There was one slight problem - there were several people I couldn't find email addresses for. Not on their blogs, their websites...nowhere.
Some of them had twitter handles so I was able to tweet them. Some had contact forms which worked fine. And some I just posted on their blogs for lack of any other way of communicating with them. There was one person I couldn't find anything for...their profile didn't have blog links, website links, email or twitter addresses or any other sort of identifying or contact info. So, I wasn't able to let them know about the problem.
Here's the thing about social networking - it only works if people can communicate with you. Why make it hard? You should have contact info plastered EVERYWHERE. I went on some sites where I had to search for the person's name just to make sure I was in the right spot. This just makes no sense to me.
You want people to know who you are. PUT YOUR NAME SOMEWHERE PROMINENT. You want people to be able to contact you. MAKE IT EASY TO FIND. You want people to be able to find you wherever you might be on the web. PUT UP LINKS.
The whole point of social networking is to connect with people, so people know who you are, where to find you, and how to contact you. Agents and editors DO go to sites. I actually very recently had an editor find me on Twitter and tweet me about a project. I ended up being able to submit a manuscript to a publisher that is currently closed to submissions. Because of TWITTER. It does happen.
That never would have happened had that editor not been able to find any contact info for me.
Moral of the story = DON'T PLAY HARD TO GET.
Make sure your contact info and links to places where you can be found are EVERYWHERE and easy to see. I have my email addy and links to all the sites I'm on plastered all over every website, blog, and social network I own or belong to. Just make sure that people have a way to easily communicate with you - it might come in handy some day :)
Nano Update:
6 comments:
AMAZING word count!!! THANK YOU!
I don't understand the point of networking without having a way for people to get a hold of you. Even if you open a new email account just for social networking.
That's so amazing that you subbed a manuscript to an editor because of Twitter. It's a Brave New World, people.
I totally agree. I've gone to lots of writer blogs and can't find an email anywhere.
I think lots of people just forget to post it. I've often had the same difficulty when trying to track people down for such things. How did we all get by before email? ;)
Social networking is only fun when it's easy. I agree...give us followers an easy way to communicate. If it takes too long...I'm outta there.
Social networking only works when it's fun. If I can't find an email address, I move on.
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