I’m a writer, therefore it goes without saying that I enjoy writing. Yet in this mad, modern, media-driven world it seems that writing has to take a back seat whilst I spend valuable time publicising myself via various media platforms. Wisdom dictates that I need a website, but as I am a writer, not a website designer, this takes up a disproportionate amount of my time as I try to negotiate the path through the jungle of tech-talk, widgets, appearance, images, Search Engine Optimisation …….. AAARRRGGGGGGH, and I’ve only just begun! I could, of course, pay someone to do this for me, but until I have earned enough money from my writing I have nothing with which to pay them!

Apparently, in order to drive people to my website, it helps if I am active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon’s Author Central, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ …. a seemingly endless list of platforms, with more springing up all the time. Then I need a Blog, which I must update regularly – oh, and I should follow lots of other blogs, comment on them, and hope to be invited to contribute to the most appropriate ones as a ‘Guest Blogger’ (naturally I will then be expected to reciprocate and invite Guest Bloggers to contribute to my blog). I have yet to find an ‘expert’ who can show me how to create the time to do all this, in addition to my writing.

These same ‘experts’ advise that I pepper everything I write with #hashtags (am I alone in being irritated by these? It seems impossible to get through a sentence without the flow being constantly interrupted by them, to the point where I often give up – the polar opposite of their intended effect). And don’t even start me on acronyms, though I have to admit I rather enjoy them in the right context and they often make me LOL (“Laugh Out Loud”. It doesn’t mean “Lots Of Love” as I originally thought when signing off with it in response to a text informing me that someone was ill. There are hundreds of acronyms, I need to learn what they all mean in order to avoid any more faux pas).

So here I am, setting out on my voyage into the semi-unknown whilst trying to find time to actually do some writing as well. I am posting this whilst in the process of setting up my website/blog so if you come across it in its early days you will see it is still very much a work in progress. I do hope you will be tempted to drop in regularly to find out a bit more about my writing and my books: I’m rather proud of them.

Oh, and I’m not really a miserable grouch, I just needed to get a few things off my chest ….

Hot off the Press – May 2012