Where's Siobhan? New Year, New Places

Good morning and Happy Monday...

Yeah, yeah, don't throw your empty coffee mugs at me. I can always hope.

Today I'm writing to let you all know that the rules for Facebook are changing and because of that, as an author, my posts are going to be scarce. Not because I want them to be, but because if the powers-that-be (PTBs for short) at Facebook decide I'm promoting my books by letting you know of a giveaway or blog hop happening, they will ghost my posts. Hehehe, that rhymes. :D Unless I pay big bucks in the hopes that you might see them in your feed.

The point is while I knew Facebook is all about the bottom line, money over people (ironic for a social network), I can't afford their brand of interaction and I'm disappointed with that choice. My opinion and I'm not looking for a discussion about "you shoulda known".

Here's my choice: I'm going dark on Facebook for a week from January 1, 2015 to January 7, 2015. It's more to find out if I can do it, and if I can still connect with my readers on other social sites. So for that week, I won't be posting on Facebook. But you can find me in a variety of places.

Google Plus has been a darn fine place to find me and find some of my more fun posts. You can talk to me and I'll talk back. Woot. I'm there most days and if you're part of the OpenSim community, that's a good place to find me.

Twitter is another good place to find me. I like to see what all you have going on, but also connect with you there. You'll find out about my books, where they are, and any new deals for them or giveaways or free reads.

Pinterest is a fun place and a great place to find my book covers, my Teddy Bear Thursday, Tattoo Tuesday, and Wicked Her Wednesday pictures (among others).

Tsu.co is a new social network that is a lot like Facebook was. The posts aren't filtered and they can reach all the friends and followers. I'll be there and can respond to you not only on the posts I share, but also in private messages. You can make money by sharing and connecting there, but it's not very much and it's not why I'm there. I'm there to connect with all of you and keep you appraised of what's going on with me.

You can also find me on my website and sign up for my newsletter that comes out once a month. Just add your name and email address to the sign up form and you're in like Flynn.

So there you have it. Those are the social places you'll find me. Again, I hope you all will come see me and will understand why I've chosen to stay away from Facebook. Thank you for being patient and for keeping up with me.

Happy Reading!

Siobhan

And We're Back!

Testing, testing, one, two, three! Is this on?

I was all hot to trot to write a new blog entry and what happened? No way to post. What? How can that be?

So now I can post, I can write, I can tell the world everything! But can I remember what I wanted to write about?

Uh, no. Hmm. What was I thinking about?

Crap. Focus, focus, focus!

Okay, the biggest news? I'm now on Twitter, though I admit to being a newbie at it. How often are you supposed to tweet? In 140 characters, what really can you tweet about? Sigh. If you want to "follow" me (sounds like an invitation to a stalker, doesn't it?) I'm @SiobhanMuir. I'll try to tweet something pithy.

Facebook is cracking down on giveaways and contests, saying authors (and anyone really) who puts a contest or giveaway up on their page, can have their page deleted without warning, banishing those folks into internet obscurity. It seems like they've shot themselves in the foot. As I understood it, Facebook was a FREE social media site, meant for communication and interaction, including self-promotion. It garnered good press for Facebook (and probably many more members) from all the readers who wanted to get their hands on books from the various authors who post there.

But Facebook made new guidelines disallowing all sorts of giveaway interactions. Just my opinion, of course, but I think it may hurt them more than help them.

As for writing news, I'm working on Jeff Lightfoot's manuscript and editing like a crazy person. I'll be going to Arizona Dreamin' in Tempe at the beginning of June to interact with other romance authors, learn new tricks to this trade (which I'll blog about when I get back) and maybe even, pitch the story to the publisher who's supposed to be there, too! :D Wish me luck!

I hope your week has been great and I hope to have a more informative blog entry on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Do you have an opinion about Facebook or Twitter or both? Which do you like better and why? Just curious.