By Joanna Lloyd, author of Beyond Innocence
Is everyone out there a social media pundit? Have you whipped off 10 Tweets before taking the first sip of your early morning coffee? *Groan* I knew it…I’m the only one who sticks her fingers in her ears and sings “la la la la” when anyone mentions social media. I used to naïvely believe all I had to do was write a really good book, find a publisher who also liked it, and my job was done.
Enter the social media circus—please forgive me those of you who thrive on social media—but I am scared ****less of it all. When someone asked the address of my website, I ran trembling to my techno savvy writing colleague, Tamara Gill, begging for help. Just a website is not enough, she told me—you have to set up a Facebook page, and then try and find lots of people who will pretend to be your friend on your Facebook page. Okay, I’ll pretend to be your friend if you pretend to be mine. No problems.
Tam shook her head. Still not enough—now you need an official Author Page. But you can’t have Friends on that page, you have to be Liked. What? Not by a few people, I have to be Liked by hundreds of people and if I’m not then my Facebook page looks pathetic. No one wants a pathetic Author Page, do they? But wait, there’s more…I need a Twitter account where I must record every mundane activity of my day for hundreds of people who couldn’t care less but Follow me anyway so they can have lots of Followers. I asked Tam why I must have Followers and Likes. “Because then you become well-known,” she answered. Well-known for being a dork who tweets that she had toast and vegemite for breakfast? (That’s an Aussie delicacy—as tasty as salted goat’s balls or soft boiled fetal duck). “No,” says Tam, rolling her eyes in frustration (although it was an email, I knew she was rolling her eyes), “it’s so your name becomes familiar and that will help promote your book.” That’s when I chose not to reply—the thoughts running through my head when trying to make connections between what I had for breakfast and selling my book were not printable. If anyone else can make the connection then I bow to your superior intelligence.
So forget Twitter and Facebook—pick up my new release from Crimson Romance, Beyond Innocence, and lose yourself in 1819 with my feisty, opinionated heroine who finds herself unjustly imprisoned and thrown onto a transport ship bound for the penal colony of NSW, Australia. When free settler, William Radcliffe, exercises his right to a convict wife, she accepts a marriage of convenience to escape incarceration and clear her name. Together they battle small-town prejudices, the cruelty of bushrangers, the wonders of Aboriginal contact, and their stubborn denial of the passion igniting between them. I know you’ll love it, despite what I might have had for breakfast that morning.
Visit Joanna at www.joannalloyd.net.
Do you relate to Joanna’s social media confusion? Share your stories in the comments!
