For those of you who have successfully self-published, which social media sites have been the most useful parts of your self-marketing platforms? I realize that this depends heavily on your genre, audience, and number of contacts online, of course, but I'm still curious. The idea of trying to establish a meaningful presence on every single social media site I can find (without just posting the same content to all of them at once) seems a bit overwhelming. I've seen an awful lot of advice saying that an Amazon author website, a Wordpress blog, and Facebook and Twitter accounts are important. What about the others--Instagram, Goodreads, Tumblr, etc.? If I want to create a serious presence online and yet still have time to write my actual fiction and do my day job, where are the best places to expend some effort, and which have been more dispensable for you?
WordPress has options to automatically post to all your platforms, so you only need to write one post in order to maintain a presences just about everywhere. It doesn't take much time, especially if you only post something when it interest you. You don't need to post every day. Heck, a lot of big name authors only post once a month or so.
I knew that there was a way to sync sites, but I didn't know how to do it, so thanks! However, I've heard some people complaining about authors who sync their sites, suggesting that readers who add an author on multiple sites get annoyed when the content on every site is the same.
You are not their bitch, so said Neil Gaiman, and he was writing about actual books, not random blog post. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html You don't owe the reader anything other than a well written story. Not blog post, not twitter updates, not Facebook updates. And that story will be published on your timeline, not theirs.
LOL I agree (and I like the wording, too). I do, however, have a vested interest in using my marketing time and effort as efficiently as possible, because I won't have any fans who will want me to be their bitch unless I get a few people to see the book in the first place. I'm at least a few weeks away from launching, but I want to avoid as many newbie mistakes as I can.
