Using Social Media? Be Subtle!

by Marsha Ward

Life for a writer is not a bowl of roses. We work hard to do what we do, whether it is writing poems to share; journaling; writing for magazines, newspapers, newsletters, or other non-fiction short-form endeavors; or writing short stories, novellas, or novels.

If we seek commercial publication of long-form works, whether non-fiction or fiction, traditionally published or done independently, we all have to let folks know we have a product to offer. We used to send out postcards, flyers, and letters to a list of readers, libraries, or bookstores. The Internet has made contacting people both easier and harder.

Social media is wonderful for making friends and attracting new readers. That's the easy part. The hard part is not bashing our "Friends" over the head with our products.

I have several acquaintances among my contacts in the wide world of writers and authors who do a stunningly successful job of walking the tightrope between letting folks know about their works and overkill. Unfortunately, I'm noticing some of my acquaintances who are not doing so well at being subtle.

Ask yourself when you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media venues: Is every post, every tweet about your book/novel/novella/review/etc?

Oooo, I hope not.

The etiquette of social media asks that you give four things that are not connected to you and your work to every one thing that promotes you. Do you retweet interesting tweets from others? Do you Share at that same ratio on Facebook? I'm not as involved on LinkedIn, but the same thing applies.

I'm not saying you have to keep a spreadsheet and be rigorously counting your social exchanges. I'm saying, don't make your interactions all about you. Because, you know, those aren't interactions at all. They are head-thumping promotions that are very likely to turn off your audience instead of build sales.

The way to use social media to gain an audience is to be a person, a genuine, real, living, breathing human being who is interesting and maybe does something besides write and sell books. Don't be the person who makes others cringe or hide your posts, or even worse, unfriend or unfollow you because you are using a baseball bat on them all the time. Be a friend on social media. Be approachable. Be a person.

A Scorpion Saga

by Kari Pike
...just in case you missed the drama on Facebook:

Chapter 1: Stupid scorpion. ouch. ouch. ouch....did I say ouch? Got stung on the side of my foot while I was in the garage. I washed the site and now am icing it. My tongue is tingling already ( 8 minutes later). It's gonna be a long night folks. And now when I try to drink my water, it feels like I have pieces of food stuck in my throat. My face is burning and I feel like a balloon is blowing up in my head. Nurse with the insurance company said to call 911. I don't want to scare the grandkids and since the hospital is just a mile away, Doug can get me there faster than the paramdics can get here.

Chapter 2: Well I'm home. In bed. Evidently I am having an allergic reaction to the scorpion venom. Secondary crossover reaction. By the time the ER doctor started the benedryl and morphine, my other foot and my hands went numb. It appears that the buggar got me twice.Entire body affected. Just typing this feels like I'm  touching a live wire. The pain in my feet is so intense, I can't walk. I can't even wear socks. But I was given pain meds, along with benedryl, zofran, and valium. So tired now. Good night all. Thanks for your prayers 

Chapter 3: Good news...my laptop has recovered. Sadly, I'm too loopy to really accopmplish anything with it. I keep falling asleep in the middle of typing and reading. More good news: the "walking on red hot needles" sensation has toned down to a "walking on a toothpicks" kind of thing. My face is more itchy than tingly and the sensation of "licking a 9-volt battery" is nearly gone from my tongue. And I can swallow without feeling like I have half of meal stuck in my thoat. Not much of an appetite though. I've decided to write down everything I feel, taste, etc..so that I can use this experience to torture one of my characters. I mean, teach one of my characters. ha! I wish we had taken a picture of that scorpion.

Stupid scorpion story: Chapter 4: Wherein Kari can walk unaided, albeit crookedly, into the doctor's office. The elevated temperature explains why she feels like something she stepped in at the park. She gives up trying to be tough and uses the meds they sent her home with. She watches a mind numbing movie on Netflix until the meds kick in. She dreams of chocolate... 

To be continued... 

Parked Vans and Participles

By H. Linn Murphy

I go running or walking on those mornings that I have to drive kids to Seminary. There's a nice park right next to the stake center which is a mile around. Basically I know that park well enough that I can read while I walk, which I do.

At certain intervals there are speed bumps. If I am not careful, I trip on those speed bumps, especially if I'm running and trying to read at the same time, or looking up to avoid low-hanging bows or watching birds. I'm running along enjoying the flight of a Cooper's hawk and BANG! I go down like a ton of hippopotamus. Once I was reading and ran right into a parked van. The dent from the rear view mirror hurt for hours.

