Writing is a solitary endeavor. I’m alone with my thoughts and some (not all) of them escape onto the page. Self-promotion through social media is a lot like that.
I’ve been writing for quite some time. My first novel took eight months of weekend mornings. In hindsight, I should have been maintaining a blog and tweeting about the day-to-day experiences that I felt were relevant to the process. I’ll do that with my next book (and boy, it’s going to be a fun one! 😉 )
I’m not an overly social person. My friends and family can attest to that and I had a reservations about engaging with Facebook and Twitter right from the start. A lot of the time, it felt like I was yelling at the top of my lungs in an empty room, with the odd person sticking their head in to see what all the racket was about. It still feels like that sometimes, but I am noticing a shift.
Persistence pays off. With regular updates of value, and that’s the key here, I can see my readership (or at least followers) increase. I just have to stay the course and post relevant material. That will take work. I can automate some tweets by writing them ahead of time, or adding the odd randomly generated tweet, but people see through that pretty quickly. Like a bakery, I’ll get the most sales with fresh goods.
Just how worthwhile social media is with regards to self-publishing remains to be seen. Will my number of followers dictate future sales numbers? I guess the rubber will hit the road when I release my first book in the next month or two.
