Where I grew up in Alaska, you had to travel to Hawaii to get a tan!

Thanks everyone for contributing to our Christmas post. I'll be contacting you this week to get your shipping addresses to send you copies of "Under the Overpass" by Mike Yankoski. Thanks again and Happy New Year!

Thanks so much for all the comments and for your work in serving and helping the homeless this Christmas! Remember to check out and download the Christmas Under the Overpass Action Plan and share it with your friends and family. I'll be contacting the first twenty-five people to comment on this post and mail you a copy of 'Under the Overpass' by Mike Yankoski the first week in January. God bless!
http://multnomahemails.com/wbmlt/pdf/ChristmasUnd...

Hi. I'm Keri Jo Raz and I'll be coordinating the "Christmas Under the Overpass Action Plan" book give-a-way for author Mike Yankoski and D.C. Jacobson & Associates. Please include with your comment an e-mail address or twitter handle to contact you for your shipping address. You can connect with me via e-mail kj@dcjacobson.com or via Twitter @kerijoraz.

We are looking forward to hearing from you! Merry Christmas!

You are welcome, Courtney. I'm sorry your first response got lost in cyberspace! Maybe it will find its way home someday. I wish you luck, or more importantly discernment, as you work through your writing goals in the midst of real life.

Take care!

I checked out your blog and it's wonderfully entertaining as well as chock full of great information. I appreciate your offer to share content and connect--that's the heart of social media, whether you're a CIO or a publicist helping authors build their platforms. I'm always open to collaboration as it's a great opportunity to learn. Thanks!

Yes, I think it's a safe conclusion to state that most roads, if not all, lead to social media these days regardless of your profession. There are some distinctives and nuances specific for an author building his brand, but the general principles of social media marketing may be applied. One nuance is the different strategies used for fiction and nonfiction titles.

I'd do more than cry if I knew I had to manage 400 social media sites! I'd lose my mind! Thankfully, we get to strategically choose the sites that are most beneficial to building our platforms. I'm glad to see that your domain name is your real name, Lynnette. I was planning on writing my next post on sites authors should consider having a presence on, but I got ahead of myself. The most important task prior to signing up on social media sites is to land on a brand name. I'm going to backtrack and discuss why choosing the right brand username is so critical when building a platform. Thanks so much for visiting Book Talk!

You jumped to the heart of the problem, Courtney. Time, or more accurately, LACK OF TIME to accomplish everything on your to-do list each day while keeping your priorities in align with your values, in particular your family and ministry. Where does social media fit in this intricate mesh of responsibilities?

I visited your blog and see that you have established a great presence online. You've even been a guest on Rachel Ray. How fun! May I ask you a couple of questions? What are your writing goals? Are you actively working on building a platform with the hope of publishing? The answer to those questions will be a guide in detemining how much time you should consider spending interacting with the people you connect with via social media.

I know a starting point is to let go of the guilt about not being able to connect 24/7. I'm convinced that people connecting with you have incredibly busy lives as well and for the most part will be understanding. My initial thought is to just let your online friends know you're not trying to ignore them, and that you'll try to respond to comments, e-mails and direct messages to the best of your ability as time allows.

A good rule of thumb (that I learned at the SCORE social media marketing seminar) is to schedule 15 minutes a day marketing. You have to decide if that is a realistic goal. If you're trying to built a platform, my recommendation is to carve out the time. Kristen Lamb says that social media is like a lot of things in life. It is a collection of small actions that will amount to a huge difference. Employ small amounts of meaningful activity every day and you will be amazed how quickly this will grow. I think this is great advice.

Thanks for checking in, Courtney! I hope the information forthcoming in this series of posts is beneficial and will strategically help you manage your platform.

I'm glad you enjoyed the post, Coutney, and that these musings touched your heart.

I hear you about there not being enough hours in the day--then add social media on top of other priorities and it seems impossible to even make a dent. I recently attended a social media workshop and was really encouraged by what the presenter said. He challenged us to just start by adding fifteen minutes of marketing (your business, book, personal twitter) a day. I agree, it is more about being intentional. Figuring out how to be intentional is the direction of further social media posts on 'Book Talk'.

I hope you visit again!