The same thing happens when I'm reading a book and I come to phrases like this: I like him to. He's just to nice to be doing things like that. Three books in a roe, now, have had such a problem. Their just to annoying too mention.

People who don't take the time too learn their craft annoy the hick out of me. Tripping over misused words takes me right out of the story just like hitting a van can take a person out of conscientousness. Some of the worst offenders are their, they're, and there; your and you're; to, too, and two; by and buy; its and it's. Its time to learn the difrense.

Also their are the colostomy words people toss into the mix that they don't really know and are the wrong word and have a differential meaning than the one they warranted. When I want to use a word I'm not exponentially insurred of, I either use the humunculous bug-killer dictionary next to my elbow, or I foreclose the word. Misusing it makes a writer look moronical.

Speling words incorectly also trips the reeder. Not all words are cot by the spellchecker. Some are actully words so they don't tripe the sencor.

Awhile ago I red a book who clammed to have been editted. I could find no evidense of editting at all. I could only get threw the first chapter, and thats because I had traded books with a freind. After that I put the book avast foerever.

A writer generally spends at least some money getting there book published, whether it be in actual momentary units, or in time spent both writing, editing, querying, hunting down a publisher/agent, possibly getting an illustrater, and marketing. Why waist everyone's time producing a book with obvious flaws which using a good editor/Beta reader could have illuminated?

Take some pride in your work. Hone it by constant study.

The reason I say 'constant' is this: My father was a German/English teacher. The way he taught me to write isn't necessarily the way we write currently. If I were going to write this sentence in Dad's English, I'd use the word 'were'. Today it's if I was going to write. There are a plethora of other ways in which our language has morphed over time, so old English books may not help very much.

Just as a jewler learns how to correctly cut jems so as to procure the best gem possibly, so to a rider needs to learn how to enginere a ritten work so that readers will wnat to by the book and reed it.

Lern you're craft.

Walking Backwards

One day, I was delivering the mail out in the old part of Mesa, and I watched as a very large dog, CLIMBED up a six foot fence and jumped down to the other side not 10 feet away from where I was standing. Now, if I have learned one thing about dogs, it is that you NEVER run away. Once you turn your backside to them, you give them a pretty big target and they just can't seem to say no! :-)
Anyway, this dog ran up to me snarling, barking, growling and snapping. I had taken out my dog spray when he was on his way over the top of the fence, so I guess you could say that I was as ready for him as I was going to get. I started spraying the dog right in his face. Most dogs don't like this. The spray is a cayenne pepper in an oil base and it can sting and burn in the dog's eyes, but doesn't do any lasting harm. I sprayed the dog, he shook his head hard back and forth, (still growling and snapping), licked his lips and came at me again.
In the meantime, I had turned myself with my back in the direction I needed to go and had backed up a couple of steps toward the end of the block and the safety of my vehicle. He came at me again, I sprayed him in the face, I backed up, and we repeated the process. I used an entire can of spray on the dog and most of the second can. Suddenly, I reached a place that must have had some kind of an invisible line in his mind. He quit growling and snapping, turned around and trotted back toward home. I looked around me and realized that I was 1 1/2 blocks from where we started this fiasco. I was safe at last.
Once upon a time, many years ago, I used to be a mailman. Yep, that is right. A real, live, honest to goodness, mailman. (It is a title that everyone gets who carries the mail). Anyway, I have to admit, one of the most difficult things I faced were not the people, but their dogs. I have decided that I am not a dog person. I like them when they are little. I like them when they are nice.  I am not too fond of them when they are vicious, mean, or just plain mad.

I have found in my life that nearly all the troubles I face are like this one, silly dog! You really can't turn around and run (troubles have a way of biting you in the rear if you do!). You probably won't find any extra help just waiting there to help you along and you have to face the problem or trial head on, armed with whatever weapons you have been given. Sometimes it is the scriptures, sometimes it is a book or a talk or an article in the ensign. Sometimes the weapon can be good advice, the love of friends, or answers to prayer. But you still have to face the trial and get through it.
I find that I don't always want to go through my trials.  I would like to give up.  I am weak and often afraid.  I want to cry and murmur and complain. But I know, that if I can just persevere through the trial, there will come a point where I will find myself on the other side and the trial will be walking off into the distance at last.
Trails can feel a lot like that one dog attack did, but I have learned, if we can just work through it, even if we feel like we are going backwards, we will cover the distance and arrive home, safe at last.   Everyone has trials. It is not the trial that breaks us in the end. It is how we have endured it, what have we learned from it, and how it has changed us that matters. It is learning to face it, come what may, and live the life we have promised to live.  In spite of the dogs that just might get in our way.