A BookExpo Wallflower

Am I the only one who feels like she's home cleaning the bird cage on prom night? I can't open my email box without stumbling over enewsletters and blog posts from those lucky folks reporting from BEA. They range from social butterflies trekking from pahty to pahty in the Big Apple to those working the convention floor, Blackberries in hand, slinging ARCS and catching them, spreading rumors, and rubbing shoulders with the great, including Alan Greenspan, Rosie O'Donnell, Alice Sebold, Stephen Colbert, and Ian McEwan.

So I read that Jeff Gomez, director of Internet marketing for Holtzbrinck Publishing said in his Thursday session that writers should be spending two to 10 hours per week online promoting themselves in electronic communities. And I'm thinking, I don't have two to 10 hours. It's too easy now to skip off into the virtual community when I supposed to be nailing a difficult revision. I'm still trying to shake that self-Googling disease. And now Jeff Gomez says I'm not doing it nearly enough! Sigh.

But I can do this--not every day, but maybe once a week. I've been speaking to people one by one via email--now perhaps I can talk to lots of people at once. We'll see.