Has anyone else born before about 1990 secretly questioned why so many college grads these days are offering up their services as social media consultants? Ha! Well I am finally starting to get it. Here’s why…
In writing my first book, I’ve decided to go the route of self-publishing through Amazon Kindle. I’m only at the beginning of the process, and I’m starting to learn that self-publishing might be even more time consuming than writing and editing the book itself (more on that tomorrow).
Logically I started at the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) section on the Amazon website. Incredibly helpful, but a TON of information to wade through. And I found that it generated a “To Do” list three miles long. (More on that on another day.)
One of my key “ah-ha” moments while fishing around on the KDP site was that once I get my book posted on Kindle I need to do the marketing to get it moved up in the search list so that people will buy it. Many of the the posters on the “questions” section of the site mentioned smart use of social media as critical to this goal.
I thought, “Hey… I’m a smart person! I can do that.” And off I went to create my Facebook author page, blog, and Twitter feed. Four hours later, I was still at it, and I’m already amazed at how much work has to go into this endeavor.
For example, on facebook, I can’t get my “Likes” to show up on my author page, they only show up on my personal page, which is what I don’t want. Same thing for my tweets which I finally got linked to facebook, but to the personal page, not the author page. And don’t even get me started on tweeting. What the heck is a hashtag used for? And is it incredibly sad that I don’t already know? At the very least, it probably dates me, right? The blog was the easiest of the three options to get going (thank you to all things good and holy for small mercies).
In addition to the set up, I now have to maintain my presence on all these social media forums, which means posts (or at least tweets) daily. Now I have to say that social media as a form of self-marketing for writers is a pretty natural fit because we like to… well… write. So this part I actually enjoy.
That said, it is still one more thing to do when I could be concentrating on, among other things, editing my book so that it actually gets published and all this work on social media forums isn’t for a book that never makes it out there, let alone gets read by someone other than my parents, much as I love them.
So I totally get it. Social media consultants would be very useful to businesses, large and small. There are a lot of ways to take advantage of these technologies and I’m fooling myself if I even think I’m scratching the surface. But I’m a fast learner, and pretty darn stubborn. So I say bring it on!
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Tomorrow’s post… a little about my book! I’m trying to put together a kick ass description and will try it out on this forum.
Hello, cousin! =o) I love that you're going after your dreams of being an author, and it won't just be your parents reading your book.
As far as hashtags go, they can be useful for sarcasm #noreally or you can click on a hashtag to see a discussion on a topic like #BlueVioletQandA
Another site to consider once you're published is Goodreads, all of my friends and I are on there and read each other's reviews and participate in author Q and As.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/program
I'm so looking forward to reading about your progress and your book!