Why do authors need to use social media?

It turns out that some agents will Google a new writer when they receive a query to see what the author’s social media presence is.  This is because agents just don’t have the time to teach new authors how to use Twitter or set up a blog.  Some agents have indicated that they will not even consider representing a new author who does not have a social media presence.

ALL agents ask for the website address to your blog and any other social media accounts you may have.  Yes, all agents.

Note:  If this overwhelms you, just work on it one step at a time.  And before you even start to think about increasing your presence on social media to promote your work, FINISH YOUR BOOK!  You will have nothing to promote on social media if you don’t finish your novel.

I’ve also learned that writers need a brand.  I’m still not sure what that is yet.  I’ll probably blog about it when I find out.

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Facebook

Luckily, I already had a Facebook account set up.

     Julia Satu on Facebook

If your current Facebook account is all about how smart/cute/athletic/ talented your kids are or about your attempts at shotgunning a beer every weekend, then you might want to consider setting up separate lists.

For instance, you can select who can see each post.  The default settings are the ‘Public’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Only You’.  You can also create a list of ‘Close Friends’ who you want to see see the photo of you praying to the porcelain God and another list called ‘Readers’ or something similar that you want to see only posts related to your writing.

Each time you post, you will have to remember to choose which list so you can control who sees what post.

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Blogging

This blog was started on December 2, 2015.  In 18 days, I had 531 hits!  I really can’t believe it.  Thank you to all who visit my website.

You can do this too.  There is an amazing post here that will help you choose which platform to choose.  Helpful instructions too.

Blogging is a way to provide content to your readers but also to express your personality.  So be yourself but be careful to not rant about your mother-in-law because you never know who will read your post and relay it back to her.  Also, agents will check to see if you have been slagging publishers and/or agents.  If you have, expect not to hear from them… EVER.

You will learn from others.  Within days of starting this blog, I found a great beta reader for my novel.  I feel lucky to have found her.  Her blog, the.beta.reader.blog, has directed me to some great writing sites.

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Twitter

I also joined Twitter just this past week.

    @JuliaSatuNS

I like Twitter.  There are some very witty people out there.  But it can be a time sucker so be careful.  I’ve had to limit the time I spend on it to make progress on editing my book.

There are things that I’ve learned about Twitter since joining.  Did you know the Library of Congress documents tweets?  Your tweets will be out there FOREVER.  Don’t tweet anything you’ll regret.

I’ve also learned that robots like to follow me.  In one afternoon, I had 38 new followers.  Unfortunately, they were all Twitter bots.  Even thought it looked good to have almost 100 followers within a week of joining… I really didn’t want almost half of my followers to be robots.  I reported them to Twitter.  I am back to a more realistic number of 59 followers.  And they all appear to be be real live people.

If you are a real live person and would like to follow me.  Please do.  The link is above.

I’m learning all the time and really enjoying this journey.  Whether I get published by the big houses or not.

Do you have any social media experiences you’d like to share?  I’d love to hear them.