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Scott Lax Blog

Professional Writers Should be Aware of Social Media's Impact as Well as Benefits

I'm not against social media -- far from it. While I don't do Twitter or Facebook for now (maybe when a new book is out), I think they can be excellent tools to connect with family and friends and clients and readers; and to market your writing in general.

But be careful -- those domains are not yours. I think the jury is still out (if not even in session yet) about whether you own your own words on domains that are not like this one, which is an Authors Guild domain (and thus I know they protect my rights, not infringe on them). Just make sure you own your own words if that's important to you.

And, too, if you're a professional writer, and you post using ungrammatical sentences and rant about things that you might better keep to a private conversation, you need to be aware that your words will stay out here on the ether forever. Or until the sun goes super-nova, anyway.

I write controversial things, and likely always will. But I stand behind them (or at least wince with the knowledge that at least once I stood behind them). I guess all I'm saying is think before you post. It's all too easy to publish these days. Professional writers need to self-edit more than ever.  Read More