Q. Do You Think Social Media Matters to Writers?

A. I did not, initially, find the prospect of joining social media innately appealing.  Do not mistake me for shy or insecure because I’m not, but I am rather private and low-key.  I’m the sort of girl who’d rather hang out with a friend on the couch than dress up and go to a party, and social media looked like a party of strangers.  Besides, I was busy writing, and I hadn’t considered that interacting socially with new people online might be worthwhile.

It turns out it is worthwhile, even delightful, especially when you find ways to interact that suit you.  Personality matters when a writer considers what to do with social media because you can stretch yourself, or burn out, or invent a natural fit.  In each case, you start as a non-entity and then convey some of your real personality through a series of interactions over time.  A careful, thoughtful person is not going to blossom into a wit of extemporaneous charm, even if she wants to, but that’s fine.  We’re drawn to unique voices.

It’s sort of funny to be writing this because I’m hardly a big online presence, but still, I do have a few ideas I can pass along to others considering starting up, ideas that would have been reassuring to me to know when I did.  I think there’s a misconception among new writers that you need to jump in fast, hard, and early, or you’ll be doomed to oblivion and your book will have dismal sales.  I think what matters is the quality of your book, and social media should never come before that. It helps to be realistic about how much you want to do and what you have to contribute.  As in everything else, it helps to be real.

For my purposes, I consider social media to be any place where a writer can interact publicly with others online.  For me, that means Goodreads, Facebook, my blog, and Twitter.  Other venues certainly exist, too, but that’s all I can keep track of.  A little of it I started before Birthmarked was released, but most of it kicked in well after.

I joined Goodreads ages ago as a reader with a private page listing my collection of favorite books, so it was fairly easy to convert my page there into a public one as an author after I sold Birthmarked.  Goodreads makes it easy to find fellow like-minded readers, run giveaways, arrange an author chat, and cross-post my blog.  It also gives readers an easy way to post reviews and ratings, and to send me a line.  It’s a no-pressure community of readers I can drop into casually and effortlessly.

Facebook was a little trickier for me because the whole accepting-friends business just felt weird to me.  Still does, frankly.  My daughter set me up with a page as a writer (as opposed to a profile as a private person) where people could “like” me, and it was a relief because a line was clearly drawn.  My sister had been bugging me to talk more about my writing stuff but I’d been reluctant to bore my friends and family with details.  Now, with a writer page, I had a place to do that and people could tune in or not as they chose.  It also gave me a place where I could interact with former students, which I’d been unwilling to do on my private Facebook profile, so the writer page connected me both to kind readers I’d never met and people I already cared for.  Like Goodreads, it’s easy and fans seem to feel comfortable popping in when they want to talk. This morning, someone posted that she has Prized and I squealed.

My blog came next.  Last summer, several months after the release of my book, my persuasive agent convinced me to start blogging to provide a bridge between Birthmarked and the sequel.  He pointed out that readers, especially YA readers, would look online for more about me and Birthmarked, and fresh information would feed their interest.  When I argued that nobody cared about what was cooking on the back of my stove, he said I could write tie-in stories and bits about the world of Birthmarked.  That interested me.  I agreed to experiment with two posts a week for two months.  By the end, I found I liked thinking about characters at different ages.  For posts about writing, I liked stepping back from what I do to think about the process.  Even the challenge of adding images appealed to me and influenced how I thought as I wrote.  In short, I gained personally from blogging, and it turned out my agent was right because visitors do drop by.  When they email me, I get a sense that they’ve connected with me because of what I’ve written.

My most recent venture has been into Twitter, which I find pretty goofy.  Besides getting NPR headlines there, I’ve lurked at a couple #yalitchats, impressed by how generous that free-flowing community of writers is.  I’ve found my fellow writer friends on Twitter and laugh at their posts. When my editor Nancy Mercado posts a link, it’s often worth the side trip (Twitter tips), and through Twitter, I’ve connected with two other writers who also work with Nan.  They’re like my cool half-cousins.  Regardless if it’s Goodreads, Twitter or whatever, the vehicle doesn’t really matter because it ends up being about the people.

Does any of it make any difference?  Of course it does.  I may write my books in isolation, but I am part of a far-flung community and I have much to learn.  Being connected increases my serendipitous chances of discovering lovely or disturbing new things.  Best of all, I realize I’ve gradually been building friendships with people who matter to me, and that’s making me a better friend and a better writer.