Hangin' out

Like Maggie, I've tried a few spots: CrimeSpace, BookPlace, NotOverTheHill are three that didn't pan out for me. As to others, I'm there most of the time:

MySpace -- I dip in once or twice a week and update info there

LiveSpace -- I dip in once or twice a month

Facebook -- I don't actually 'go' there; I tweet on Twitter and my updates go to Facebook, looking like I'm there. I actually visit the site maybe once a week.

Twitter -- this has been, so far, my social site of choice. It's fast, simple, easy, and interesting. I can dip in & out in the course of a day and easily update my status. I don't worry about how many friends I have or how many are following me or whatever. I just point people here or there, to blogs I've read, etc., and I've found so many interesting posts about publishing from people I'm following.

Of course, I'm a charter member of the Short Attention Span Club, so that might be why it works for me.

I'll be curious to see what the Next Big Thing is. Twitter is already getting spammed & full of icky folks. What will they think of next .....?

Maggie the Social Butterfly

The title for my post is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I'm not overly gregarious, even on the internet. However, I knew that social networks were important, so I gradually tapped into several of them.

My first social network efforts were on MySpace and Shelfari. I didn't do much with Shelfari, but through time, my usage and friends at MySpace multiplied like bunnies. I didn't go all out with killer graphics like many people do. That's just not me. I'm more of a just-the-facts kind of girl. Somehow I managed to get music and a slide show on my MySpace. At one time I had several Winnie the Pooh characters but the codes gorped up and now they're gone.

I learned about Authors Den from someone and signed up for that one. Mostly I have a presence there and not much else.

Then came Facebook. I got into Facebook slowly. But in the last six months, my friends on Facebook have grown exponentially. I like the twitter-like feature that provides an update for friends. I try to leave an update there once a week, but I'm not always consistent.

After that I heard about Ning and Goodreads. I signed up in several Ning groups but frankly I don't participate there at all, other than having a single on a Ning page. Goodreads was an addiction for awhile. I amassed a lot of "friends" there thinking it would be a great database of readers. It is that, but it is unwieldy to send a message to all 500-plus friends. Still, I go out there at least monthly to update my bookshelf and to post reviews.

I also decided to use my MySpace blog as a consolidated repository for various blogs I write. That gives me a weekly entry there, and I see that I have blog viewership each week. I've sent out bulletins on MySpace promoting various events, online and in person, with limited success.

I didn't sign up for Twitter. I can barely keep all the rest of this stuff straight.

My website is where I get the most bang for my buck. Lots of hits there. I'm still pumped about the content, still can't believe I actually have published books. (Nobody wake me up from this great dream!)

Maggie

No more networks is my new motto!!!

http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

Social sites we have known

Do you have a MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, web site or blog account?

Which one do you think is better for you -- easiest to maintain, fun to use, reaches the most readers, or serves its purpose best....

And which ones do you visit oftenest?

Of course I'm multi-tasking

Time for catching up (our usual mid-year review):

• wrote 2 books this year for submission to editor next year, one of which is the Oz book (quite good, if I do say so myself)
  
• finished third book in paranormal series, submitted & accpepted
• sold a third Romantic Suspense book, probably releasing next year
• proposal submitted for fourth RS book
• edits done:

1. for Human Touch (releasing in August)
2. Temperance (releasing in September)
3. Living Proof (releasing next year; I'm on the final page proof stage now)
4. "Hot Rods" (releasing next year)
5. "Porno" (releasing next year)
6. "Exwives" (edits in progress, actually) (releasing next year)

Writing things in progress:

1. Book 3 of the Deadly Landscapers' series (to be submitted next year)
   
2. "Ghost Story" (woman haunted by husband, who was murdered; she has to solve the murder)
3. Book sold on proposal (see above)
4. CONSIDERING looking for an agent but as always, I ask, "Why?" Until I have a good answer, I'll put it on hold...
   

Other (this year):

• lost 33 pounds (2 more to go, but I'll take the 33, thank you!)
• first grand-nephew born, I get to see him in July
• oldest niece getting married (in July)
• 5 airplane-out-of-town trips done, 3 more to go this year
• 4 more out of town trips (via car) this year (planned). 5 done.
  
• promotion at work (WOOT!)
  
• two new kittens in the home (snoozing right now near my left shoulder on chair back)
• garden re-design finished, one flower bed yet to do

Hmm. I think that's it.

Can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings ...

Maggie World

Maggie World. That's my husband's nickname for the fictional land where I reside most of the time. It's based here in my office, stretches inward through my imagination and out through all of cyberspace.

Things are swell in Maggie World. The new agent is marketing Bubba Done It. Avon passed on it, and Berkley is taking a look. The new agent also took on my nudist colony murder mystery (she contracts individually for each book). She does a good bit of editing, which she will get to after her vacation in early July, at which time she will send it onward. It's been at St. Martins and Berkley in their slush piles for 1.25 years, after a request for a full from a conference I attended last year.

Meanwhile, I finished the revisions requested by Five Star on the sequel to my golf mystery. Here's hoping they fall in love with this version. I would definitely like to continue this series, and I already have the title of the next book as well as a wisp of a plot. But if they were to pick up On The Nickel, they wouldn't want to see the next one until 6 months after OTN was out to make sure sales were good enough to warrant another book. Bottom line, that book wouldn't be considered until late 2011 or sometime 2012 - that seems a lifetime away.

I'm editing the sequel to Bubba Done It. About a hundred pages to go and a coupla complete read throughs. I'm running this one through a new critique group I formed in the mystery writers group (Southeast Mystery Writers).

Once that's done, I'm not sure if I want to clean up a previous effort on my shelf or start fresh. It would be nice to put out another romantic suspense, but I don't have one written. For me, a rewrite takes about 3 months whereas a fresh book from scratch takes about 8 months. That's a long time to spend on a book that I'd have to market extensively on my own.

I'm continuing to enjoy newspapering, though I will be putting in some extra hours in the next few weeks as my boss hares off to Italy. I'm also moving towards certification as a yoga instructor. That exam is on July 26.

I like having multiple irons in the fire. Not a lot of irons, but just the right amount.

Happy 4th of July everyone.

Maggie

a fresh voice in Southern fiction