A post about establishing your "brand" on social media

[coneycat]

Courtesy of the Friday list of jongibbs, Here is author Maureen Johnson explaining that she is not a brand, dammit! She is a person! And so are you! Even on the Internet!This is a delightful post, and if nothing else it reassures me on a point I once wondered if I should worry about: if I ever get published, should I actually create an "author blog" or

Comments

[green_knight]

I think that there's a point where 'thinking about your brand' is useful - when you consider which face you want to present to someone who is new to your twitterstream or blog. In-depth discussions of your genital warts? Txtspeak? (I cringed at writing _arent_ in a tweet the other day, but honest, it was the only way.)

But self-promotion? Does not work, at least not in fiction. (I hope a special circle in hell is reserved for agents who tell non-fiction authors that they need a platform in order to write a book. Publishers buy books form platform-less writers all the time, but agents seem to be very keen on people who bring an in-built number of customers with them. I can kind-of see it from a quick profit standpoint, but I don't think it's a good long-term strategy, and I don't think it produces the best books, either.)

I've defriended one person (who often has interesting and thoughtprovoking things to say) because they see LJ as a means of gaining potential customers. I'm here to to make friends and hang out with fun people. My friends don't constantly say 'buy my things' and I don't constantly say to my friends 'buy my things' because that's not what friendships are about. If I'm treated as a customer by a writer - particularly as a stupid one who hasn't yet understood how great the product is and how much I need it - I don't want to talk to them: I don't pay my internet fees to be advertised at.