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Should You Be on Facebook? Is Tweeting Really Necessary? Talking Online Presence with Loren Long...

I took Monday and Tuesday off work this week for no other reason than to use up some PTO (that expires at the end of the year). One of my Monday activities way having lunch with illustrator Loren Long and his wife Tracy. (Loren also lives and works here in the Nati.)

During lunch at the cafe at Joseph-Beth Booksellers (because I thought it appropriate and because they have great vegetarian chili), Loren, Tracy and I talked a lot about online presence. Loren has a website but has not ventured much beyond that. Does an author with more than a dozen fabulous books under his belt--who works with publishers like Philomel and Simon & Schuster, who is on the Jon Scieska's Trucktown team--need to be blogging? Be on Facebook? Twitter? It couldn't hurt.

It's no secret that authors/illustrators have a big responsibility in their own promotion. The more you're out there, the more connections you make, the more friends you have, the more conversations you get into, the better. Networking should start before you get published (see Christina Katz's Get Known Before the Book Deal) and keep rolling along once you have a book or two or ten out in the world.

That doesn't mean you have to use every social network avenue available. Twitter is not everyone's cup of tea. And heaven help us if everyone had a blog. But if you've got a blog's worth of things to say that would be interesting/useful/informative/inspiring then go for it. If you enjoy being part of the conversation and can fit it into your schedule, tweet away. But if these things aren't you, if they'd be drudgery, move along. But at least try things out to see what fits--you might really enjoy participating in the conversation. (And sometimes that conversation will be about your work.)

Speaking of work, here are a few of my favorite Loren Long covers. So so beautiful. (And now I'm off to hang up my autographed Otis poster.)