Rachel on Books

I think the main reason my blogging decreased and my tweeting virtually disappeared was because I lost purpose.  I blogged in order to figure things out and, as a quiet person trying to find her way in life, to have a space to voice her thoughts.  I tweeted not to figure things out but to connect with others.  I started blogging and tweeting before I really understood the words "social media."

I'll keep blogging here because I like the lack of topic constraints.  Politics, art, family, it's all fair game. I just need to make more of a point to take time to stop by.  But the nature of this free space has necessarily changed, as it is a reflection not just of myself but my soon-to-be husband.  So we'll see how/if marriage affects my perspective.  As with all things, I'm probably over-thinking this.

Twitter is a whole other story.  It is a giant conversation that I fell out of, except for accounts that I do with the library.  But my writing partner shared a link with me to a publishing company that is looking for people to review books.  Who can participate?

"Do you have a love of reading? How about an active Twitter following? A blog with a nearly exclusive focus on book reviews? If so, we want to talk to you!"

Looking at the types of books and the time commitment required, I don't think this is for me.  However, it did spur me to create a new twitter handle, @RachelOnBooks, exclusively to follow authors and publishers, and to tweet about books I've read or am interested in.  Again, we'll see how it goes.  It's so hard to get started on twitter, gain followers, and enter conversations.  And because I wanted to take the  user id while it was available, I also obtained rachelonbooks.blogspot.com and rachelonbooks @ gmail.com.

On NPR today was a conversation about freelancers, and how the percentage of the workforce freelancing instead of working a regular full-time job with benefits is increasing.  Folks who lost their regular jobs started freelancing until they were able to get another regular job, but that other job never materialized.  While I don't plan to leave my regular full-time job with benefits anytime soon, it would be nice to know how to market myself; to know how to make money through other means.