@hg47's Blog: The Tweet & The TakeAway - Posts Tagged "facebook"

Karen Anderson of Writer Way answered one of my test emails to her with a lengthy response of very specific advice for writers, about a year ago. Half her reply was about setting up my own professional writer's website before promoting anything, and detailed notes on exactly what she meant by that.

Possibly she was just selling me her services.

But what she wrote next was pretty much a complete rejection of social media:

2. Become a member of good writers organization[s]: SFWA if you write science fiction, MWA if you write mysteries - you get the idea. Attend their events and workshops and do some volunteer work for them. Mention that on your website.

3. Volunteer to be a panelist at conventions for writers or readers. That will get your name on their websites, which will help your social media rank more than dozens of tweets and blog posts.

4. Ignore social media time-wasters like Twitter and spend your time taking writing workshops, finding mentors, and writing new publishable material. It's real-world, genuine connections with other writers, editors, reviewers, and bookstore owners that make the difference for writers. The social media stuff is about as valuable as spending your day staring in the mirror.

Perhaps Karen Anderson was just spewing boilerplate to get rid of a pest in her INBOX, but if so she has some damn good boilerplate! And I'm starting to think it is truer than true.

@hg47