Social Communities: Build Your Name & Brand Through Networking

Connecting Writers Through Social Communities

I have met so many wonderful people through BookBlogs and other communities I am a member of. These types of sites are great to meet authors, readers, reviewers, and others in the industry.

So, first, what are some of these sites?

(Note: These are all FREE and generally have a blog feature)

The obvious catch-all sites include Facebook and MySpace. LinkedIn and Twitter can be included as well as other poplular sites.

However, I want to focus on writing-related social communities.

• Of course, I am here at YALITCHAT.If you are in the YA market, this site is for you. It has over 2,500 members and various groups to join.

• BookBlogs has about 13,200 members. It is very similar to YALITCHAT. Make sure to join groups that interest you or coincide with your purpose. You can find almost any resource you need, so before resorting to google, check around there first, where you can find a broad range of extremely useful information! Everyone has been great there.

• SheWrites has close to 16,500 members as of today and many great groups as well. Its format is very similar to YALITCHAT so you don’t need to learn a whole new format. They are also a wonderful resource for information on numerous topics for writers, readers, and people in the biz.

• Shelfari (by Amazon) is another social community, but it is set up differently than the sites above. It seems more geared towards readers, but there are also groups for writers and others. You will need to spend some time setting up your profile. To be honest, I haven’t had much feedback to my posts or discussion topics on that site, but there is a lot of useful information on it. I couldn’t find a member count, but they have a ton of members. Once you are published, you can get a special ‘author’ tag. Similar sites are LibraryThing and GoodReads.

• WriteSocial.com is a site geared more towards craft. According to their site: “WriteSocial.com is a community where writers of all types can submit and review written material. Learn more about your craft with daily feeds consisting of news and advice on various styles of writing. Get feedback from fellow WriteSocial members consisting of established and amateur writers. Create and/or join writing groups to discuss and further your development as a writer.” I do not have experience with them, does anyone out there know more? Is this site helpful?

• I just recently joined the community at Writer’s Digest. It is very similar to BookBlogs and SheWrites as well. It has over 9,500 members and the groups are good too. I can’t wait to get started there!

• WritersCafe.org has a large following (one poetry group alone had over 12,000 members). I just joined them and haven’t done anything yet, but it looks very similar to BookBlogs, but with an added “my writing” component where you can post stuff you write and can search others’ writings too. It has other features too, like free courses – and you can post your own courses! It looks pretty promising. According to the site:

Is anyone a member? Can you give us some more insight into the site?

• And finally, I am also a member of Jacketflap. It is geared towards YA and children’s lit. I like this site because it can link to your blog and automatically updates it! It is easy to maneuver around and you can add lots of stuff in your page. According to their site,

They also claim to have the world’s largest database of information on publishers of children’s books. This is a place worth checking out!

What other sites do you recommend? Any that you would avoid?

Cheers! Jan