Social media is a key part of publishing and communications work. I would almost say essential. But I grew up in a time when no one had home computers. I got my first email address when I was in university, and I was on the vanguard when I set up a freenet account. Back then, people used telephones that had wires attached to a jack in the wall, and mail came through the post. It seems quaint now, but it worked, and I dare say that if you really want to get someone's attention a phone call is still probably the best way to reach them.
The big difference now is that we have more communication tools to choose from: email, websites, social media, phones, mobile data, good old fashioned letters, and let's not forget print media. I still prefer to have something in my hands to read, like a book or a Saturday morning paper. But choices are often dictated by larger social patterns and movements, markets and cultures. In publishing, it would be hard to choose communication tools that did not involve social media sites like Facebook. And yet, that's exactly what I chose to do this week. I deleted my Facebook account.
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When I launched my editing business in 2015, I wrote down my mission: To help create quality books that make life better for readers, by offering up informed stories - true or fictional - that build empathy, wonder, and hope. Those guiding words seem even more relevant today than they were back in 2015, before the world was subjected to such heavy doses of He Who Cannot Be Named, as I tend to call him (and I don’t mean Lord Voldemort).
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Erika WestmanErika is an award-winning freelance editor who works with novelists, non-fiction writers, and academics. Archives
November 2019
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