So I manage a cosplay page on Facebook (that has stalled at the wayside as SCA overruns cosplay on the priority scale), a “fan” page for our cat, Rory, a page for my oft-forgotten Etsy shop, and of course the work I do for the Barony. So why did I add another page to keep track of?
Oh yeah, author Facebook pages are a thing. That’s why I did it.
You see, it goes something like this: I was typing up a scheduled post for Friday (keep your eyes peeled, folks!), and I realized that I haven’t had a proper page for my writing in years. I just keep losing track of what I’m doing and forgetting to post and then I ditch the page in favor of just using Twitter and this blog to promote moi.
Can’t keep doing that. People like having “fanpages” they can use to get updates on their favorite authors’ comings and goings. Granted, I don’t come or go much, but I do write, and I can write about writing. So off to Facebook I went to create a page.
Except I can’t get the damn URL to be custom. I guess not enough people like the page yet? Maybe that’s why…anywho, for now this is the URL: https://www.facebook.com/AJ-Mullican-143311953045804/
Yeah, you see why I want a custom one. I think if enough people like the page I can pop in and create that custom URL in a jiffy, but right now it’s the middle of the night and no one’s up to add it.
It should be interesting to see how the viewership of this blog changes with the new Facebook page. You see, I changed my Twitter settings so my tweets go to the author page, not my personal Facebook feed. Say what? Yeah, WordPress is cool like that; it lets you share to different social media platforms when you publish. So why does changing my Twitter settings change my WordPress posting? Okay, so Twitter does a cool thing, too: it lets you share your tweets to different social media platforms as well. So WordPress –> Twitter –> Facebook. Easy peasy. Or something. It’s worked so far; guess we’ll see how well it works now that the settings are tweaked. If worse comes to worse (or is it worst comes to worst? Damnit), I can just share from the page to my personal feed if I want my blog read by more friends and family. A P.I.T.A. to be sure, but eventually people will see that the author page is the original poster of the blog posts and thus go to the author page and like it and then everything will be swell. Or not.
Facebook, you see, is tricksy.
More tricksy than nots. What they have are these silly metrics things, which are apparently arbitrary and only to Facebook’s benefit. To make a long story short, if you don’t pay them monies to get your posts seen, even people who “follow” your page won’t see your posts. Lame.
So, again, why make the author page?
Because it gives my publisher a link to show people, that’s why. Yeah, it’s a new page and doesn’t have much content (yet)….it’s still something. And the more links they can give, the more exposure I can get once it’s time for Book 1 to get released.
Credit to the Oatmeal. Because that guy fucking rocks, and he deserves both exposure and monies for the work he does.
Seriously, though, as an author a little exposure can go a long way. I mean, if people don’t know I’m there or that my work is there, how can they be interested? Yeah, exposure itself doesn’t pay, but if people see the thing and want to read the thing, then (in theory) if they want it enough they’ll pay to read the thing.
Or maybe I’m just nucking futs at 1:30 in the morning, having very little sleep and being unable to either get to sleep naturally or take more sleeping medicine. (I already took my prescriptions hours ago…they worked to get me to sleep initially, but not to keep me there or get me back there.)
We’ll see how the page goes once people wake up and start liking the page and once I can update the URL and all that fun happy stuff.
Until then…to the writing board!
