Author Privacy: Some Want It, Others Don't. . .

...but most of us want to stay in control of what is out there.  This is a reprint from my Sharing with Writers newsletter that will help you do that.  To get the whole letter once a month in your e-mail box (free!), send an e-mail post with SUBSCRIBE in the subject box to HoJoNews  @  AOL.   com.

Keep Facebook from Automatically Identifying Your Photo… ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You’ve heard the old story. Some classmate from the 1970s dug up a photo of you and him at the local pub looking slightly pie-eyed. Facebook’s magic face recognition software identifies you by name and now everyone knows it’s you and—worse—can find this picture of you with hardly any effort. You’d like to avoid that kind of thing? Here’s how to opt out:

1. Go to your “Account” link. Click
2. Find the “Privacy Settings” in the drop down menu. Click
3. Now find the ”Sharing on Facebook” section. Click.
4. Find “Customize Settings. ”Click.
5. Scroll to find “Suggested Photos of Me to Friends.” Click.
6. Next click on “Edit Settings.”
7. You then find “Disable.” Click.

They don’t make this process easy, so while you’re there you can check your other privacy settings. You can do the same kind of thing with your phone number, your e-mail address, etc.

Here’s a caveat, though. Because you are an author, you want people to find you, recognize pictures of your book covers, even send you fan mail, etc. If you use your account to reach readers as well as your old high school buds (and they are readers—well, they could be readers, no?) you may not want to get too private or you’ll lose some of the things Facebook does to benefit your marketing campaign.

This may be one reason that many authors keep their Facebook accounts and “Like” or “Fan” pages separate. I don’t. I like to communicate with my readers and I don’t like to two jobs when one will do. But “like” pages are another way—other than using stringent privacy measure—to keep your private life private and your growing fame no secret.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: