Getting these blogs out during lockdown is proving something of a challenge I’ll admit! I know I said, back at the beginning, that they’d be ‘as and when’ but I was hoping to do one a week at least. The reality of it is, without new experiences to share I flounder for content, I don’t want to rehash the old but I have to *do* something new to *post* about something new!
That said I’m about to embark on a quest to find representation but, before I blog about the ‘search for an agent’ (complete with witty word-play title), I wanted to talk to you about an aspect of writing that both agents and publishers are looking for these days, social media presence. I mean, sure, you could try the ‘mysterious reclusive hermit’ approach but, in this day and age, you have to be seriously talented to get a book published purely on its merits because these days, part of the ‘product’ is you.
Publishers and Agents want to know that you can sell yourself to draw people into your works and that meant having a Social Media Following. Facebook, WordPress, Twitter these are all tools for a writer or any creative to generate publicity and interest. Of course just throwing up tweets isn’t the be-all and end-all, there are other tools that you need to learn to use, one of those being; Hashtags.
For the uninitiated a #Hashtag is simply that, you prefix the word (or words) with a hash symbol and voila! Your post is now labelled with an easy peasy search term. ‘But how will I know what to hashtag?’ You might ask, well. That’s what this blog is about.
#WritingCommunity – that’s the big one, if you drop this tag you’re addressing all of us. This Hashtag targets the community.
#Iamwriting/#Iamediting/#Iamrevising/#WIP – these three are all about you happily getting along with what you’re doing, wordcounts, finishing chapters, editing and revising a finished draft etc.
#Writerslife – a Hashtag for pictures of your cat interfering with your progress, work in the garden, you’re latest culinary creation. All those little and uplifting things that surround writing, or the troubles and tribulations associated with it.
#NaNoWriMo – You know it, I loathe it, National Novel Writers Month, if you’re doing it, talk about it.
#PitMad – this one I’ll go into more detail with in another update but PitMad is a Twitter event for writers to pitch their works to publishers and agents. There are some rules involved so read up about the when and how.
#(YourGenreHere) – Tag your work by the genre you’re writing in, you’ll draw interest from other authors, readers and, maybe that Publisher you’re looking for.
This list is by no means exhaustive, there are many more from #WriterLift to #SaturdayShoutout, if you want to find out about more hashtags you can use there’s a useful blog here.
Anyway, if you’re proud of your work, shout about it, post about it, Tweet about it and uplift it. Get it out in the world and let others uplift it too.
David Cart-Writer 