"When we make friends online, we need to be authentic and we need to set aside our agendas. We must make friends because we value people, not because we want to get something out of the relationships."
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately as I prepare for my book release. Why? Because now is the time when you contact your online friends and ask them to take part in your blog tour or cover reveal, or just help you spread the word in general.
| Image from cheezburger.com (It's a cute cat, where else?) |
But when I was planning my blog tour, I left a lot of my online friends off that list. I went through The Blog Tour Exchange to get a list of potential hosts and mentioned it on Facebook, but I didn't actively seek out any of the connections I've made over the past year. Why? Because I value those connections too highly and I don't want to ever feel like I am abusing it.
I'm highly grateful for the online friends I've made in the writing community. Without people like Stephanie and Jessica, who willingly beat my MS to a pulp in order to make it better (and I like to think they succeeded), or people like Krystal and James who mentored my newbie self, my book wouldn't be ready to be published. Without my critiquing group and my friends over at There & Draft again, I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing and I'd probably be insane, having no one to talk to about all this writerly stuff. Instead, I have people like Priya, who barely knew me and yet willingly talked to me on the phone for an hour, sorting through my jumbled questions about self-publishing.
