Adventures in Self Publishing - Facebook

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I know social media is a huge part of getting the word out about my book, but it can be very overwhelming. There are so many social outlets, it would literally take a full time staff to keep up with everything out there. I have limited my exposure to Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

I have had a Facebook account for some time now thanks to my loving sister. I have to admit I was not happy about it at first, but it grew on me. Facebook is a good way to keep in touch with friends and relatives I don’t get to see very often. It’s nice to hear about what’s going on in their lives when we live so far apart. Facebook has always been a very personal place for me, and I have only accepted friend requests from friends and family.

With the publication of my book, my author buddy Tom introduced me to the #BNFF group on Facebook. This group is made up of an amazing bunch of authors who welcomed me with open arms. They understood the characters scratching to get out of my head, the late night writing sessions, the single-minded drive to finish. They also struggled with writer’s block, family issues, work responsibilities, and self promotion. I didn’t feel so crazy or alone in this process. If you haven’t found a close knit group of authors to talk to, I would highly recommend it. Soon, they started sending me friend requests. I didn’t see a problem with that. They are a great bunch of people I am honored to call friends.

However, I still wanted to keep my Facebook account personal. I know many people use this as another way to promote their book. I made an author page (I can’t say Fan Page, it makes me giggle) for people to “Like,” and I post information about my book there. I knew eventually people would find me. Sure enough I started getting friend requests from other authors outside of the #BNFF group and random people from Twitter. I panicked. I’m a private person, and I didn’t want these people I barely knew to see pictures of my niece’s birthday party. Honestly, why would they want to? Facebook is a place for me to be myself, chat with family and friends and not have to worry about pushing my book.

I know several authors have multiple Facebook accounts which I will have to consider for myself. The problem is time. If I barely have enough time to do one Facebook account, how can I manage two? Facebook and Twitter alone take up most of the time I have allotted for book promotion. I have a Goodreads account, but I’m rarely able to look at it or keep it up to date. I read a blog recently where the woman said that if you are putting yourself out there to promote a book, blog, etc. then you have to get passed any misgivings you may have about being approached online. You have to let people get to know you. I’m working on it.