Social Media Malarkey

We all know that things are often easier said than done! After uploading our book a couple of times on Amazon (formatting gremlins doing their rounds like a bad cold), I was pondering what to do next. Apparently, one of the joys of self-publishing, is marketing yourself, something that just may earn me the title of‘Jill-of-all-trades-mistress-of-none.

I can no longer feign indifference to the global phenomenon of staying connected. As if trying to keep up with gizmos and gadgets isn’t bad enough, now I have to wrap my head around ‘humblebragging.’

But so the saying goes, ‘if you can’t beat em, join em!’. I will do my best to swim in the social media foray, and hope to God, it all isn’t malarkey, but maybe a little help in the right direction would be great. Should I be become a Facebooker, join the Twitterati, become a Linkedin-nite, a Googleplus-er or a Pinterest Person?

Only I...

can manage to delete my whole blog from last week.:(...just re-uploaded that!..okay maybe someday I will get the hang of this...on to my second blog before that disappears into cyberspace.

Sage Advice

Ever had the feeling that the more you find on the information highway, the less you know. Okay, that was my five seconds of philosophy.
Anyway, I have a newfound respect for writers, now more so than ever, who get to the end. Writing is as much a joy as reading. You spend endless hours concocting plots and plans and hope to bring your characters to life. And while many authors, seemingly, make it effortless, the truth of the matter is, it is hard work. But as Sam Smith sings (I luv Sam Smith by the way), “I don’t have money on my mind, money on mind…I do it for, I do it for the love…”
So we wrote a book, my co-author and I. So what, you say? What sets your book apart from others?
Well for starters, it is our achievement. And we are proud to have come this far!Whilst it will not be everyone’s cup of tea, it is an achievement nonetheless.
Challenging at times, frustrating at others, but a journey that was thoroughly enjoyable though…well, right up until the time we had to start asking ourselves a zillion questions; Do we self-publish or go the traditional route?  Traditional takes donkey’s years, and then too, you should be lucky if someone gives you the time of day. Right, so self-publish then…grand…now is it going to be Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Smashwords? Printed or e-book. Let’s try e-book for now. Amazon kindle. Are you sure? We both don’t even own kindles. No problem…you can always get the kindle app for your PC, laptop,smartphone, or tablet. Sure, no problem, I am only halfway technologically challenged anyway.
Let’s back up a bit. Should we publish at all? Yes, why not? It has only taken us four and a half years to finish. Is it grammatically correct? Have we crossed all the ‘t’s’ and dotted all the ‘i’s’?  Ran the spellcheck a couple of times. Right then, Pronti, partenza, via (I really don’t know Italian, I just latch on to random things, now and then)!
Where do we even begin? My co-author’s sage advice, “Why don’t you just Google it?”