Here it is: the first post. I feel dizzy.
Pressure has a way of doing that to me. Why, you ask? Why panic about a silly little blog? There are billions of them out there, and no one’s died yet as a direct result of blog-related stress. So why don’t I just take a deep breath and write ‘whatever?’
Well, that would be great if I just wanted to share my personal thoughts with the cyberverse or uniweb or whatever it is I should call it to indicate that I know what I’m doing. But I don’t. Still, I’ve been assured that keeping a blog is incredibly easy. I just have to dazzle the reader because I only get one chance. And blowing this one chance means that I’ll be forgotten by the world before I’ve even figured out exactly what blogging is all about.
Oh, and readers want something they can use, too, something that adds value to their lives, so no whining or blatant self-promotion or talking about how cute my cat is. In order to survive, I’ve got to provide a service– and a unique one at that. There have been one or two bloggers before me, apparently, and they’ve already grabbed all the best schticks. Of course, on top of all that, I have to make sure that anyone who might enjoy my book will get enough information about it to be able to get their hands on it. Yeah. Incredibly easy.
I woke up this morning believing that I would take the first step of most endeavors: a plan. And this plan would include investigating the many ways that I can market my book over the Internet. You know, dip my toe in the water. So I wrote up a brief plan of action, and honest to god, I have cut and pasted it for your reading pleasure:
Plan for My Heart is a Drummer
1. Develop name for company
2. Check database to ensure it’s not taken.
3. buy ISBN numbers
4. talk to Anne re: blog, twitter, facebook
5. Register domain name for company
6. start blog, twitter, facebook
7. get book print ready at Lulu & publish
8. get book ready for Apple and publish
9. start marketing campaign
a. build website
b. begin blogging, twitting, facebooking
c. contact local bookstores, local book clubs
Let me direct you to a couple of points. Please note #1, which requires that I have a name for the publishing company I’d like to found in order to get my work out there. I still don’t have #1 covered. I don’t have a name or anything. But why worry? It’s just the first day of the process. I have control.
Now kindly direct your attention to #4, ‘talk to Anne.’ Anne is a dear friend of mine who knows all about blogging (I will insert her blog name if and when I learn how to do that). I called her up to make sure that I was including all the new media outlets I would need on my list so that when I typeset the book for publishing, I could include the Web addresses on the front page and back cover somewhere. Because that’s what you do in 2012.
Only my social skills are not from 2012. They’re from 1997. They don’t include online media (as evidenced by #9b: begin ‘twitting’). Apparently, that’s wrong.
So when Anne had me go to wordpress.com and twitter.com, before I knew it, I was a blogging tweeter. It was all over before I knew what was happening, kind of like ripping off a band-aid, only I have a feeling that this band-aid is really long and will continually and painfully be ripped off of me for the foreseeable future.
So this blog will be a chronicle of that band-aid rip– and right from the very first moment. Which this is.
Welcome to my disorientation. Hope you enjoy the show.
Adam Sydney 
You are doing spendidly, dear friend.
*shudders* ISBN, or ISB numbers. Never ISBN numbers because the N stands for number. Bit of a pet peeve of mine but I think it’s an even bigger peeve in the writing/publishing industry. Just a heads up (same goes for PIN, never PIN number!)
As for 9b, I think twitting is just about right 😉 Can’t be any worse than saying “I’m going to tweet”! hehe. I only joined Twitter a few months back but it’s fairly easy to get the hang of and the jargon makes sense eventually. Mostly. (I still like “twitting” way better though!)
Definitely don’t worry about having to wow everyone on the internet in one shot. When your blog posts build up people will be sharing the ones they love the most and that’s how you get new audience. They’ll already know someone else likes it here and even if they aren’t wowed by that shared post they’ll more than likely take a look around at others and hopefully like something else. If not then no worries, other people will 🙂 That’s the great thing about the internet, you can find so many different readers all from one shared post.
*Double shudders!* That makes total sense: ISB numbers! So glad that you pointed that out to me now, Natalie, before I end up annoying a greater audience.
And even though I’m making a bit of a joke of it, I’m looking forward to seeing how the whole blog thing works out. Thanks so much for your comments. They’re my first from a cyber reader!