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Friday, April 22, 2011

S is for Social Network

And for Sufjan Stevens

Well, the sprogs are in bed and I'm finally able to squeeze out this (belated) blog post. I'm not even sure I should have done it, but the great-god Nathan Bransford suggested it and I'm nothing if not slavishly devoted to NB. What am I talking about?

Facebook.

I'm on Facebook already as a human of course, I'm not a complete luddite. But as a writer, um, no. Firstly because it never occurred to me until I read Nathan's post from back in February, but also because it seems kinda ridiculous to create a fan page for myself. What is there to be a fan of except my NaNoWriMo win and the fact that I keep plugging away at this writing business like the worst of both worlds Sysiphus and Prometheus combo (And yes, I often think revising feels like eagles are pecking out my liver, you?)

But I keep hearing about brand building and author platforms.  I wish that platform was a wooden 4x4 perched high atop a pool on Coney Island that I'm about to horse dive into instead of the marketing tool it is - horse diving would be much less scary.

There is a small part of me that says "Baaa! Stop being a sheep! Just because people say you have to do this thing doesn't mean you have to do it. You can go at your own pace, do what you think is best, you know, you could grow a spine." But then I remember the 'sustainable writing life' I'm building and I'm determined all over again to do everything I can to give it my best shot. Everything that's seemly, of course. I won't be horse-diving in a bikini. I'll have a one piece on. Maybe a Muumuu too.

For now, I've created an author facebook page here and put some stuff on it. It may become an orphaned page if I can't keep it up. We'll see.

What do you do to build your platform and what won't you do? What helps and what hurts and what is way too much effort?

1 comment:

  1. Well first, let me say that I loved The Social Network. (More than I love Facebook actually.) I don't have a fan page either. I'm pretty well stuck on blogging and Twitter. Facebook just doesn't do that much for me.

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