Hi Betsy:

First of all, Jesus I love your blog. I love your book, I love your twitter and I love your taste in music. Had there been a jdate for agents and authors, I feel certain we would’ve been together now and forever [Doubtful, like many self hating Jews, I never date tribe members.](I adore my agent, btw, but she lacks most of your endearing neuroses). [Then what does she have to offer??]

Here’s the deal: my narrative nonfiction book is coming out in the fall. [far-fucking-out-that’s great.] I am giddy, excited, nervous, schpilkes–[I am against random y-dropping] the whole thing. It’s great. Obviously I would like for it to do well. [I trust “well” means off the charts successful] I need for it to do well. So what am I doing to help make that happen? I blog, I tweet, I give lectures when asked and sometimes when not asked. I plan on hiring a publicist. I’m not on facebook yet but my resistance is weakening. The thing is, Twitter often feels to me like an icepick in the forehead (your feed is a notable exception). [No argument there.]There’s so much stuff whizzing by; I always feel bombarded and overwhelmed. When I’m not checking it I worry that I’m missing stuff. When I am checking it, I worry because the Important Lit Blogger has ignored my personal tweets, so and so thinks I’m wrong about the existence of God or the price of fish, and all the Super Important Shit I Need to Say requires, like, at least 147 characters. And even when it doesn’t, it feels like I’m pissing in the ocean. I fear that when I finally succumb, Facebook will be even worse. [Did you leave your Ritalin at my house last week? I thought it was you.]

And I don’t have an author website. Do I need one? Can’t I just append my Amazon link to my blog? Hand out flyers on the street? [How about a sandwich board?]I am reluctant to drop $5000 on yet one more thing that requires frantic major screen-time and curation but whose future seems uncertain.

Please understand: this is not about shyness. I am self-hating, sure, but I’m also a narcissist and a shameless self-promoter. [Yeah, yeah.]I really do want the book to succeed. I just wonder if an author has to avail herself of every single social networking tool available to her. Does she have to be ubiquitous? What say you? [As I say in MY FORTHCOMING revision of Forest for the Trees, you don’t need to slap pasties on your tits and dance around a pole to get attention, BUT publishers are expecting authors to be building an audience one way or another. It takes time to build an on-line community just as it does any sort of following such as popular classes, a newspaper readership, radio listenership, etc. If your non-fiction book has a niche market, I would figure out as many ways to reach that market as possible whether it’s through the internet, universities, clubs, religious organizations, etc. Most publishers will cover you on the general publicity push, but you need to reach your niche. As for all the frenzy around websites, blogs, facebook and twitter — if you do one really well, you’re ahead of the game. You also don’t need to spend 5k on a website. If people can reach you through your blog, then you’re covered. Figure out what you’re trying to accomplish and use the best social networking tool to reach the widest audience. And that is my advice. Love, Betsy]

Sincerely,

In Tweetment [Ha ha, I get it.]

Filed under: On-line, Publicity | 19 Comments »