Self-promotion & Networking

New Technologies

Websites can be expensive and their results can be very variable. Many writers fear that an online presence can be time-consuming and very costly. Up until fairly recently, it was certainly true that an online presence incurred a financial gamble – websites were once the only way to promote yourself and your work in hyperspace. But the rise of new technologies, such as blogs and the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace, has meant that writers can now self-promote for free.

Blogging

‘Blog’ is an abbreviation of ‘weblog’. The blog is an online publishing platform that enables a writer to do everything from maintaining a journal to posting details of events or readings, from actually publishing work or some extracts of work in progress online to plugging your latest book – or, very often, a combination of all of these things. It provides the opportunity to connect with others and build a community through links to your favourite blogs and websites. You can use blogs as an individual or you can share the management and editing of a blog with others (a particularly useful tool for writers groups or organisations to share news, information and work). You can make your blog public (and available to be searched for on the net and read by anyone) or limit access to a group of selected individuals. Blogs allow comment, too, and you can set moderation, which will enable you to approve comments before they are published.

The two most popular free blog hosts in the UK are Blogger and Wordpress. Both allow you to upload images, and post youtube and other media clips. And you can choose and customise templates, fonts and backgrounds, too – at the touch of a button. The good news is you won’t need to be tech-savvy to set up and maintain a blog – it’s easy and requires no IT know-how whatsoever. Even better, by setting up a blog you’ve achieved a web presence at no cost – and one that you can edit, delete or add content to within a matter of minutes. Sitemeter is a great, free add-on tracker tool, which will enable you to view the number of visitors to your blog by day, week and month, and allow you to view peak times for visitors. You’ll also be able to see where in the world your visitors are based.

From its modest beginnings, blogging has become a genre of writing in itself, so much so that there are now even awards honouring the best blogs around, and some blogs have even won their authors book deals. Elite bloggers are highly influential and attract large, loyal audiences. Many companies, organisations and individuals now maintain blogs to keep readers up to date with their views, activities and events.

Blogging has come some way since its early days, with the top bloggers on the web attracting literally thousands and thousands of readers every day. Some elite bloggers, such as Julie Powell or the infamous Belle de Jour, have even landed book deals. Publishers like Picador have even got in on the act by incorporating blogging by their authors on their sites. Many magazines such as Mslexia and New Welsh Review now maintain an editor’s blog as a great way to keep in touch with their existing readership and to develop their audience still further.

If you decide to create a blog to promote you and your work, and to share views and information, do remember that blogs – unless they are set to limited access – can be viewed by anyone who happens upon them. A surprisingly large number of users forget that they are being watched. Think twice before posting information or opinion you would be uncomfortable sharing with strangers in the ‘non-virtual’ world.

Value of blogs

Debate still lingers in the literary community about the value and purpose of blogs. The blog is not without its detractors. Some writers claim that blogs simply offer writing for free and therefore actually work against the writer’s best interests. And, if you want to attract a good and consistent audience, they can be time-consuming and demand commitment – you’ll need to offer regular updates and lively material to keep visitors coming back for more and to increase your traffic. But many writers swear by them and report a significant upsurge in their profile and sales as a result. After all, the blog is a marketing tool in the most direct sense, offering a platform for your writing to an interested and potentially large audience. If you are prepared to put in the effort, a blog can provide you with a positive presence and can connect you with others. It can also be great fun.

Facebook and MySpace

Social Networking Sites such as MySpace and Facebook were, until fairly recently, largely dominated by teens and students. But they have since become genuinely popular across a wide range of ages and with people from all walks of life. While many continue to use them to connect with families, maintain friendships or to catch up with old friends or colleagues, they are being increasingly used to establish and develop business relationships and contacts.

For both writers and publishers MySpace and Facebook are an invaluable way to network, share news, develop a profile and market work. Registration is free and simple. You set up your profile page, which will enable you to upload pictures and some information about yourself and what you do, and begin seeking out friends and acquaintances on the site to connect with. As your friends network develops, you’ll find that you begin to connect with other like-minded individuals or organisations – some on the other side of the world. The more ‘friends’ you connect with, the more you are likely to connect with again.

Facebook has latterly taken the edge over MySpace (which still remains nonetheless the favourite of bands and musicians, partly due to the ease with which media can be distributed on the site). No doubt Facebook’s great games and novelty greetings have played their part in its rise in popularity. But practical features, such as the ability to create and join groups and the ‘People You May Know’ tool, which lets you easily identify friends of friends within your social network, has increased information sharing and the simplicity with which contacts are developed on the Facebook platform. Writers and book publishers – particularly the independents – have recently developed a significant presence on Facebook, with new profiles and groups being set up all the time. Facebook allows writers and publishers to send out invitations to launches, readings, to post youtube clips from events and even set up Fan pages.

A presence on social networking sites is a great way to become part of a potentially vast virtual community and stay in the current. But social networking sites are not without risks to privacy and security. As with any presence online, you should be guarded in the amount of information you share with people you don’t know well. Recent controversy over the amount of personal information available on Facebook and MySpace, which may potentially be used for fraud or even for intimidation, has meant that both sites have improved privacy controls. You should read information available on these sites about how to protect your privacy very carefully and take the appropriate measures.