Linkedin? To What?

I signed up for LinkedIn at least four years ago.  I find it cumbersome and intrusive.  It was the first social media to initiate contacts for which I saw no relativity to me or my work.  IMO, it is just plain user unfriendly.  Perhaps they’ve improved it, and I’ll go back to look again, but I have not liked LinkedIn up to this time

To Tweet Or Not to Tweet?

I haven’t tried Twitter.  I am addicted to Facebookl Twitter scares me.  The thought of learning a whole new way to interact online  — it would just be something else to keep me from doing what I want to do when I sit at the computer.  Plus, I don’t have a smart phone; don’t you need that? I mean, to get any good out of it?  I was happy just to get a phone with a qwerty keyboard 2.5 years ago! 

As instructed for those who don’t Tweet, I went to the website, but there this leg of the journey ended, because you have to sign up, before you can browse.  Nope.  I’ll wait.  I only this morning found out I can search for ‘authors’ on FB.  Think I’ll learn my way around that first!

But thanks for enticing me. 

Blogging by Experience

My blog is titled:  bibliotherapy4adoption.wordpress.com.  I retired from infant adoption agency work in 2008 and started the blog in June, 2010.  I post my reviews of adoption related books, movies and television programs.  I have so far written when the mood strikes but I want to blog more frequently as a result of a blog challenge!  I keep a list of subjects I plan to write on if / when things are slow.

Initially, I double-posted my blog on FaceBook, but comments in FB unfortunately do not appear on the blog.  My favorite post (and the one that garnered the most responses) was “In a Fog. . .”  about a dream I’d had that left me pondering aspects of my adoptions work.  It’s also one of the shortest!

The most controversial was about a book by a birth father, which I also posted on Amazon. He read my review on Amazon, then began to haunt me on my blog. My point: that his story was important to tell, was lost to him when I said his book would have been better received had he spent time fine-tuning it; I could have been more diplomatic.  I learned that you have to write knowing the author may read your review!  And might misinterpret what you believe you said!

Exploring Author’s Fan Pages!

The concept of an author’s fan page is new to me.  I began research on Amazon to find some links to FB fan pages!  I think it’s a great idea, and as I get closer to publication of my books, I will set up a fan page on FaceBook! 

I visited the FB fan page of John Shors, whose historical novel Under a Marble Sky (about the building of the Taj Mahal) we read in my Traveling Book Club about three years ago.  I like the personal tone of his fan page; he is very actively involved.  He has engaged book clubs in developing his success as an author, and I can see how close he feels to his followers.

I also read Phillipa Gregory’s author page on Amazon, another author whose work in historical novels I am familiar with.  Not surprisingly, her page is more formal; she’s a more formal writer.  Although born in Kenya, she was educated in Britain and is a very prolific writer!  Her author page on FB is a little more interactive with her fans, but still, has a stand-offish air.

Another favorite writer is Geraldine Brooks, author of A Year of Wonder, about the bubonic plague in 1666 England, and People of the Book, about the restoration of a (real) Jewish book of ritual and prayer whose distinctly atypical illustrations are explained by researching the book’s history.  She deftly works between characters in three times:  the Middle Ages, WWII and today.  I can see on her FB Author page that this is a good way to build interest in upcoming books and speaking engagements.

Another world has opened to me!