Middle Grade Mondays
MORE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
By Natalie Bright
At this year’s Oklahoma Writer’s Federation conference in Oklahoma City, I attended a very informative session by C.Hope Clark, blogger and author.
RECOGNIZING OPPORTUNITY
C. Hope Clark [fundsforwriters.com] encouraged us to take advantage of all opportunities. As a writer, you may want to establish brands in various venues. She said, “Become a person who is reachable; become a personality.” Her fundsforwriters blog has around 43,000 weekly visitors, which was not her first goal. She began with the idea of writing mystery novels, and by being receptive to the opportunities around her, she successfully developed an invaluable and popular resource for writers.
POLITCIS AND RELIGION
Social media reaches a world wide audience. If you’re an active blogger and tweeter, most likely you have followers from all socio backgrounds and everyone these days has a political opinion. Besides political leanings, more than likely, you have readers who are atheists, wiccans, Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics. As a personality, trying to sell your book to as many readers as possible, why would you want to offend anyone?
Clark does not want to offend anyone, politics and religion are prohibited topics on her blogs, and any controversial comments are deleted.
BIG, BAD and BOLD
On the other side of the issues, you may want the attention. Clark noted that if you do want to be deluged with controversial comments and the arguments don’t bother you, then you should declare your position loudly. If you’re going to say it, say it loud, say it bad, and say it bold. And don’t be offended at the results.
PASSIONATE ABOUT PLATFORM
Clark reiterated the need for consistency when using social media. The most important place to start is:
- blog
The second next most important thing you can do is to include your full name in comments on other people’s blog. Remember why we’re doing this in the first place; “don’t rush the book”, she said. As we’re writing the best possible book ever, we can be quietly and consistently building our platform.
Ms. Clark said, “Don’t just be a writer like every other person that’s out there. Recognize opportunity when it knocks on the door.”
Natalie Bright
Wordsmith Six 