Writing Wednesday - Getting Known

 

Writing Wednesday

Getting Known

Hi, I am James Adams, and I am a writer of somewhat steamy, thriller, military, romances. Wow, OK, now everyone knows me in the writing community, and my name will be spoken of in high regard. That was easy!

Oh, if it were only that easy, I would be in heaven. But, alas, it is not. Getting known in the writing community is complicated. How many new writers are there daily? How many new books get published daily?

I wish I had begun my getting known stage a year ago, but it really never did occur to me that there was a need to do this. It was naive and new to writing that made me wait to finally get “out there.”

How does a person get known? How do you become a person the writing community will look at and pay attention to? Getting them to pay attention to you is pretty hard. There are far better authors for new writers to listen to. Becoming known is a little easier.

Facebook has numerous different groups for authors to mingle with other authors. You can be an active member fo these groups by answering questions or a social butterfly. I personally like smaller niche groups over the larger concentration of writers. And since there are SO many different groups, if one does not feel right, leave and move on. I personally have found two Romance writers groups that are great. People are engaging and they are open to sharing information. (Believe it or not, some people will not.)

One step many probably forget about is the actual name you will use to write under. Are you going to use a pen name, or use your own, and a sort of combo? After that is decided, you can then set up Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and buy a domain name. My domain name was difficult since just my name was taken. I wanted something short, but something that tied to me, so jadamsauthor.com. Even if you do not initially plan to use a web page for your marketing, I say, get the name and set up a basic page with your other social media links.

Twitter and Instagram does take a little work since these require posting regularly. They also need the correct hashtags to allow your posts to connect with the right people. I have started a word document with hashtags. It comes in handy when making a lengthy post on Instagram. (I’ll cover how to do that quickly coming up)

What is nice with both of these platforms is your reach if greater. I suggest building your followers slowly and allow them to engage you. You will get recommendations for people to add based on your contacts, which is targeted to who you want your audience to be.

Everything you do, will take time. You will not instantly get thousands of followers. And in reality, you do not want just followers. You want people engaged by your posts. You want likes, loves, and retweets.

Getting your name known is a marathon. I will be sharing some platform-specific tips coming up. 

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