Every day I navigate my way through this new world I’ve thrown myself into, the book publishing arena, I feel more and more like Bridget Jones shuffling along in her thirty and still single dating environment. Everyone tells you to get a platform, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, website, and on and on. Yes, I have all those wonderful social media sites, and honestly, I do enjoy it. I like to interact with people, and I have learned a lot this way. I’ve met fabulous readers who have introduced me to books I would never have read. We’ve discussed these books, and I’ve gained tremendous insight into the minds of fellow readers. It fascinates me when I love a book or a character and someone else hates that book or that character. I think, “No way! How can you say that?” I’ve networked and can call some amazing writers, agents, bloggers and publicists my friends now. It’s fun to see their work and retweet it or share it. I like all these wonderful things,

But…

There is always a butt isn’t there. Ha, Ha, Ha! There is a catch, and that is balancing personal with public. Twitter is public, no doubt about that. I had no problem separating my personal Instagram page with my public one. But Facebook, Holy Cow! This is where my Bridget Jones takes over, or the tiny bubbles fill my head (My high school drama friends will get that little inside joke).

It began with the creating of a page. Ok, done. But then I started to get confused when I’d share stuff. Did I share via Janelle Gabay or my First Born Book page? Hmmm? Then when I linked Twitter to what I thought was my public page but ended up being my private Facebook profile I was inviting strangers to visit me personally. Ugh! Strangers wanted to be friends, and I didn’t know if these people were real fans of my book or weirdos. You can’t be too careful these days.

So stumbling along I create an all new profile using all my professional information and link a page to it and cancel the other page linked to my private profile. I thought I was ready to go. No. I guess you still need to accept or deny friend requests even when you select a public profile. Okay, this is fine. One by one I accept the requests. As a public figure, I want to include everyone, right Bridget? I mean I am trying to sell books, right Bridget? Well, that was a mistake. I must have friended a ‘player,’ because all of a sudden I’m bombarded with friend requests. I think, “exciting, yay!” WRONG! These men had no interest in books I soon found out. So, now I needed to weed through whom I had acquired as friends and diligently go through the growing list of friend requests. What a chore and what an eye opening experience! There are a lot of very provocative people on Facebook. Too much T & A for this book nerd. Next, I go fumbling again and decide to click the 'married' button because I am married. I hadn’t said that in the first place because this was my public persona and I was trying not to include any personal information. Well, I soon got several congratulations on my wedding, which was very sweet, but I’ve been married 24 years now, so the congratulations are far overdue. My friends started calling me and asking if everything was all right with my husband and me. That was fun! Not!

I hope I am now done with the stumbling and fumbling on Facebook and can move on to promoting my writing with friends that are genuinely interested in my words, not my face or other parts of my body. Ha, Ha, Ha!!! I also hope in writing this maybe I can help another novice platform creator from making these same mistakes. Good Luck!