Becoming an expert in social media.

Not possible. We might as well face it. It is not possible to keep up with social media—the servers, the skills necessary to use each server, the terms used and the connections that servers make with each other. I put this blog on my website and it will appear is several different centres for perusal. I can’t keep track of where it goes. Of course I could if I spent more time learning about it. But then almost every author will tell you that social media takes time away from writing. We are reluctant to create blogs when we could be creating books.

I met an author who instantly and continuously fed her media centers. She coordinated her camera, her facebook, her goodread, her netgalley and several more sites with her website and her publishers’ websites. She was everywhere. I was impressed and depressed. I couldn’t do that. And then I discovered that her second life (most authors have a second life) was that of an advertising executive. Not fair!

We need to revise our career advice to authors. Forget the study of English and literature as a background for writing. Get a degree in advertising. That is what sells books.

There is an upside. Social connections are, well, social. And as authors we finally get to meet, talk to and take advice from readers. No longer do we have to sit in a nest dropping reams of great prose to the distant audience below. They are buzzing around the nest, involved in our stories, pulling us into their expectations. The world of writing is more active than it used to be. Our readers more apparent, more insistent and more involved in our lives. And that can be a very good thing.