Hey friends! For the first half of last year I ran a blog site with my good friend, Susi Nonnemacher. Sharing a blog with her made crossing the line from obscurity into a public platform to share thoughts and ideas a little less daunting. Thanks to WordPress and their “Year in Blogging” stats I learned that my post from last May was our most popular post.

At the time I was “online” for five months I was noticing way too many spammy advertising tweets and not enough conversational tweets. There was one person in particular, a person I considered a friend, who all of a sudden went the way of a book pimp. Every tweet, every conversation revolved around his/her book and I just couldn't take it anymore. So I did what any self respecting writer would do, I took it to my blog. 🙂 

I'm reposting this because with the new year here, new goals have been set and I'm positive that most of those goals revolve around book sales. This is my friendly reminder to keep it real and don't forget to be a human about it. 😉 

So, here it is. I didn't edit my original post, so its in its rambling glory. Enjoy!

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BUY ME! READ ME! REVIEW ME!… Talk to me.

Originally posted on Have Coffee… Will Write May 20, 2011

It's no secret that I didn't want to do this. I just wanted to write the stories in my head and be done with it. I thought there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to write a blog or tweet. Eric has been pushing me to join Twitter for months but I resisted. But THANK GOD I changed my mind. No, wait, thank Susi. I had my doubts and she had her stubbornness and thankfully for me she won out. 😉

I learned a lot about myself in the past 5 months through blogging and tweeting. I've learned that I don't need to wear pants in order to write a blog post; which is good to know since doing the laundry keeps moving further down the list as my writing journey continues. I learned that it's not hard to talk about my thoughts and ideas as I had originally feared and that I'm more open and honest then I had originally thought.

I'm no longer afraid of that anonymous you that is reading this. Quite the opposite, actually. I want to know you. I want you to know me. Want to know why?

Because you're a person, just like me. Twitter and this blog taught me that.

I know what you're thinking. WTF! This woman is insane if she needed to start a blog to realize that we're people. Just bear with me here; I swear I have a point.

It is way too easy to get caught up in ourselves. Even though we converse on all the social networking sites and do what we're supposed to in regards to building that all elusive writerly platform, most times we become robots.

Buy my book. Buy my book. Buy my book. 

Read my book. Read my book. Read my book.

Review my book. Review my book. Review my book. 

I'll say this right now – You deserve to be more than your latest work. You are a person with thoughts, feelings, ideas, wants, needs, desires and wishes. Blogging gives you a chance to let people in, share your thoughts, your opinions, all in a safe place. (I say safe, because if it's your blog, you can control the comments.)

It shows people that there is an intelligent person behind that latest work. That this book you're pushing just didn't pop up out of nowhere. Your time, energy, blood, sweat and tears went into it. I'm not saying you shouldn't push your book, you should pimp the hell out of it, what I'm saying is don't forget to be a person, too.

When I pick up a book the first thing I do is read about the author. I want to know more about them, where they came from, how their mind works. If they have a blog I read it. Learning about the author helps me understand the novel better, makes the author real. Now granted, I'm not going to call up Nora Roberts and say Nora, we'd be on a first name basis, of course, let's do an interview about your latest work next Thursday on “Writing On The Rocks dot com” Have your people DM me.

But luckily for me, I know plenty of indie writers out there that are more than willing to step into the spotlight for me.

Ask any of my friends in #pubwrite. If I read their book they know it because they'll get random questions from me craving information. It's amazing that someone like me can create new and exciting worlds with the same words that I have in my vocabulary. It's a beautiful thing; but what makes it so great is that I know that these are real people, most with day jobs, that are making this dream come true amongst other real life commitments. Inspiring.

Now a quick note on Twitter. Join Twitter and use it properly. Don't just bombard me with tweets about buying your book or visiting your blog. You become spam to me that way and I'll unfollow you.

Be more than your work. Be you. Don't just schedule tweets about your latest blog post and be done with it. Get out there and connect. There are hundreds, thousands of people out there just like you, who want the same things you want. Connect. Support each other. We're all striving for the same goal, what fun is it if you reach the top but have no one to share it with?

That's what I mean when I say that I have learned about being a person through this blog and through Twitter. Anonymity is a security blanket that I threw off 5 months ago. What you see is what you get. The words I post are me, my voice, no one else's. When I tweet and have conversations with people who I have come to consider friends I'm talking as Karen. I don't have to try to be funny, flirty, cautious, intelligent, whatever, I just have to be me. Something that I was afraid to be before I started this.

So, thank you followers of this blog, my Twitter followers, fellow #pubwrite patrons, Eric, Susi and everyone else that supported me in my journey to find my voice. I think I found it and I'm looking forward to using it.

You guys should be scared though. Because if you thought I didn't shut up before, wait until you hear what I have in store now that I found my voice! Woo-hoo!

 

Happy 2012, friends! I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year! 😀