Building a presence

I went to a workshop Sunday afternoon. It was hosted by the Nashville Writers Meetup and the subject was using social media to promote your writing and yourself.

Unfortunately, this has become an absolute necessity for authors. There are more written works being produced than ever before, at a time when fewer books are being sold. In addition, publishers no longer do much promo. It is expected that authors will take charge of selling. In fact, when you query an agent, one of the first things they look for is your web presence. Do you have an author page?

In my case, no I don't. What would I put on one? Until that first book is out, I have nothing to put there. It's the chicken and the egg dilemma. I'm going to have to make something up.

I used to be afraid of having my identity all over the web. As a result, I'm pretty well hidden. Google Nina Fortmeyer and you come up with almost nothing. You will find a good key lime pie recipe, published by the News and Observer's Specialty of the House column. You won't even find my etsy store, Kickglass Enamels, that way.

Facebook, websites, twitter, goodreads, Amazon author pages. All can be linked together. Maintaining them is important once you start.

Yikes.

And here, I thought being a good writer was the main thing.

Like all workshops, there was somebody who wanted to customize each subject to her own situation, which she had to share with everyone. Seems like lecture classes always have one of two of these people as well. And there was somebody who said she was on facebook, but she was not comfortable with simple functions we all use, like copying and pasting. She was an older woman, perhaps left behind by a society changing at a breakneck pace. She left early.

I'm not going to start an author site until the catering season lets up. Then I need to hit it hard. By the time I put out Calling Home, everyone will know it's there.