social media | Breezy Books

My internet and social media headache continues, but I’m making progress.

My husband is my hero when it comes to computers. No matter what problem I seem to be having, he can always solve it – 100% of the time. When he says, “There you go,” I always smile and say, “You’re my hero!”

But I’ve tried to handle everything with my books by myself. I fought for a week with a new web design program and thought I would never figure it out, but I did. If I could have reached around to pat myself on the back when I managed to figure out the settings to actually send the web page up to my ISP, I would have. That was always hubby’s department in the past, and it was completely foreign to me.

I finally figured out I had to make a personal page on Facebook before they would allow me to have the business page for my books. I’m getting the hang of actually writing something on the page now. I have a whopping seven likes.

I listed my books at Goodreads. They are swallowed up over there, but I don’t have time to do anything about that yet. At least they are there.

I finally made one little tweet on Twitter. Twitter is probably last on my list of social media to conquer.

Yesterday, it only took a little over three hours to figure out how to put a Like button on my web page. No kidding. I made hubby look over my shoulder several times because I was struggling, but every time he offered to help, I said, “No, I’ll figure it out.” How hard can it be to drop some code into a program that specifically says, “Add Code Here.” He ran off to Lowe’s to do some shopping, and I was finally able to send a text to him which read, “By Jove! I think I’ve got it!” And I did. Stupid little button.

I even secured my own PayPal account this weekend. I can stop using my husband’s. I feel like such a grownup now.

So, I have a feeling of accomplishment today. Little by little, I’m learning and getting things done. I’ll eventually figure out how to use social media to help me with my books. In the meantime, I’ll just keep trying to do things myself, and see where it takes me.

My Website – Breezy Books

My Facebook Page

My one little tweet on Twitter

Goodreads

At least it did for a week.

I never had time for Facebook or Twitter. I was busy from morning ‘til night, and although I did my fair share of surfing and reading random things online, to actually devote time to something that might require minute by minute attention was too much for me.

Then I became an author. The general consensus for marketing your book online is social media. I set up a Twitter account and started searching hashtags for like-minded people who might be interested in reading something considered a beach read – a book you take to the beach for an easy, breezy, read.

I was quickly overwhelmed. I saw authors who seemed to tweet for hours at a time, readers who couldn’t possibly have time to read because they were tweeting all day, and massive amounts of people creating a cacophony of words across the tweetscape. It was like going down the rabbit hole.

I still haven’t made a single tweet. I did learn something new while I was hanging around there. I ran into an editor who tweeted about words that drive editors batty. “That” being one of them. It made me laugh – really laugh. When I thought I needed extra word count, “that” was one of the words I thought would work well for filler. We use it so often in our own speech, so I thought it would sound natural. Now that I know, I’ve tried to use it more judiciously.

Some of the other words she shared were: just, really, very, so, immediately, suddenly, oh, anyway, little, bit, then, only, and look. This may be writing 101 to many people, but since I’ve never taken that course, it was good to know.

Facebook was next on the list. I set up my page, but really didn’t know what to do with it. I made a few likes here and there, added information about my books, and tried to think of something to say. This was going nowhere fast. I realized I’m a dolt when it comes to social media.

So many of my writing ideas pop into my head at the most absurd times of day, and that’s how my blog came to be. I didn’t want to blog. I’m actually a private person, and I don’t want people to know about my personal life, but the idea showed up one day, and it was kind of a loud thought. I searched for reviews on blog sites, and WordPress came up often. I put it off for a couple of days, but the noise was still in my head. Being an author is new to me, and I really did want to chronicle the adventure, so I gave in and joined the WordPress community.

I told my family I was blogging because it was all the social media I could manage at this time. It brought laughter and more head shaking. Will I be embarrassing them? You bet I will.