Osiyo~

I’ve been thinking about this post topic for several weeks; writing and what I write. It seems when I’m given free rein my writer’s brain turns off. Much the way my creative bone unhinges. Why? Heckifiknow!

But I have discovered new levels on Facebook that I didn’t pay attention to before. I’d love if you click my FB link on the right or just go here: Facebook While you’re at it and in the mood, why not follow me on Twitter too? https://twitter.com/Calisa_Rhose

Yes. This is a problem for my writing. I caved and got a Triberr account. Not a huge thing, not a big time suck as I’d thought. You really don’t do much there in my opinion. Click a few (or twenty or fifty) buttons to approve blogs to fly into your cyber world to help others promote as they do the same for you.

When I joined my first Triberr group in early July it was a brand new group with maybe five members and reached 4K+ readers. That’s a lot of people gaining access to your blog who didn’t before, which means 4K people possibly checking out who you are on any given day. Cool!

I looked at my numbers today and had to smile. With six Tribes (that’s what Triberr calls each group you join), 70 combined members (not all are in every group so I reach various areas of newness with each Tribe), I couldn’t believe my little old blog now has the potential to be seen by 99,871 people! In ONE month! That number increases with each new member to any one of my tribes. Just WOW.

It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? But- does it really help, or am I just sucking those 5 minutes a day or week by participating on Triberr? Does it really help my blog, or anyone’s of whom I ‘Approve?’ There is no way that I can see to track stats for Triberr success other than to watch my blog stats and see if they improve over time, and which I’m horrible at because I just thought of this! 😆 (going to look now!)

72 Blog followers. Not bad, but I haven’t checked to see how my number compares to say…Nora Roberts, or Laura Kaye, Callie Hutton—or anyone else really. I don’t like to compare because it only serves to depress me. Lol  But how many of those followers are due to Triberr? I can’t say, any more than I can say for certain that X number of followers were gained from Twitter posts, Facebook or even word of mouth and how many are just the result of my awesomeness of blogging talent and uber-cool posts.

The raw fact is—I don’t know. I don’t really care either.

Is that bad?

Do I care that it’s bad? Not really. Why? Because, though blogging is important—in my writerly opinion, or I wouldn’t do it at all—it does not MAKE the writer. I actually researched this. Yes, really! As popular as Nora Roberts is—she does NOT blog! Oh, she has a website, but no blog. So how does she get her name out there you ask? How did she first start and become who she is today? My guess is that she concentrated all her efforts on writing kickass books and , I’m sure, for a big six publisher in a time when they did most of the publicity for her. Now, in a new age when authors are responsible for their own publicity, she doesn’t need to worry as much because she’s already got a huge following.

In my opinion, that is the key to real success.

Write, write and write some more. The more backlist, the more your name is out there, the more readers and fan following you’ll grow. That’s not to say you don’t need to promote—this is the age of self-promotion, there’s no way around that. But if you don’t have books to sell, what do you need followers, readers for? What is there to waste time promoting? That one short story you sold five years ago? Not likely. Again, depends on you.

The question I think we need to ask is how much is too much? Is there such a thing? I think there probably is and that doesn’t matter who you are or how you promote. If you spend all your time promoting that one book—when will you write the next book, or the one after that? And if you do manage to hiccup out another two books, will you spend all your new time promoting them for another three years before you realize it just might be time to write something new again?

I have come to the realization that you should only promote in increments each day or week, or even each month. I have also come to realize my own platform is what will probably help me most. I hope you’ll join me Friday with a part two of this vein of thought.

In the meantime, what about you? How much do you promote and do you see positive results? Enough to keep going even if it prevents productive writing? Are you promoting more than you write?

How do you balance social media and promotion with production?

Dodadagohvi~