So I'm at the point where I think my
novel's ready enough to start sending out, and I actually got up the
nerve to send to the first agent.
Meanwhile I'm reading as much advice
as I can on marketing. Most agents these days want you to have a
"platform" already. Meaning you should have a gazillion
folks who read your blog, have crazy numbers of friends on Facebook.
A roiling mob just waiting to buy your book the moment it's
published.
And as part of that you're supposed to
tweet.
Now, I used to consider myself a geek.
I fixed some major issues on my PC Junior (yeah that's how old I am)
just by reading the technical manual. It was only my second day of
even owning a computer. It was a weekend and tech support was closed,
and my only buddy who knew anything about computers was out of town.
So I got myself a glass of chardonnay and dug into the 1000 or so
page manual and...wow, hours later I had a running computer again.
Since then I've learned HTML, CSS,
even some minor PHP programming, and a few other acronyms. I've built
and run websites, learned to focus on keywords and stuff in the
Header text. Recently I've started a blog or four and even accosted
the dreaded Facebook.
But this Twitter thing is beyond the
scope of my understanding, and I can't figure out how I'm supposed to
use it. I must be getting old.
So here are some of the questions I
have:
Do I have to use a phone? Out here in
the middle of nowhere I don't have cell access. There seems to be a
website, so can I just do it on my computer?
I'm terrified of info overload. Right
now I spend time working on my blog (even when it's fun) or posting
to Facebook when I should be working on my story. It feels like
Twitter will just quintuple the problem.
Really, seriously, I don't want to
know that you had Cheerios instead of Wheaties for breakfast. I don't
need the excruciating details of your conversation with Mom about
your third romantic breakup of the week. (Unless it gives me good
dialogue for my next scene.) I certainly don't want to know about
your latest wet fart. And if you tell me you're bored I'm liable to
take a lesson from MY mom and assign you homework.
It's not that I don't care about you.
As a High Priestess and counselor I spend a huge part of my time
listening and counseling and caring. But I have a farm to run, 8
critters and a hubby to tend to, students that need my time, and my
own writing. Somehow I don't think your latest mental bowel movement
matters.
Maybe I've got the whole idea wrong.
Maybe Twitter isn't like that? Why does everything suggest it is
then?
How can I narrow down my field of
input so that I get the tweets that are interesting and important,
and weed out the everyday nonsense that I don't care about? Can I
edit the input?
Where do I find the feeds that I truly
want to be a part of?
So I don't want to be a "twit"
and I don't want to be the old-fogey I'm starting to feel like. How
do I become a Twitter marketing genius instead?
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