January 2015-Strategic Planning: Refresh Your Profile

-
Take a few hours this week to find out how the world sees you as a writer. Visit your profile on your social platforms. I'm not just talking about your Linkedin.com site. Right now make a list of all the sites you maintain and don't maintain. Allow me to help you brain storm:
How many email sites do you own?
  • How many Facebook sites.
  • How many blogs?
  • How many Twitter accounts?
  • What about your Instagram? Goodreads? Pinterest? Stumbleupon? Reddit? Digg? Tumblr? Just to begin the litany of possibilities.
Step 1: Decommission any site you are not updating or hasn't proven to bring in a sufficient audience. If you have sites dedicated to books published several years ago, consider if they reflect who you are today. If you wish to maintain them, update them or link them to your current site. In other words, it is time to "declutter" you social footprint. You are not the same person, let alone the same writer you were five years ago.

Step 2: Update your profiles. Potential employers, literary agents, publishers, and above all readers, check profile sites. In this "info at our fingertips" world, you need to be consistent on all profiles and above all - current.

Step 3: Ah! the dreaded head shot, let's be frank, no one likes to take one, pick one, or post one. Your professional social platform needs to reflect you, the professional, successful, writer. Hey! I love my family and yours too, but the craft of writing is half of the story. The business part makes us all nervous and putting ourselves out there in a photo is business. Find a way to keep your profile photo fresh and professional.

Step 4: List your writing achievements and development (conferences, workshops, contributions, etc.).

Step 5: Keep list of social platform profiles. Set a reminder to help you refresh profiles every quarter, okay if you can't manage quarterly, try biannually, but get a social platform profile schedule reminder on all your calendars A.S.A.P.

 A profile is just that: a profile. It is an economy of words describing who you are today.

There are multiple sites and choices on writing an author's profile.
Here are a few links that may be helpful:

https://www.swoonreads.com/blog/faq-is-my-author-profile-important/ 

http://www.writing.ie/resources/how-to-write-an-author-profile/ 

https://www.textbroker.com/how-get-your-author-profile-100 

https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3655202773481757151#editor/target=post;postID=9072314130422264897;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women's History Month: Inspiring Women

-
Image
When we talk about Women's History Month we think of Pocahontas and Sacajawea who helped the explorers of this country.  We think of Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison who were on the forefront of the beginning of this country.  We don't want to forget the great suffragists who worked for and won the right to vote for U.S. women.  
We are reminded of  "Rosie the Riveter" and all the brave women of America who took over the "men's positions" in the factories.  The production numbers of these women are still noteworthy to this day. We honor the women who took those brave first steps to serve and continue to serve in the military. The first scientists, teachers, humanitarians, politicians, the list continues as we look for role models to inspire and encourage us.  
Is there a scientist, teacher, or humanitarian who inspired you ?  Share these women with my followers, audience, and me. Share your thoughts about the inspirational women in your life. Who are the w…
Read more

December 2016 Book Review: Maeve's Times

-
Image
Warning to all writers who scribe thoughts on bits and scraps of paper and throw them in a box to rewrite later.  Those bits and scraps may be published posthumously.  Maeve Binchy's husband, Gordon Snell, found her "to do later" box. He built a biography of her life with her thoughts, articles, and ramblings.

Maeve's Times is dated and referenced making it easy to follow. Thank you Mr. Snell for sharing insights into her professional and personal life. Her spirit lives on with her words.

 This author captured my attention with Copper Beeches. Maeve Binchy wrote about what she saw, lived, and felt. Her stories reflected both Irish country and city life. Each book made me feel better about people. She wrote about hard times and working through them. She wrote about love and love lost. Her book Minding Frankie demonstrates a community pulling together to help a neighbor. Any of her titles are a "goodread."


Read more

Be Strategic: Write A Holiday Memory

-
Image
The momentum of the holidays propels us into a frenzy of cooking, shopping, wrapping, decorating, entertaining, cleaning, and overindulging. Writing becomes an after thought in the midst of multiple "to do" lists.

BREATH. Schedule a break, whittle some time for your writing. Utilize these small chunks of time to "Write A Memory."  Exercise your creativity with the keyboard or a paper and a writing instrument to describe a "who, what, where, or how" about the Holiday Season. Find a quiet place and expound on the following events of the season or better still, scribe about something you experienced that day or during the season "to be jolly."

Cookie Exchange: Do you participate in this activity? Why or Why not? If you did, what was your choice of cookie? Who participates your exchange? Decorating the Outside of Your House: Who does it? How do you prepare for it? Describe the feelings and emotions of the participants of this outdoor activity.Gift wr…
Read more