Thank you for a great post Lilith! Makes sense for non-writers as well. Love all the dames, but you are a favorite!

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Writers And Social Media | Foolscap Daily — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:13:58 +0000

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By: Clara

Clara — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:06:13 +0000

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By: Liana Brooks

Liana Brooks — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:49:48 +0000

This would be why I have a private blog for my family life, a private forum with my online critique group where I can rant to my seven best writing buddies, and a public blog and Twitter face for building my platform.

Sometimes they overlap a tiny bit. I don’t mind telling people that I’m taking off a week or two to have a baby, that’s just life. But I will bite my tongue until I’m safely behind the locked firewall of my private IM or forum to rant about a bad review/crit/book/whatever.

And now I forget who it was, I want to credit Rachelle Gardner, with the 90/10 rule. I’m… well I say unpublished but I did publish a short story last month. Not quite the same as a novel though… Anyways, I wanted to know how much platform agents were expecting from debut authors. I can write short stories, I prefer working on my novel.

The 90/10 rule is that someone who does not currently have a novel out should spend 90% of their time working on the novel and queries and 10% of their time building a platform. Promoting the book can wait until after you have a print date.

I will add one more to your list: Learn to say no.

An author does not need to respond to every Tweet, read the blog of every follower, or join every group blog that’s thrown in their direction. Yes, it’s fun, but it eats up your time and when I see someone following 200+ blogs and trying to read and respond to everyone every day I cringe.

By: dave hutchinson

dave hutchinson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:55:37 +0000

Damn. Sorry, I forgot to say: isn’t `content provider’ just a very, very broad definition of `friend’?

By: dave hutchinson

dave hutchinson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:53:12 +0000

Hm. I see your point about `friends’ and actual friends, but I’m not sure I agree entirely. I started my LJ with the express intention of doing promo, and you’ve seen what a sink of bohemian depravity it turned into. I’ll grant you, only one `fan’ ever found his way to it, and he was quickly subsumed into the general madness, but I regard my friends on LJ as real friends and everyone’s welcome there.
Having said that, I’ve found myself setting up other blogs for promo so I can keep fans (if there ever are any) in a different place – although, again, my LJ’s linked to them so anyone who wants to wander through can do.
I do tend to bang on about stuff which you won’t, as you know, but equally there are some things I won’t talk about in the general arena of my LJ – although they’re available by email.
I’m not in your position – and to quite a great extent I’m fortunate in being so – of having lots of fans (or indeed any fans at all) who want to know what I meant by `wary’ in my last short story, or what I eat for breakfast, and to be honest I can’t ever imagine that happening to me. I’m more relaxed about social networks. If someone arrived on my LJ and was a fan and didn’t turn out to be a total arsehole, they’d just end up as part of the family.

By: Marcia Colette

Marcia Colette — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:52:38 +0000

Where do the people who post every five seconds about their antics, thus clogging up your Twitter page with a bunch of junk, fall into? They’re not necessarily doing it to sell you something, but to tell you that they’re at Starbucks. They’re having coffee that tastes like a rat-turd mocha. Then, five seconds later, they see some guy who looks like Rob Pattison. Then, another five seconds they’re bumped into the guy and realized he’s not Rob Pattison. Then, we hear about a woman who spilled her latte all over the woman next to her. Then… Well, you get the picture. I’ve unfollowed dozens of people for that very reason and I have three more that are about to make my dump list.