Learning New Tricks

There is a drawback to waiting for retirement before starting a new career as an author. These days, you are expected to do your own marketing. And, in this Age of the Internet, a lot of that marketing is in cyberspace. I’ve read enough marketing articles to figure that out.In my first career, I worked my way up to secretary, which meant I knew grammar and punctuation, and when to ask for clarification when doing an assignment. On a computer, I knew Office Word and Office Excel, and was actively discouraged from using the internet at work. Now I have a lot of catching up to do.I thought I was. Catching up. I started - years ago - with MySpace. Does anybody use that anymore? No, I don’t, either. Eventually, I got on Facebook with a personal page. Now those articles tell me I need a fan page. They are full of reasons for having a fan page, but they don’t explain HOW to set up a fan page. And I still don’t know how to post pictures to my personal page. Guess I’ll have to take an afternoon see if I can figure it out.Twitter is another big ‘must be on’ to do marketing. MoonPhaze has an account, but the thought of only having 140 characters sends me into a tizzy fit. Remember when I set out to write a 6,000 word short, and ended up with 15,000 words? Yeah, I tend to run off at the keyboard, as I’ve said many times. I don’t suppose half-sentences will do the trick, huh?And Pinterest. I have some ideas for that, actually, but I’m not an artist. And I don’t want to surf the net for hours, looking for one perfect picture. Chances are, I won’t find it. And if I do, how does the licensing for that picture work when you just want to pin it?And always, those articles encourage using photos and inforgraphtics. Right.I got Photoshop installed on my desktop today. I took a couple Continuing Education classes for it, but the program was on the old computer, and I haven’t been able to play with it recently. I have done basic drawings in Paint. I know how to fill an area with a color in Paint. It’s nowhere near the same in Photoshop.
The more I learn about Marketing, the more questions I have, the more things get put on my To-Do list. And most of the things getting put on my list involve a long learning curve. We’ll see if this old dog can learn any new tricks.