Authors Behaving Smartly

unicornIt’s hot here.  Like over 100 degrees hot.  What’s a woman to do except try to distract herself from her misery by focusing on something nice?

So, in the spirit of rainbows and unicorns, here’s my personal list of authors I think are doing a great job at navigating the turbulent Internet waters.  And by personal list, I mean:

  • They’re on my personal radar.  There are lots of authors out there that I don’t follow who I’m sure are doing just as great a job who I may not be aware of.  This isn’t a wide-ranging list, but is strictly my own.
  • They’re not butt kissers.
  • They don’t turn every discussion online into “in my book…”
  • They don’t get huffy about online reviews or reader criticism.
  • They shine because their real personalities come through and the reader wants to spend time in their company.
  • They’re present online in more ways than just a blog or author Web site.  That may be a fine level of involvement for many authors and readers, but I’m just not one to take the time to visit  an individual author’s Web sites to read a blog.  I may go to an author blog if a link on Twitter or a message board leads me to it, but I just don’t surf author blogs on a regular basis. So, Jennifer Crusie (love the site design by the way), the Word Wenches, and Two Nerdy History Girls aren’t on my list, even though I think they are all made of awesome sauce.  (I’ve been dying to use the latter in a sentence. Okay. Moving on now.)

Ready for my social media honor roll?

Deanna Raybourn: On Twitter and with her easy links to her blog she shows every single day that she is an interesting and funny woman.  And interesting and funny women write great books, yes?

Teresa Medeiros: One of the nicest women ever. And I really mean that. She responds to readers when they Tweet her. She’s immensely effervescent and incredibly enthusiastic about the things she loves. And bottom line? I  just can’t help but get enthused right along with her.

Julia Quinn: Her fans are many. (I know some in real life who don’t consider themselves romance readers, but wait impatiently for every JQ release.)  Somehow, someway she manages to reach out to them all via her excellent Web site and creative use of Twitter.  She’s there online, but she really isn’t.  By that I mean her Web site is current, she’s there via Twitter, but she doesn’t hang around to play for long periods of time.  And I think that’s just fine.

Sherry Thomas: One of my favorite of the newer writers who is also a whiz at social media.  She’s present in several online venues and manages to straddle the sometimes difficult lines with remarkable ease.  She doesn’t Tweet often, but when she does it’s interesting.  I wish I read her blog more, because I’m quite sure that is, too. Frankly, I think if Sherry wasn’t as good at social media as she is it would have taken us a lot longer to find her excellent books.

Karen Templeton: Karen has been hanging with us at AAR for years now and is one of our regulars.  She promotes her books when appropriate (hey, I know that’s what authors are really out to do, and that’s just fine), but she gets involved in discussion after discussion that prove that she’s just as big a romance lover as we are.  She’s there because she wants to be and I think every AAR regular reader knows it.  Well done, Karen.

So, knowing that I’ve undoubtedly left some Big Gaping Holes on my list, I’m curious to know who you think shines at social media?  Who’s doing it right?

– Sandy AAR

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