Authors, Are You Approachable Online?

The other day, someone forwarded me an email because the original sender had wanted to contact me but hadn't been able to find my address on my Facebook page. That original sender even included a link to a blog post about how authors should be approachable.

My initial thought was an affronted, "What? I'm totally approachable. Why were you looking for my email on Facebook of all places instead of just Googling my name, which would take you to this blog, which not only has a contact page but a big green contact button that stalks you down the side of the entry as you read?" Naturally, all I wrote back was a "thank you." The customer is always right, after all. (I also added my email address to the "info" tab on my Facebook fan page, which is what I hope people will stumble across, rather than my personal page where I mostly B.S. with my tennis buddies.)

Anyway, I didn't think much more of this "approachable" thing until this weekend, when I was catching up with some of the folks who had left comments on my blog recently or who had linked to one of my posts. If I have time, I try to comment back or thank someone for linking to my site.

Well, I ran into a few blogs where a) comments were turned off, b) I couldn't find the button to press to leave a comment, or c) I couldn't leave a comment because this option was only open to members of Webs, Livejournal, etc. and I don't have accounts there. There was another blog where I almost said forget it and left because I failed the Captcha twice.

Outside of the blogosphere, I've run into authors who protect their tweets (so only followers can see their comments) and others who keep their Facebook pages private (that's fine, but at least consider putting up up a public author fan page).

Here's the point: little things like that might leave a fan with an impression that an author is unapproachable. No comments or contact page might imply, "Oh, this author isn't interesting in talking to me. Well, maybe I'll just check out another author who is…."

Now, as an author myself, I know that the way your blog is set up may have nothing to do with how friendly and approachable you are (if you're like me and making do with a free template, it's not always easy to get all the features you want on there). And I've certainly had days (weeks) where there's just too much going on, and the social media stuff is the first thing to get dropped by the wayside — with email a close second (I always answer emails about my books, but I sometimes have to put the questions about e-publishing and book promotion to the side; sorry guys — triage and all that).

Though we're all busy, I think it's important to make an effort to be approachable in our various online venues. Sure, most of us have jobs and families, and there's only so much time in the day, but the fact of the matter is people prefer to do business with people they like.

When you're a bestselling author with bazillions of fans lined up for each new book, you can probably be a hermit or a snob, but most of us aren't there yet. We're at a point where one reader can matter.

One reader can become one of your 1,000 true fans and someone who talks up your books to other people, thus helping you establish yourself as an author (and, as you might imagine, someone who takes the time to look up your site and wants to talk to you is exactly that kind of person). You don't want to alienate those readers simply because they're not able to get in touch with you.

So, what can we do to be more approachable online? Here are a few suggestions (and I'm open to hearing more in the comments, because, hey, I'm still learning all this stuff too!):

Tips for Being Approachable Online

If you blog, make it easy for people to comment — Your readers will tell you what they want to see on your blog if you let them, and you'll get more traffic by writing posts folks are interested in. If you've chosen to make it difficult for people to comment because you're worried about spammers, ask yourself if that's really a problem or you just perceive it might be. I get more than 5,000 visitors a month, and I don't have any trouble with spam because the Akismet WordPress plug-in captures all of it. I believe even the free Blogger blogs are pretty good at detecting spam on their own, so consider if you really need to add an extra step and make readers punch in squiggly letters just to leave a comment.
Put your email address or a contact form on your site where it's easy to find — It's your call which you want to use. I've heard from folks who think a contact form is impersonal, but I think it makes it super easy for someone to get in touch without copying and pasting your email address. Also, it makes it easy for me to pick out emails that originate from this blog, since my ContactMe plug-in uses a distinctive header. I get a lot of junk email for work, so that one feature is very useful for me.
Set up alerts, so you know when people have contacted you — If you signed up for Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, and everything under the sun, but aren't very active on all of those networks, email or text alerts can let you know if you have a new message waiting on one.
Put your contact information and/or your webpage/blog/Facebook/etc. at the end of your ebooks — This one is on my to-do list. I think I've just got my website at the end of most of them now, but it makes sense to add email and numerous options for getting in touch. Chances are, the moment readers are most excited about talking to you is right after they finish your book.

 

All right, those are my suggestions for being more approachable online. Do you have any to add?

 

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