Social Media – Friend or Foe? by Laura Besley

There’s no denying we’re living in a different writing world to that of previous generations. In the (not so distant) past writers had to send off chapters to publishers and wait patiently by the letterbox to see whether that golden opportunity would be delivered by the postman. Now we have all manner of different ways to promote ourselves as writers. Many writers have a blog, some have more than one. There is the option to write a guest blog post on one or several blogs per month, fortnight or week. There are endless facebook opportunities with profile pages, promotion pages, events and online book launches. And there’s twitter: the medium solely dedicated to communication and promotion. These are but a few of the obvious ones, amongst a seemingly endless list.

I do have a blog, Living Loving and Writing, and I have to say that I’ve become quite addicted to blogging! I post two to three items per week, usually a book review and a piece of flash fiction and sometimes a travel piece about living in Asia (I’m currently living and working in Hong Kong). But essentially my blog is just for fun and to improve my writing skills through practice. However, whenever something is popular, money becomes involved and there are professional bloggers out there these days.

I’ve recently signed up to twitter, something I vowed never to do. Just as I vowed never to have a mobile phone, internet at home or a smartphone; all of which I now have. I couldn’t see the point of tweeting my choice of breakfast or how late I was going to bed. However, I’ve learned that there’s far more to twitter than never-ending tweets about nothing.

It’s a great way to get in touch with a limitless number of people in the same field as you. There are writers galore and generally we’re a positive and generous bunch. I’ve made connections with people that I otherwise never would have done and that’s not only nice, but helpful too. The modern world, as was the old one, is built on connections; it’s not necessarily what you know, but who you know. And how better to promote yourself and your writing, than to build up a network of writers and readers?

The only thing is, I’m finding it hard to strike a balance between being ‘sociable’ and ‘productive’. When everything is just a click away, it takes a lot of self-discipline to find the ‘off’ switch. So heeding my own advice, I’m going to turn off my computer and my mobile phone and get on with some ‘real’ writing! 

by Laura Besley

The Unofficial 'Brit Writers and Writers Everywhere' blog.