Along with the importance clothing your book with an enticing cover, it has come to my attention that another necessary step along the path to literary success is social media. You can credit Ashlee Willis, author of the well-known fantasy novel “The Word Changers,” for bringing this to my attention.
Unfortunately for me, I hate social media.
I pretty much loath electronic communication in general – for proof, here’s a picture of my phone:
That’s right, I own a flip phone. Let me take it a step further – I paid fifty dollars more to get that hunk of junk than I would have had to pay for an Iphone. Why?
1. My last touch screen phone pocket-dialed every time I put it in my pocket.
2. Sending a text on that thing takes 5-10 minutes. Why is that a good thing? I’m an impulsive person. Impulsive people say things they regret later on… often.
3. No internet or games. Why is that a good thing? Because when you’re goal is to make a living as an indie author, you’ve pretty much signed a contract that stipulates any wasted time will result in ‘insufficient funds’.
Though I personally have no problem with flippy, the opinions of others have gotten to me. For one thing, even when I manage to get a girl’s digits, every time I whip out flippy they look at me like, “Oh… you’re poor.” Not to mention technological progress is inevitable, and if you don’t get with the times you’ll get run-over by them.
So back to social media – What can you expect to find me doing on my new Thomas M. Watt twitter, facebook, goodreads, and google + pages? Well I’ll tell you – I have no idea. Probably doing my best not to send out updates like “I hate facebook” or post tweets like “f’ twitter.”
One thing I’ve noticed, successful people are quite often positive people. I guess that means I should post things like “Way of the world, coming soon!!!”
Because an exclamation mark is a sure sign that your product is something that will make your customers happy. God forbid I post “Way of the World, coming soon.” I can only imagine the ‘negative vibes’ such a tweet or update would send out to the rest of the exclamation mark loving population. I’d probably get booted from those sites in no time.
Anyway, that’s what I’m up to today. Anybody have any advice for how I should dive into these new social media platforms? How do you gain followers on twitter? Do you think there are book blogs that would be willing to discuss the “Way of the World” as part of a virtual blog tour?
I received some great responses yesterday, and can only hope to get more of the same today.
– Thomas M. Watt
Author of “A New Kingdom”
Thomas M. Watt 
Great insights! Way to go! Keep up the good work!
Seriously, I share your misgivings about technological advances. I refuse to buy a phone smarter than I am. My laptop recently broke down and rather than spending over $800 for one with all the bells and whistles, I got a Chromebook that does all I need it to do for around $200.
I do agree that spending some calculated time strategically developing your platform is wise for an indie author. I am only beginning to realize this and my mission is starting to advance.
Keep up the good work! 🙂
Thank you Tony. Glad to hear you purchased the more affordable computer, why pay extra for nonsense you don’t need? Glad to hear you’re developing a platform as well. It’s a very daunting task, but a step that I feel can make all the difference in success for us Indie authors. Thanks again, you do the same.
Publicist?
They will tweet and fart for you!
Brad Pitt doesn’t waste time actually tweeting does he?
… Worth the money if it’s poison to you and a sop for your creative time…
… Then again they may be bullsheissers…
… Must be someone out there in the dark soup…
…hmmm, Flippy may actually be poor..(sounds like a good barometer for sincere Shielas, though, yes?)…
…I’ll keep looking… Intriguing …
Hahaha! I don’t know if publicist handle twitter accounts for people with 3 followers! Of course Flippy is poor, he’s a flip phone. And yes, he certainly helps weed out the gold-diggers.
I can’t put my finger on why… but I literally LOL’d at “they look at me like, “Oh… you’re poor.” ” …I used to have a flippy too a few years ago… but my flippy would do the self dialing on speaker in my pocket… in the middle of the night when I was in a patient’s room trying not to wake them up. Shit got old real fast.
Funny think is, now that I have a smart phone, I miss flippy big time. Internet in the palm of your hand is not a good thing.
I know… I waste so much time now…