Thursday, April 22, 2010

Let Your Facebook Page Breathe

You're an author or aspiring to be one and I'm sure by now everyone has told you that you need to get an Internet presence. So you dutifully went out and got a Facebook account. And the good people at Facebook offered to make your page private so that only your friends and family can view it.

Don’t! Don’t make your Facebook page so private that your fans can’t find you. It defeats the whole purpose.

I know the Internet is a big scary place. And I know that there are lots of people out there just waiting to give your computer a virus, or steal your identity, or any number of other horrible things, but sometimes you just have to loosen up.

I recently went to an author’s page on Facebook to “friend” them, but the page was so private, I couldn’t tell if it was the author I was looking for or not. The profile picture was an avatar and there was nothing that told me that she was an author. It wasn’t until I looked at her photos – which I was shocked to find weren’t private – and discovered pictures of her book covers.

And she wasn’t the only one. There have been others too, others that didn’t have pictures of book covers. So if you’re going to get an Internet presence to help build up your fan base, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by making it so private no one knows who you are. Let it breathe!

~Doug McIntire
http://www.dougmcintire.com/

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