Saturday, February 22, 2014

Social Media Swamps Writer


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Often mentioned, never dealt with is my growing conflict between writing and social media. As an independent author, I need to establish my presence online. But I find the balance hard to maintain. I should be focusing on the final rewrites to my next eBook. (Now available for preview here and at Goodreads.) Instead, I've spent the past ninety minutes "liking" the Facebook and Amazon author pages of other writers, screwing around with Twitter and Goodreads and wondering when I'll get over to Google +. My online presence is not large but all the little likes and comments add up. A hundred small leaks will cause a boat to founder as surely as a great hole.

Do other writers set a fixed time for social media? I'm open to suggestions. 


3 comments:

Roger Eschbacher said...

I check social media on occasional basis throughout the day as a bit of a reward -- finish editing a chapter, take a few minutes to see what's up on FB, etc. You're right about it being a necessity for an indie author and about it being an addictive time suck. While I sometimes spend too much time 'maintaining my author platform,' this dribs and drabs reward system seems to work reasonably well for me.

JP Mac said...

I like the reward system.

For a time I was turning off the browser before working. Perhaps I'll return to that.

Unknown said...

The reward system sounds good and is a great motivator. You know what you will get once you're finished, AND, once you get into your story, you get lost in that and before too long, that work is done (a reward unto itself) Getting to PLAY on Facebook, etc... is icing on the cake.

Now I should practice what I preach! I have writing and a research project I want to dig into.... Unfortunately, my story is on a blogger page.

Answer.... I should create all my work as documents first, thereby minimizing the need for internet access. My timing seriously needs work!

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