Please welcome, publicist Meredith Barnes of Soho Press!
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Meredith Barnes is a Digital Marketing/Publicity maven for Soho Press, specifically their Young
Adult (coming 2013) and Literary Fiction lines, as well as a habitual defector (ex-Texan, ex-lit agent). She specializes in comprehensive media campaigns, especially focusing on viral (read: free) marketing and author platform consultation and development. Always a bit of a nomad, her reading tastes range from literary fiction to young adult to science fiction to pizza cookbooks—and she’s helped sell all of these at one point or another. Above all, Meredith believes empowered, involved authors are key to creating custom campaigns for each and every book.
She keeps a blog aimed at making authors empowered and involved at merbarnes.blogspot.com and is also on Twitter @Mer_Barnes.
Soho Press is an independent book publisher based in New York City since 1986, publishing literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, and international crime fiction.
Good information. I wish you would have touched on websites. If they were necessary etc.
Sometimes, the social media side of this writing thing can seem a bit daunting with all the different options. It was very nice to get Meredith’s perspective on dealing with all of this. Thanks Meredith and thanks to the great folks at WriteOn Con for gathering all these knowledgeable individuals.
Thank you Meredith! This is great information. I agree with Angela that social media can be a scary animal sometimes. There are sooooo many ways to interact with your potential readers, and so many people trying to sell the ‘right way’ to do things.
Thank you for your sound, realistic advice! Good to hear it from someone ‘in the know’!
Hi, Meredith! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on social media. I definitely like Twitter over Facebook.
Thanks for very much for this information
I did connect with many of my blogger friends on Twitter and that has been wonderful! I found the platform also helps to find wonderful critique partner and beta readers since you get to know one another a bit through the platforms before working together. I would love to know why writers shouldn’t write about writing (love the sound of that sentence 
). Again, thank you so much!
Hi Meredith. Thank you for de-mystifying. So glad we don’t have to do it all – it doesn’t leave much time for writing! Do you have any tips for getting people to your blog or FB page? Or are you suggesting twitter gets them there – eventually. I’m guessing it’s a slow process hence the need to do it consistently for a long time?
Not sure how I feel about the “don’t blog about writing” advice. Since writing and reading are what so many of us writers are most passionate, it seems unnatural to try to blog about something else, imo.
Interesting advice not to blog about writing — I think it depends on the readership. A lot of us writers talk mostly to each other online (and why not? We’re charming and lovely and witty), but the audience of writers might not be your audience of readers.
A friend of mine who is wiser than me in all things writes in several genres (MG and historical fiction) and she blogs about related history and nonfiction tie-ins — she gets a lot of traffic from folks who have never heard of her but who end up interested in her books.
I spent a lot of time dithering about whether I should create an author page on FB or not, but it just seemed like too much since I already had a personal page. I finally decided to stick with twitter for my writing stuff. Glad to have the reassurance from Meredith that we don’t have to do all the things.
Thank you for this presentation! I’ve often wondered about the do’s and don’ts of public media. This was really helpful to me! I’ve never used Twitter before, but you’re making it sound like the way to go. Besides, Facebook can get so annoying sometimes. They’re always confusing me with something new. I dread my page turning over to Timeline.
I like hearing that we don’t have to do everything. I’ve avoid Pintrest, which I worry is a time-sucker. I haven’t done Twitter, but I know I’m probably missing out by avoiding it. Blogging and Facebook is plenty for me. I thought it was interesting to hear people check out FB pages. I never do. I just read through feeds and check out links from there.
Kelsey, boo to timeline!
Thanks for sharing your perspective on social media! It’s comforting to know that it isn’t necessary to do everything, and that posting twice a week is a enough to keep up a blog. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to think about all the things to do on social media when I want to be writing!
What a relief! I have Twitter, FB and a blog that I’ve just started. Plenty enough for me. Thank you for the vlog, Meredith!
So how do you manage all the social media when your editor wants you to be on everything? How much time do you spend, how do you organize it, and your life – and stay funny and interesting without headbanging your computer???
WAH!!!
What a great vlog! I really need to find some things to be passionate about now… #crap
Phew! Breathing easy about the Pinterest thing.
And Elana, I was just thinking the same thing! Passion . . . passion . . . passion . . .
Great vlog!
