Social Media Overload

Have you ever noticed that many writers tend to participate in too many forms of social media?  It's true, writers want to put themselves out there.  By out there I mean they want to have a presence in the world of social media so they can form a large network of friends with similar interests. But why bother to participate in so many, especially if you don't update them frequently?

As a picture book writer, who hopes to be published one day, I only participate in blogging and Twitter. Last year I was a ghost in both worlds, as I took a break during my pregnancy.  I like to blog so I can discuss lengthy topics. I like Twitter to try to lead people to this blog by tweeting little tidbits that might catch ones attention.

In how many forms of social media do you like to participate?

Agencies and Professional Websites

Anyone promoting himself/herself professionally should have a Website.  A decent one, too, free of wacky fonts and neon colors.

As a writer, I believe I have great stories to offer, and sometimes I must search online for agents.  Hey, I don't know which ones are out there!  I've never once spotted a literary agency billboard beside the highway.

A few times, I have visited Websites and thought, "You have GOT to be kidding me.  Who designed this?"  As a person with a technical background with experience in Website design, I can always point out a horrific design.  When I see a poor design I begin to lose faith in the agencies talent.

It's a known fact that as soon as a person views a Website, they form thoughts about the agency (or business) before reading the content.

Do you have a professional Website design?

Save Your Manuscripts in Three Locations

I often visit the blog of literary agent Rachelle Gardner, and today she blogged about backing up your documents in more than one location.  Sooooooo important (yes, it's so important that I had to bold, underline and italicize it).  If you write anything, at least save your work in these three locations:

• On your computer's Desktop or C: drive
• On a flash drive
• On an external hard drive

Feel free to save it somewhere else if you want to.  But, it's my belief that if you lose your work in each of these three areas (at the same time), and you have no way of recovering it, it wasn't meant to be published.

By default, I save my work on a flash drive.  I carry it with me everywhere, and I never, ever leave the house without it. The one I own now I've had for 6 years, so one day it's going to... you know... break or something.

In college, I had a major project due at the end of the fall semester.  At the beginning of that semester, I only saved my work on my laptop.  So, months went by, and one day I said to myself, "I better get one of those flash drives the professor said to buy.  Something bad might happen to my computer."

I drove to the office supply store, bought one, drove home and backed everything up on my fancy new flash drive.  Wwwwhhheewww!  A week later, my computer crashed.  Well, it didn't really crash, but the LCD malfunctioned, so it was a miracle I could see anything.

Other people have not been so fortunate.  There are horror stories about students failing courses because their computer crashed the night before a project was due.  It's sad, but many people should know this rule by now.

Have you had bad experiences with losing documents?