I’m writing a book.

Okay, so not like the great American Novel, or a treatise on World Peace. But I’ve been doing a lot of work lately in social media, both in my blog, and with individuals and organizations. And for the past few months, I’ve been putting this information into an e-book, which is called Getting Started in Social Media for Artists and Arts Organizations.

In our current financial climate, it’s harder than ever to attract audiences to our work. The media, which I rely upon heavily to get the word out about the shows I am doing publicity for, is cutting staff and space for the arts. Using social media to market your business seems like a no-brainer to me: 200 million people alone are on Facebook, and 14 million (and rapidly growing) on Twitter. This is a great potential new market.

While folks might be buying into the idea of using social media to promote their arts biz, the execution of it is another thing entirely. A friend of mine on Facebook recently put as his status line: “Too much useless garbage and not enough real communication!!” (re: Twitter). Truth is, if you use Twitter properly,  it could be your greatest marketing tool.

What is lacking, is a plan. Essentially, what I’ve done with this e-book is to combine my knowledge of social networking platforms with my skills as a marketer to help you to create a social media marketing plan for your business that will not suck up every last second of your time.

Because, let’s face it, if you are in business for yourself, or you’re running an art gallery or dance company, you need to be writing grants, accounting, buying office supplies, and–oh, yeah–actually creating your art. What my book will help you to do is to create a plan that you can live with, based on the amount of time you have to spend, and to make the very most of that precious time, to get the greatest return on your investment.

I am planning to launch the book (all going well) the week after next. Next week’s blog posts will feature highlights from the book (so you can get a taste), and on Monday, June 22, I will announce all the details!

As they say on Scooby-Doo: “Yoiks!!”

I’m writing this blog post, because I need you to help me to be accountable. I’m very deadline-driven, and I have been working on this thing, and tinkering with it for months. The time has come to just put it out there (if you buy it, I will supply you with updates as they become available, because this world changes rapidly). So, today I am  committing to June 22. In writing.

Gulp.