“You
have to,” my friend told me, when I explained that I found all the networking
difficult. “You have to put yourself out there, and connect with your readers.”
“Won’t
an advertisement about my book do?”
“No.
People want to know about you, and what makes you tick.”
“Who
are these people who want to know about me even before knowing about my
existence? I am practically unknown.”
“That’s
your fault. The least you could have done was to have your own blog.”
“What will I blog about?”
“Anything.
There are any number of things you can write about. You could start with your
secret recipe of prawn curry.”
I
knew this was my friend’s way of getting at the recipe which was guarded by my
family like a state secret.
“I
write for children, for middle graders. How will a food blog sell books?”
“Mommies
are fond of food blogs and mommies decide what their children should read.”
What
my friend said seemed logical but I was not keen on blogging, it would eat into
my writing time, and I wanted to make up for the twenty-six years when I had
not been able to write because of my day job.
“Join
a book forum,” my friend suggested. “You love books, and you love discussing
about them.”
“But
I can’t discuss my own books!”
“They
usually have a folder for self-promotion.”
Three
months later I told my friend, “It isn’t working. I have posted in more than
ten groups but haven’t made a sale.”
“Just
posted? You should take part in the discussions, contribute, and network. No
group likes people who only peep in to wave a poster.”
I
grumbled, “No group wants authors. Just look at the names of the folders!
Shameless Self- Promotion! Pimp your Stuff! They should welcome us because the
relationship between a writer and a reader is symbiotic.”
“You
are a struggling writer, not a writer. You are like a salesman with a new
product so you should hawk your wares. You should be on facebook, twitter, Google+,
etc.”
Convinced,
I started posting and tweeting about my books, myself, and my cat. My friend
had a huge following and he helped me build one too. My posts spread like
ripples.
A
month later, when I was going through the latest tweets, my friend dropped in.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Checking
to see which ones to retweet.”
“Are
you reading them? You don’t have to. Just retweet and spread the word.”
“Don’t
you read the tweets?”
“A
few. I just retweet most of them. That is what everyone does.”
If
what my friend said was true, most of the social networking I had done had
ended up as statistics. The number of ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ were just numbers.
But my sales had shown some improvement, I’d made some new friends and had had
some good laughs. And the pundits swear by it.
My
book, Cinderella’s Escape, is
free on all Amazon stores on 5th, 6th, and 7th September, 2014. Please share,
re-tweet this post.
Author Pages:
Author Pages:
Gita V. Reddy is a
writer of fiction for children and adults. She enjoys thinking up tales of
different genres. She has written mysteries, adventure, science fiction and
even an animal tale for childrens.
Ms Reddy was born in
India, is a post graduate in Mathematics, is married to a physics professor,
has a son doing research in neuro-electronics and loves literature!
Her other interests are painting and writing poetry.
