This Little Piggy...

Welcome to the Year of the Pig! Okay, it maybe isn't quite what the Chinese meant but close enough. You're writing. You're a writer. Well done! You've taken the first steps on your adventure into becoming a novelist and/or screenwriter but what now?

How do you get a foot, toe, or even nail in the door towards publication? The holy grail, get an agent, they say...but it's not as easy as going out and saying 'Can I please have an agent with a side of cash and an extra large shake?'

So, what do you do?

The answer is market, market, market! (Hence the little piggy? Who went to market?) You are your own publicity department. That means behaving civilly and being courteous to those you have dealings with. No one wants to work with someone who can't get on with other people, or who constantly bombards them and doesn't let them get on with their own work.

It also doesn't mean only marketing what you've written. (I'm sure I'm not the only one who deletes 'triplicate' repeat 'Buy my book' posts). You're not only marketing your writing but your personality too. So, if you're a doom and gloom naysayer, people will say 'No' and follow someone else.

Don't write to someone asking for their help and then chase them every five minutes for an answer, don't bombard people with business cards and don't whatever you do; attend a talk, run late for a meeting, stand up to bolt, drop you're water bottle, flash your cleavage, retrieve the rolling bottle and throw a business card at a poor producer, who is still in shock and visibly blanching from 'Jumpergate'. Believe me, it happens and I keep the brown paper bag for just such an event!

There's a difference between being pro-active and being stupid, trust me!

You also need to have a bit of faith in yourself. As @LucyVHay from Bang2write advised me, join twitter, linked and other social media networks.

Now, I'm not the most confident of critters but I took her advice and have made a point of trying to be selective and follow writers. This has given me a good little network of people who are in the entertainment business and in the same boat as myself. It's a super wee platform and there are lots of hashtags to do with writing and writers like #writing #writers #scriptchat, so you can keep up with fellow creatives. (If you want to speak up someone's book, you can also go to #goodreads and put in a word there.) Twitter also gives you the chance to like and retweet, or retweet with a comment on something that you read which you want to pass on.

One of the things I've found is that I prefer FB for mostly friends, as by the time you keep up with buddies, if you have a thousand people you don't know on your feed, you can and will be overwhelmed. It can mess with your head trying to be 'perfect' and/or 'perky' all the time, so give yourself a break and decide where and when people can contact you.

For me, short messages are easier on twitter and linkedin. I, personally, don't want to know what some friend, or friend of a friend's, auntie is eating at 'Nando's', so think about it before you let each and everyone contact you on a personal feed. You can always open two separate pages but that gives you more to check, so it's worth careful consideration.

The more feeds you have also means the more places you have to update if you do well in competition, or want to market something and spread the news.

If you are on LSF connect, it means updating that, FB, twitter, Linkedin, your website and often your Film Freeway page. If you made it into any of the Create50 books, then you have an Amazon Author page to contend with too. So, really do think about which sites you use and how you can market but use your time so you don't waste it reading things that have little to no relevance to you.

Remember that twitter is quite public (apart from DM's) so you have to be tactful as there are lots of gnarly trolls waiting to twist what you say. So, think before you post.

LinkedIn gives you slightly more privacy should you wish to select it and is more of a business platform. You can still post but you can hide more personal details if you don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry telling you how wrong your CV is. Believe me, you disagree on a post, get the wrong person and they'll be more than happy to go through your information and try to discredit you, or start an on-line argument.

Rise above belittling posts. If someone is rude, you can not reply at all, or explain why you think they are and that you will no longer answer posts. It's a sad state of the world that that is needed but best to be aware if you're not writing, or blogging on social media yet.

It's all very well to want to state you case but coming over as belligerent. angry and a know it all, won't do you any good either. Posts can come back to haunt you. It's best to nip negativity in the bud from the get go.

Most social media sites are really easy to set up and will give you a profile page that you can fill in and update as needed. Just always check the privacy settings so you know who sees what.

If you put in your own name in to 'Google' and add writer/author after, you will be surprised at what information appears about you. It can be everything from your photographic images to where you went to school, if you're not selective.

So, be like the little piggy, go to market but be careful like a good little piggy should and... Market, Market, Market!