Be Seen #1 - An on-line presence

All authors should have an on-line presence. This lets your audience follow you, learn about you and your works and, another good thing, lets others discover you.

Facebook and Twitter are two of the easiest ways to do this. There are, of course, other ways but these seem to be the most popular just because of sheer numbers on each site. With so much of the population of the planet on Facebook you will be amazed by the sheer number of "friends" that will sign up just because you are an author. Then there is the fact that your friends and "friends" will also share you with all their friends and "friends" and so forth. Twitter also has a huge population and it's super easy to find authors on there, mainly because it's very geared toward your likes. It will give you suggested friends to follow and, over time, seems to learn through various algorithms what to suggest the most of. Plus, if you follow authors they will most likely follow you in return. Beyond that, Twitter and Facebook (though rivals) actually play pretty well together for the most part.

Start a Blog. Depending on your website you may have the option of adding this right onto it, or is it - into it? Either way, you can have everything all in one spot. Or you can do up a separate Blog - but remember, that's another password you'll have to dredge out of the memory banks each time you want to sign in. Just a word of warning is all. With your Blog you will want to post frequently. It doesn't have to be everyday or even every second day, but try not to let more than about 4 or 5 days pass between each posting. Unless you're on holiday or something comes up - but let your audience know this. Say "I'm off for the next two weeks on vaca! See you all when I get back." or something to this effect. Don't say if you're going somewhere and definitely never say where you are going or how you are getting there. That falls under too much information on the Net for potential no-gooders to use to their advantage. Come on, we've all seen the commercial for Farmers Insurance (well, maybe you have) warning about too much information out there for everyone to see.

Just remember, whatever you put up on Facebook, Twitter, your Blog or wherever you post should be at least 60% work content. In other words, your books and what you are working on. But, and don't forget this, do have a bit of fun as well. And a sexy mostly naked man never hurt either for female readers, just sayin'.

That's it for this round - see you on the flip side.

The Moderator.