Public Profile

This has been a week of thinking about building a public profile. It's something I'm having trouble with. I find it hard to accept that I have anything worth saying - which is weird for a writer, I know. I have continued to work on the second draft of Ashael Rising though it's mostly been editing this week. I've also been keeping up my usual critique commitments and it was a busy week for those. Between those things and reading the book I'm reviewing for BFS, most of my writing time has been taken up.

I've been focussing on Twitter for social media and I really like the brevity of tweets and the speed at which things move but I find it really difficult to start the conversation. I've been observing a lot, trying to figure out the approaches that seem to work for other people and what I might  be able to make work for me. One thing I've realised is that a lot of Twitter users just tweet the same things over and over, with little engagement with their followers. That's not what I'm looking for. I want to be able to engage with people. To talk to them and exchange ideas. Perhaps twitter isn't the place for that, but some of the people that I follow seem to manage.

I have the same hopes for this blog. I don't want to be just talking to myself here, although the very act of writing in this style is useful, I find. I want to engage with people. have a conversation.

Another part of the public platform thing is image. I'm normally very camera shy but I've read that people find it easier to connect with someone if they know what that person looks like. So, in the interests of overcoming shyness and connecting with you, my readers, I've posted a picture of myself. I'm stepping out from the anonymity of the internet. I am an author and this is me.

How do you approach social media? Do you have a public profile? Do you find it as intimidating as I do? Let's talk about it in the comments!