On Wednesday, October 26th, Kelley and I, and our friend Colleen Lindsay (Penguin Group), will be talking to local members of the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association about social media:
These days, it isn’t enough to just write a compelling novel. Agents and editors are looking for writers who are also engaging potential readers online, building strong virtual communities and using social media to build a platform before they’ve even gotten published. Tonight we’ll talk about how to get started in this scary new digital world, best practices for using social media, balancing the personal and the professional online, and - most importantly - what you do to make sure that your writing doesn’t suffer in the process. Q&A session to follow!
This is a huge topic. I could probably talk for a week--but right now I'm planning to speak to just one aspect of the subject, which is Hild: how and why I've approached social media in and for a genre I've never played with before. But I imagine a lot of other stuff will come up.
This is a members-only event. But whether you can be there or not, here's your chance to ask questions. What would you like to know? All three of us are experts in slightly different corners of the publishing socialverse. So fire away. If I don't know the answer, I'll make sure to find out. And, later, in a blog post, I'll try to summarise what was discussed here in the comments and live at the event.
Posts
So wish I could be there! Do hope you'll post some sort of report of the event.
ReplyDeleteRagini, I will.
ReplyDeleteI am SO happy that you and Kelley could join me!!! YAY!
ReplyDeleteHi Nicola! I hope to make it to the the PNWA event about social media but in case I don't, here is my question:
ReplyDeleteHow are authors uniquely positioned to take advantage of social media?
In other words, most of the people who have large followings on social networks are "celebrities" of some sort and their followers seem to be looking for some insight into their daily lives. Authors on the other hand are creators and they connect with readers through their work. There seems to be a big opportunity for authors to leverage their unique abilities to create in order to find and develop an audience.
I'm really interested in this topic as a software developer who has built a "social media" tool for authors to connect with readers. It is called Kindlegraph (http://www.kindlegraph.com) and it lets authors send personalized digital inscriptions directly to the reading devices of their fans.
You should make a dvd. Per your advice (and you have never given me bad advice) I'm trying. But I do generally suck at it because I just don't do schmoozing and that seems to be what so much of it is. But I'm trying. (Yes, I know, sometimes I am trying, but I don't mean to be...:))
ReplyDeleteCollen, it'll be a blast!
ReplyDeleteEvan, I hope you do come to the event. I'd love to hear more about Kindlegraph.
Mark, it's not schmoozing in the grip-and-grin, oleaginous way. It's like a permanent convention, with newbies and old timers and young turks all cowering in the corner, holding forth in the bar, or strutting their stuff on panels, depending. It just takes a while to adjust. The single biggest piece of advice, for something like Twitter: be generous. Thank everyone for everything: for mentioning you, for retweeting you, for boosting your signal, for engaging. And boost others' signal, retweet them, engage them. It's like standing your round in the bar, or recommending others' books when you have the spotlight. Be nice to others, and they'll be nice to you.
Books are friends. NG writes books, therefore, she is a friend. No, but close enough.
ReplyDeletebarbara, everything starts somewhere...
ReplyDeleteI will buy the book and encourage my friends to do likewise. I like to put my scarce and precious money where my mouth is.
ReplyDelete