I volunteer for a couple of writing groups. As part of my duties, I email writers, and other professionals on a regular basis.

One thing I’ve noticed lately is the high number of people who use strange names for their email accounts.

As a writer, you should be branding your name wherever possible. Names like elfprincess, edit845, or yrgm33 won’t help you gain name recognition, or even help people associate your name with your email account.

If you are serious about your writing, you should take steps to be viewed as a professional when using email.

• Use your name or your pseudonym if you possibly can.
• Don’t use your family’s email account for business.
• Don’t send professional email using your husband’s name on the account.

Be professional with your social networking. Allow your personality to come through in your writing, but don’t share anything that you wouldn’t want published in a national magazine.

Also, no one cares what you are having for lunch, unless you write cookbooks and are teasing folks with your newest, greatest recipe.

Editors, agents, critics, and your readers are active on the social networking sites. You never know who may read your next post.

It’s become common for editors, agents, employers, and other business contacts  to “Google” the name of people before entering into a business relationship.

• Make sure you aren’t writing anything online that will reflect badly on you.
• Protect your online presence by setting up a Google alert on your name to see what others are saying about you.
• “Google” yourself regularly to find out if your entries project a professional online presence.
• Check your pseudonym(s) as well.

Act as professionally on the Internet as you do in face-to-face meetings with your business contacts and your readers.

Here are some examples of folks who didn’t project a professional online presence.  Have a laugh, but don’t let this be you.

http://www.resumebear.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/10/30-ways-to-loose-a-job-on-twitter/

Write on,

Lynn Jordan

We all know that Google is great for doing research. However, Google provides many other tools to make a writer’s life easier.

Gmail is probably my favorite, since I keep having computers crash. I leave my email on their servers and can access it from any computer. It lets me create folders (they call it labels) to try to keep me organized. Now, they offer over 6GB of space. Even I, the ultimate packrat, haven’t filled it up yet.

Google documents provides a way to back up your WIP offsite. If you backup to an external drive or thumb drive or memory stick (and you should), you run the risk of losing your data and backup in case of a fire or other disaster. Having the documents on Google’s servers helps minimize the risk. You can also share documents with other people for critiquing and collaboration. You can also put your documents there and share with others, if the file is too large to email.

Each one of my computers has a different version of Microsoft office. The Vista machine lacks MS Outlook. It does have the new Windows email program. I haven’t taken the time to set it up and learn how to use it. Google has a calendar function that works well, sends reminders to my cell phone and can be shared with others.

My XP machine doesn’t have MS PowerPoint. This weekend I had several friends send me inspirational PP slide shows. I was able to view them using Google documents. I’ve saved spreadsheets to Google documents and then set the link to people who don’t have Excel. They don’t need to have a Google account. You just send them a link.

Google Maps is a good alternative to Map Quest, especially combined with Google Earth. I have to be careful with that application. It is very entertaining and can become a great time suck.

I haven’t covered all the features and uses, but these are enough to get you started. If you have a favorite application or use for these tools, please leave a comment.

Write on,

Lynn Jordan