There's something strangely meta about writing about my online
presence here, as this is part of my online presence. My blog-writing
is more or less the centerpiece of it.
Managing one's online presence, especially as an author (or any other creative-type-promoting-oneself)
can be a full-time job in and of itself. No one has time for that. I'm
actually quite surprised when I see big names constantly blogging,
tweeting, facebooking, etc. But, hey, if they can make it work, good
for them. There's no way I can do that.
Here's a
piece of advice I received on the subject a few years ago: Pick one
aspect of on-line presence to be your center-of-gravity. This is the
primary place you'll put original content. For me, it's my blog. Every
other bit of social media or online presence should be designed to
direct back towards that central presence.
That means
that my Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. are all designed to be a
public face, and lead you back toward the blog, which is where you'll
see new and interesting things from me.
I even linked
my blog to my LinkedIn and Goodreads page. Those update automatically
when I do. And that way I can put most of my online-presence energy into writing creative and interesting content here, and still have energy to also write books.
And that's important, because what's the value of having the online presence if it isn't in service of your books?
AND SPEAKING OF... over at Goodreads you can enter to win a free copy of Thorn of Dentonhill. Head over there and sign up!
Right now, my online presence is me talking to people and meeting people and just generally keeping my face out there, which I hope helps my books down the road. Mostly, it's just me being social, though. But maybe when I actually do have books people can buy, they might think: 'hey, I know her' or 'I remember her from her comments on X' or 'she seems like a neat person, so I'll check out her writing'.
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