Social Disease

One of the many things… I credit my agent with is pushing me early into developing a social media “platform”, or at least the initial planks of one, not long after she took me on. I started this blog, got a Twitter account, and eventually supplemented that with a Goodreads account and (now) a Facebook author’s page. The reality is in modern publishing, you have to be willing to carry your own banner – get out there and market yourself. I think for those writers predisposed for that sort of thing, social media is a wonderful tool. For the rest of us, it’s something of a necessary evil.

There was a period of time  when I first started writing again where I existed in blissful ignorance. I focused on nothing but writing, because there was nothing else to focus on. But as I pushed past my boundaries (and sought help and advice for querying), and slowly became more exposed to the writing community in general, I was inundated with everyone’s agent and book deals and book signings and blog tours. And these are all wonderful things – but I also found myself distracted by them as well. Instead of  pouring all of my energy into my writing craft, I started worrying about my writing success. Clearly every career is not a race and comparison is useless, but I don’t think my experience is unique. We all want to be successful, we all want our books to take flight, but they have to earn their wings first, and that requires all the hard work of just getting that damn novel done to begin with.That can be hard to do if you’re spending too much time worrying about what you’re doing, and comparing yourself too much with everything you’re not.

So I made sure I kept a tight leash on the social media monster – I never checked anything, blogged anything, or posted anything until my writing was done for the day, and it’s still a rule I adhere to today.  This allows me to focus on my work, and then truly enjoy and share the work and success of others. Properly used, all of these social media outlets are fantastic venues for promotion, and I think (more importantly) for connecting with other writers – I’m glad they all exist and I’ve made use of all them and will continue to do so. They are a fact of publishing today. But as a writer, remember that the book is the most important thing – more than the blog post, more than 140 characters of Twitter witticism, more than your Goodreads suggestions. The platform matters when the pages are done.