My digital business card…

Gave me so much anxiety.

Creating a website and getting ‘professional’ profiles up on social media… yikes. Fellow writer, if this is a step you need to take, read on, and maybe my experience will be helpful to you. I made a plan, took one baby step at a time to get this going, and it was doable.

First, I decided what name to use if I ever found myself lucky enough to get traditionally published. (I’m open to self-publishing, just not ready for that kind of endeavor right now.) I then googled the heck out of variations of my fairly simple name (with middle name or initial, or without) to see what people and domains were already out there. Since myname.com was taken as well as myname plus author and writes I grabbed books before it too disappeared. Other people have put by or books by in the front of their name to get around this issue. Once I bought the domain, I set up a new email address to go with it, and that became my login for new profiles on various social media platforms.

I found it helpful when building this site to surf around on other published and unpublished author websites. Especially the unpublished ones. Seriously, google “unpublished author websites” and read the few articles that come up with tips and links to examples. It is daunting to look at a successful published writer’s website. I just scratched my head a bit wondering what content I could possibly put up since I don’t yet have published books with cover art. Hmmmm indeed.

So I started a blog about my writing journey and posted a few vague sentences about the unpublished manuscripts I am polishing in preparation to query agents. But guess what? That’s enough for now. It’s a good first step, a home base that will build in time. Most of my work hours in this stage of my writing journey are devoted to writing/editing my books, drafting my query letter, and researching agents. So no, I don’t need more on my website right now. This is me. This is where I am in my journey. It’s an honest digital business card that agents can check out if I catch their interest when querying. It’s a home space that people can go to if they are engaging with me on social media.

Bookstagramming changed my world, y’all. I got started on Instagram while developing my website and found a fun positive community. I encourage you to find bookish accounts and writers in that space. I have just begun to get into twitter, following writers and agents, and using fun hashtags like 1linewed (there is a theme/keyword and you grab something from your books/WIP and tweet it out). I’m playing around in there to see what else I might want to join in on, and I’m working on a Facebook page. I’m sure my dog on top of me (and occasionally my laptop) while I try to write will feature heavily there. It’s just going to take time to build up my activity and engagement in these social spaces, but again, baby steps.

I am not a blogger, influencer, or daily social media poster. I’m just not. But I have content I’m excited to share and I do it on a fairly regular schedule. I plan a few posts ahead of time and make myself wait to post them so I don’t feel pressured in future to post more than a few times a week.

Best news? My initial ‘yikes’ reaction turned into enjoying posting my experiences and thoughts on this site. There are conversations about books and writing that I love to engage with on social media. I had to rip off the band-aid and just step forward into a digital space as an ‘unpublished author’ and then it became enjoyable. I spent a few weeks actively taking these steps to create a professional digital space for myself then I stepped away to sit down and write more fantasy books.

So if you haven’t done this step yet, and if it seems like a yikes, just sit down and do it already, one step at a time.

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