I have just about finished writing my book. I am a novice writer. I have suffered various mental health problems over the years which has lead me to withdraw somewhat from society, any online social activities, not on Facebook, Twitter, no blogs etc. In my job I work with my hands not my head and I mainly work on my own. I have lived on my own for 25 years.The subject matter of my book is very much in the news these days, abused by Catholic priests among other things.
I contacted a self publishing company about helping me self publish. They say that I must go on Facebook, Twitter and get a blog.
With my background how do I suddenly go about building a platform? I know if I publish my book my life will be revealed and I think I can handle that, what I find it hard to contemplate is revealing myself on facebook, twitter etc with all the horrible comments that some people have to live with.
Jeremy, you are putting your life out there when you publish your book. To some extent you are doing that here too - you've already crossed the Rubicon in that respect.
With a blog you can accept or decline to publish responses to your posts. You can set up a Facebook and a twitter link from that blog, so that your posts appear there without you ever having to go there in person - you don't have to see or respond to comments made there.
What the self-publishing company is saying is that they do not have a publicity budget: they expect you to handle that side of things yourself. If you want to have your book seen widely, you'll have to shout about it because they won't. If you are paying them to publish, it's really down to you how loudly you shout - they've already made their money and are not reliant upon sales for an income. In that case, you don't have to do any of the FB/ Twitter/blog things if you don't want to. It's only if it's part of the contract that it becomes obligatory.
Lorraine