The awareness of the growing trends of media networking did little to inspire me to take the plunge, the nearest I got was choosing a Blackberry at the last contract renewal. I’m now thinking about changing back to a simplified model. The separation of communication and respite has become more important to me. I have been intrigued by a few of the developments, certainly the telephone- app and the digital book phenomena, although having not yet experienced them, in my palm so to speak, I can’t really comment on their ‘street-worthiness’.

The realisation dawned, after reading the article, without a shadow of doubt what had held me back is the fact that I didn’t think I was big enough. Only the big-kids swim in the deep end, I just didn’t think I’d look cool with my arm-bands on. I have now changed my tact; I do believe that the pool is more than big enough, even if you do need a bit of comforter to start-off with.

Some of the big socialites are gracious enough to be part of my new-found community; I think it could well be a very convenient way of keeping abreast of forthcoming promotions and events. As for the self-promotion and overzealous twittering, I think you can find that in most social circles.

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Publishers generally don’t take unsolicited manuscripts, but many small press publishing companies might, so you might want to start there. Every publisher has their own set of rules and guidelines to follow.

Literary agents, many would like to see a proven track record of your work, and how much income you made with your writing to date, because an agent wants to know that you’re not a one time wonder, but can produce more stories, novels, etc.. so you can make money for them.

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Hope this helps.

There are a also some more tips on building your Twitter following on my new blog, and there will be more to come on that here too.

@Tom – thanks for your comment too; absolutely agree that automated tools are key to this – things like Twitterfeed, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are great for automating, maintaining and scheduling tweets, for example.

To use social media, the gearing has to change a little … but this doesn’t mean it has to take over or you need to be a slave to it. The trick is clever use of automated tools to assist.