Good morning from the shed. I recommend a shed.

Dear GWB-ers,
Many writers of all ages are aghast at the idea that not only do we have write a book, we also have to use social media to promote and sell it. Just when we thought we could sit down with a nice cup of tea, a biscuit, and possibly even the tiniest bit of self-congratulation, there turns out to be a whole new world to be conquered. And it’s a new world full of jargon, conventions and more tricky etiquette than the court of Louis XIV.

But I bring comfort. I have looked into this a little, and although you won’t hear many people say this, content marketing – it seems this is the term for using social media to promote your book/play/range of fetching teatowels – is a doddle, once you get the hang of it. (I’m not saying I have got the hang of it yet, but I’m doing what I recommend to all, I’m having a go.)

There is a natural progress that anyone born around the middle of the last century has to go through in order to see what I mean. It goes:
1 Ridicule and wry scepticism: What on earth do people want to do a thing like that for? Who cares what sort of coffee you like, or whether you are visiting an Inca monument or stuck on the 7.12 between Holburn and King’s Cross?
2 Grudging curiosity: You get a following of 50,000 people when all you seem to do is tweet pictures of your kittens, or your legs looking a bit like hot dogs? Why?
3 Outright cynicism: there will always be idiots in this world with nothing better to do than re-tweet pictures of people whose underwear misbehaves at a crucial moment; I am not one of them!
5 Defeatism: even if I fancied having a go, it’s all too techie and I could never get the hang of it.
6 Blundering into the deep end of technology: I have just spend three hours reading about search engine optimisation; I still don’t know what any of it means, but I’m pretty sure it means I’m not up to any of this.
7 Secretive experimentation: actually, I did tweet a picture of my newly-invented marrow and salmon lasagne last night, but my followers are mostly in Richmond, Ohio or New Delhi, so if I did it wrong, they’re not very likely to accost me in the queue in the Post Office.
8 Overt adoption blending into bossy evangelism: Oh come on, Celia, anyone can tweet their blog posts!

I’m closer to 8 now, thanks to a real, live, Californian e-marketing expert called Michael Newman. His blog is here, if you want a look. What Michael explained, in the consultation I shared with other authors, was this: if you can write, you are head and shoulders above the other poor saps who are trying to market their stuff on the internet. If you can write, you can put together a blog post, a tweet or a Facebook post, whichever you fancy, and it will have a decent chance of sounding right and attracting the right readers. If you can’t write for toffee, you’re going to find this lots harder.

His other tip was this: do what you feel like doing on the social media scene. Maybe you like Facebook, or hate Instagram or fancy a go at blogging. Try them all, but stick to what feels best for you and set to work properly on that. Experiment; take your time. You should aim to create an online presence (a platform, in the jargon) which truly represents you, your book and your take on things. It should do this so well that you like it, you are at home with it, it’s fun to add to it and you like the views of the people who share it. The best social media posts reflect one person’s view. They may be aiming to sell you something, but they’re entertaining or informing you at the same time, which feels like a fair deal.

“If it feels like selling, you’re not doing it right!” (Nick Cook, author of Cloud Riders, who has a big Twitter following)

Social media, I think, is difficult for generations who were brought up on the “Sunday best” philosophy. You had china and clothes and shoes that were only for best and when company was coming round, you were on your best behaviour. Quirkiness was not really encouraged. In social media it is. Forget your best behaviour; keep up your standards (check your spelling, keep an eye on that grammar, choose photos that look good), but it doesn’t have to be slick or over-professional, it just has to be interesting and in some way genuine. It shouldn’t feel like being inspected in your Sunday best; it should feel like playing with your friends.

Keep on writing!

Fran

Next time: How to get help (free help, obviously).