I decided not to do any promotional work until my book Living in the Heartland: Three Extraordinary Women’s Stories appeared on Amazon.com. As I’ve said in previous posts, I chose to independently publish my book after I’d received about two dozen ‘no thank you’ letters from agents and publishes. I thought: “How can I go wrong selling my book on America's largest online behemoth, a retailer with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of its nearest competitor?” Since my book was cataloged among Amazon’s thousands upon thousands of other offerings, it seemed obvious that I needed to focus my marketing energies online. So began my social media (SM) education. The first step was to build a SM platform. SM coaches tout the importance of starting with a foundation based upon Twitter, Facebook, and a blog. So that is what I did. Twitter was easy. Facebook required more tie to set up because of the information requested. My blog, even though Wordpress makes set up pretty simple, was even more time consuming and I admit I had plenty of frustration. I had to select the best layout. There are nearly 100 layouts to choose from. Then I had to figure out how to customize the banner and learn how to install and operate the widgets. Initially, I hated Twitter. The few people who I started following seemed to have a clique. They tweeted predominantly among themselves. Much of what they said wasn’t interesting to me. Then I realized I was stuck in an infinitesimally small Twitter puddle in relation to the ocean of Twitter folk chattering away some place I was not. As I became more confident I was able to find new people, but I also discovered to my dismay many of their Tweets were either “words to live by”, quotes attributable to famous or anonymous people, or outright marketing. Numerous people told me to persevere. They also told me that the number one rule on the Internet is to be genuine and build trust before trying to market anything on the Internet. My cynicism grew as I wondered about the disconnect between what I was being told were “and what people were doing. The response to my questioning the rules was always the same: give it time. In time I would see the benefits. Being trained as a scientist I wanted evidence on which to base my hopes. All I received were testimonials. This was not a good introduction to the Internet for me. I was overwhelmed by all the SM tasks I needed to do. I wanted concrete evidence that all my hours of work on the computer were going to pay off, result in some book sales. The sales figures I saw that first month were UNBELIEVABLE. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There HAD to be a mistake. I could have sold more books door to door on block! Doubt began to flood in: had I made the wrong decision? Should I have waited to publish independently? Should I have sent out more manuscripts? As you can see I’m still working with SM. I am more positive than I’ve ever been. Come back soon for the next installment. As I discuss my experience you will understand how I arrived at my answer to the question: Social Media or Old-Fashioned Networking: Which is Right for Writers? Find out about my new book which is the reason I write this blog at Amazon.com. My other blog is Living in the Heartland.