I’m a people person and I have to have a sip and a hi every so often in this secluded work of writing.

My dot may be green, but I may not be there. I may be watching Cesar. : )

This quote made me laugh though:

“It will also keep your agent or your editor from posting a comment on your wall like ‘What are you doing here? You are on a deadline!’”

It works both ways–there’ve been a few times I’ve seen FB or Twitter activity and I’m thinking “I know you’re there–answer my email!”

(You in the general sense, not the specific YOU, Steve Laube sense, lest anyone confuse my quest for email replies from the unknown ‘you’ with their own quest for replies from the specific YOU.)

What spurred this blog was simply wondering how authors were going about prioritizing things. Since social networking is something new it has become something “added.” And if something is added, something is usually subtracted. My question is “what has been subtracted?”

I’m not necessarily arguing against Facebook or Twitter. Only that it be used wisely.

Some of us have “addictive” personalities and the snare of social networking can become an addiction if one isn’t careful.

Loving the discussion here. I hope that my words cause each reader to pause briefly and ask themselves the appropriate questions.

Steve

Facebook is also a wonderful way to procrastinate if one is so inclined. On the other hand, using it as an effective marketing tool doesn’t have to take all that long per day.

The general arguments I hear against social media go along the same lines as the article you mention, Steve. “If authors didn’t use up all that time on social media, they’d write more.” For me that’s not true. I think back ten years ago when I didn’t run a blog, Twitter and Facebook. Did I turn out books any faster? No. Today I still have daily word counts and manage to turn in my books by deadline.

For me it’s not a matter of using the time to write more because I can only create so many hours a day. Then I need to do something else. So the best choice for me is to use that “something else” time marketing what I’ve written.

Thanks for permission NOT to try doing everything.

Be blessed,

Lynnda

BTW, I’m learning a lot about the publishing industry by following your blog. Thank you.

I closed my FB account because it was such a time waster. Besides, chucking turkey legs at my friends was only fun for so long.

But now that you mention it, I could watch all 158 episodes of Dick Van Dyke and feel it was time well spent

I enjoy Facebook a lot more than I thought I would. But it appears competition doesn’t just take place in the writing and selling of books; it’s now a part of who can socialize the most. That puts people like me, who tend to “socialize” as often as I take a night off, at a disadvantage.

But the flip side of that is it can be rejuvenating when on deadline to go to Facebook and chat with friends for a few minutes…or come by Steve Laube’s site and say hello to my favorite agent. Now, after I’ve said that, how can you say to me, “What are you doing here? You are on a deadline!”?

Deadline: this Tuesday
Current word count:83,755
Expected word count: 106,000
What am I doing here leaving a comment?! You must stop posting interesting blogs! Yeah, that’s it, Steve, this detour I’ve taken is all your fault.

She submitted the comment while mumbling something about faux pas and agents and hopeless deadlines.

72 hours a year equals 23 minutes a day, six days a week. I suspect many spend much more than that per week on Facebook.

To Lenore’s question. Expect a prospective editor or agent to look at your web site, your Facebook page, MySpace, etc. They will Google you without exception. So the more professional and exceptional your web presence is, the more appealing you will be to a prospective agent or editor.

But ultimately it is about putting great words on a page, telling a great story, or addressing a pressing need.

Steve

Blogs are what sucks up most of my time (See? I’m reading yours… can you hear my time being slurped away??)

Must find a balance, I know.

Now, off to write!