Last night we packed the house (Nancy's house) for the 26th meeting of the New York Salon of Women Writers. The subject was Social Media: Love It Or Hate It, What Does It Mean For Writers? (I have gone from being a hater to being an unabashed lover, especially watching the membership of this site skyrocket over the last twenty-four hours, 218 and counting as of this second!) It was an amazing evening featuring three expert women in the field: Gina Bianchini, President and CEO of Ning.com, Sarah Milstein, the 21st member of Twitter and author of The Twitter Book, and our own SHE WRITES guru and blogging expert Deborah Siegel of Girl w/Pen.

Gina started the evening with a description of social networks and how writers can use them to build community for their books. She described the process Seth Godin used to build community around his concept of Tribes, and to sell a heck of a lot of books (his book Unleashing the Idea Virus has been downloaded more than a million times in ebook form), involving readers at every stage of the creative process and using material gathered from his online followers in his books. (I really like Godin's TED talk on Standing Out.) Gina suggested that writers think of social networking sites like Facebook and Ning as places to establish an online hub from which to build spokes connecting to other people and places online, and hopefully encouraging them to connect back to you. Writers with a point of view that is crisp and clear are the most successful. It isn't necessary to do it all; just choose some specific things and do them well--always with a hook. SHE WRITES...She Needs Help being one good one. (SHE WRITES is a Ning-powered network.)

Deborah took it from there as she delivered a clear, inviting case for blogging as an excellent way for writers to work and live online. Some highlights: Do not have the mentality that if you build it, they will come. Blogs do not have to be "extra" -- find a way to make them part of what you are already doing, as a way to augment your work, not add to it. Blogs are flexible and can grow with you and your writing: Deborah's began as a friends-and-family log of the book tour she was on with her anthology Only Child (coedited with SHE WRITES author Daphne Uviller), and has evolved into Girl w/Pen, now a group blog drawing on the talents of a team of women. She pointed to examples of women writers who have begun with blogs and built them into book. Case in point: SHE WRITES author Gretchen Rubin, whose blog The Happiness Project was one basis for her book of the same name, now to be published by Harper Collins in late 2009. Gretchen was in the house and talked about "link love" and the fact that blogging is an excellent way to point to and support the things/people/books/stuff you love. For book-to-blog, Deborah cited SHE WRITES author Marci Alboher, whose book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success led to a year-and-a-half stint as a New York Times blogger and to her current spot as a staff blogger on Working The New Economy for Yahoo's Shine. (Talk about link love, baby! I am GIVING IT UP in this post! Always ladies, always...) Deborah's talk was an introduction to blogging for writers, and only a taste of all she has to give, but it had everybody fired up.

Sarah wrapped up our new-media-trifecta with the most straight-forward and user-friendly presentation about Twitter I've heard to date. (Check our list of Twitter handles if you are looking for SHE WRITES members to follow. At this moment it is out of date, but it will be brought up to speed over the weekend.) Sarah was the 21st member of Twitter and knows it inside and out, and emphasized Twitter's power as a way to give more link-love by pointing to sites, people and things you are following. Posts are short and sweet (a la tweet), and give your followers a chance to quickly and easily see what you are about--not only that, but it's opt-in, so you don't have to follow anyone who doesn't interest you, and at the same time your tweets had better be useful and to-the-point. Sarah pointed to the writer Susan Orlean as an innovative and compelling user of the form. Suze Orman (who, as Sarah wryly observed, has quite a network already), was cited as an example of an active and effective user of Twitter who carries on conversations with her followers directly by messaging them, and they her. SHE WRITES author (and past president of Planned Parenthood) Gloria Feldt was in the house, and is also a blogger and a twitterer (is that a word??), and another great one to follow.

At this point the conversation began--one memorable moment was when Gina pointed out that blogging and Twittering are the 21st century version of your mother sending you newspaper articles--and questions about what these mediums mean for writers abounded. One pressing question -- what does it mean for writers if writing a book is no longer enough? -- was debated, and Nancy and Kamy shared some thoughts about how SHE WRITES could help provide an umbrella and a brand for women writers who need to get on with their work (writing) and might not have time to maintain and promote themselves as "brands" while they do it. Nancy voiced her concerns about the pressures of self-promotion, and other salon members discussed the way these new media might enrich and support their work without detracting from it. There was consensus that self-promotion is not at all sufficient to any of these forms; quality content and, as Gina put it, a crisp clear point of view, remain queen.

In other words, everyone felt jazzed and had a lot to say, which is generally how our salons go.

There was also very good cheese.

We will be working with Gina, Deborah and Sarah to continue counseling and coaching us here at SHE WRITES, and hope that we can help.

And damn, we are at 277 and counting. More more more! Though not now. I am off to bed.