(pssst Meredith’s blog link doesn’t work.)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on social media and saying that we don’t have to do everything. I found it very interesting that you recommend not blogging about writing.
Great vlog. It really got me thinking that I need to branch out from the blogging about writing thing and that it’s okay to do that! Thanks Meredith!
Thank you so much, Meredith! Time to ditch all the social media extras and focus on my blog and Twitter. I appreciate your advice.
Very happy to hear what’s important in social media. I think I’ll be using twitter a little more now.
Great vlog, Meredith! I’ve gained so much from entering the Twitter world at your recommendation last year. Thank you!
Good information! I think twitter and a blog are a good place to start. I use Facebook only to connect with friends and relatives, twitter to make new connections.
I love your advice about not blogging about writing. While I am a former high school English teacher and know a decent amount about writing, I don’t feel I’m an expert or that I should dole out advice others should take in regards to writing or getting published (especially since I’m currently unpublished). I am always blown away by those blogs that are written well about a subject the blogger is really into. As I always taught my students, the more good writing you’re exposed to, the better your writing will become. Reading well-written blogs has really given me a sense of what works, what sounds good, and ideas on how to formulate my own style. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t advertise my blog around yet – it’s not quite where I want it to be and the content is not quite as consistent as I would like. Getting there.
Anyways, thanks for this vlog. Loved it.
Thanks for the great tips. I’ve been debating whether to go on Twitter and you’ve got me convinced to do it.
Thanks Meredith! Your words of advice are reassuring! Thanks again!
The number of social media outlets is DAUNTING! The advice to choose a select 1-2 is wise in this respect. My suggestion is that you experiment with different ones and find which best meets your individual needs.
I find my online presence is varied among them all. I have a personal Facebook account, but it’s mainly for use with friends/family and professional in-real-life networking (in a way, I find FB more effective than LinkedIn, but I digress). I’m active on Ravelry, but that’s restricted to crafters, and my presence there is strictly social/geek. Both of these networks are considerably decent for a more intimate idea of social networking. They’re the cyber-representation of hanging out at parties, just partaking in conversations for the sake of it. Making friends, having fun.
Twitter, however, is the one main medium I come back to after test-running all the rest for the purposes of writing, finding local- and industry-related news, gaining my own audiences and keeping them updated on where I am as a professional. I think it works in this sense because it’s short and to-the-point. It’s a giant word-of-mouth stream.
While I appreciate your thoughts, Meredith, on how writers should stick to their passions on blogs v. writing about writing, I respectfully disagree. Partially.
As others have mentioned above, writers ARE passionate about what we do, so why discount that as a blog focus? I say mix it up, include a little of both. My passions are scifi/fantasy and YA, which give me a broad range of topics for my blog. I also write for that genre, so I can easily connect my discussions to my work.
I do think how-to writing blogs are overdone. However, I usually try to implement my craft into what I discuss on my blog. I’ll commentate on what I learn/observe about the world, share samples and test out new styles/genres (it IS a portfolio, after all), voice opinions on matters related to writing/publishing (i.e. censorship). Since I’m self-studying cinematic arts/screenwriting, I’ll often write my observations on how writing for film differs from writing for novels.
Make it unique. That’s all I’m saying! XD
Thank you for the good writeup. It in reality was once a enjoyment account it. Glance complicated to more brought agreeable from you! However, how can we keep in touch?
Thanks for this, Meredith. I have a Twitter account, but I haven’t done much with it. I will try being a creepy watcher a little more. Haha. I do have my favorite bloggers that use Twitter, so I will start there.
Love this
I’m a bit scared about not blogging about writing, however. What if I scare away readers that are writers, and who read to find out more about writing? I’ve heard it’s good to keep the blog focused on one thing. Social media scares me, hehhe 
Very helpful. And thank you for saying you don’t need to do it ALL. If I did it would leave no time to write. I have facebook mainly for family. I know I need to blog, and I’ll get to that eventually. Interesting you say not to blog about your writing.
I like twitter best. It’s quick and fits into what I have time for and it’s helpful to see what agents, editors, etc talk about. And of course I follow people with the same interests as me and other authors. But some authors, whew … one long spam feed. I don’t follow some of them back. Makes me feel rude but I don’t want to sift through a million of the same buy-my-book tweets to find the tweets I really want to read. Although many have like 15k followers! I imagine it is 15k other people that doing the same spamy thing.
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already
Cheers!