After making the announcement last month about what I shall forever recollect as The Lovely Book Deal, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about online presence, social media, and what I can do to tie it all together so everything has a cohesive look.  You might have already noted the change in my header picture, sub-header (Little Things From The Old North State) etc.  All that was done before I announced, but, of course, it was at the back of my mind.

There is so much to read online about this.  The main thing I think is it should reflect what a person writes about so a reader is provided with a taste of the author’s personality, as well as an overall style of the works they produce.  All of my stories are set in the South.  The first book, (the one that sold! Can I say it enough?) is set in Alabama.  The second one is set in North Carolina, and the last one – that hair pulling hard crime novel – is set in Mississippi.  With my current WIP, I’ve come back “home” to North Carolina.

But what exactly does it mean to “reflect” what one writes?  How does one go about doing that?  I don’t think it has to be difficult.  For instance, the new header picture for this blog?  I took it while in the NC mountains near the Linville River in September of this year. I suppose that’s a red salamander, or “eft,” I really don’t know.  What I do know is that I love taking pictures, and although I’m no pro, I know what strikes me as appropriate as a “mood” or a way to catch the “flavor” of a setting.  For instance, if I think about the different scenes in THE EDUCATION OF DIXIE DUPREE, which contains back porches, muscadine vines, and pine trees, to name only a tiny bit which are part of the setting, it’s not hard to find pictures to give readers a visual, you know, from that whole “a picture speaks a thousand words,” view.

I certainly could have driven around and taken random shots here and there, but why do that when there’s…PINTEREST!  I created a page for the book early on, searching for what struck me as perfectly depicting various scenes in the book.  Actually, I was suprised at how many I was able to find.  Have a look at it here.

Another big part of online presence positioning is a book cover.  You might have noticed in the DIXIE DUPREE board on Pinterest, I have it as “Cover ideas,” because even with the editor/copy editor/marketing/sales folks, etc, reading the story, the images for what I felt was the right “tone” might have been all in my head.  In other words, it was a way for me to provide the artistic viewpoint, the way to set the mood.  Likely any header pictures will certainly change to THAT, so don’t get too attached to my little red friend.  🙂

Outside of THE BOOK COVER, posting pictures with a few descriptive words seems easy enough, but, I have no idea if that’s what I’m leaning towards as my way of saying, “here’s who I am, and what my stories are about!”  Or not.  I suppose I’m simply mentioning all that’s going on in my head, and all the work before me I will need to do to help things move along when they need moving.  So to speak.

Even with a year to go before the release date of November 2016, I want to be ready.  I was a Girl Scout, you know.  Or maybe you didn’t, but one motto “Be prepared,” well, that’s me.