Hi Jim,

Since starting writing both my books and my blog, I’ve been getting a lot of friend requests to my primary social media accounts. Part of me doesn’t want these people to have access to my personal information and the things I talk about with my friends… I’ve heard of being doxxed for their opinions, stalked, etc. However I really don’t want to insult any of my fans. I’ve already made my account private, however a lot of them still want to connect on social media platforms. You seem to have quite a following on social media, how do you handle it?

Thanks,
Juan

Hi Juan,

Keeping your private life and public image separate is something that personalities have had to contend with for many years. You’re not alone in your concerns. Honestly, I would sincerely discourage adding your fans/followers to your personal accounts. You don’t know these people and while most of them are probably benign and just being friendly, one person with ill-intent is too many.

My advice is to completely lock down your private social media accounts. Make them unsearchable and unviewable to the general public. There are ways around it, but first people have to figure out that you have private accounts and know where to find them. The next thing I would do is create social media sites for yourself using separate emails and contact info. Make these ones public where people can join for news about what you’re doing and anything else that you want to share with them. Next, I would not link your private accounts with your public ones in any way. Keep them separate.  Make sure to link all of your public accounts together and provide links to each of them for people to go to, as I have both on the sidebar and below.

As for the people who have already tried to add you, simply reject the request, you’re not obligated to add anyone and any follower should understand if you simply want to keep your page private.

In summation, do as you should be doing with your work-life and your home life, keep them separate. I can speak from experience that mixing the two does not end well. Anyway, I hope this helps. If you run into any troubles, please feel free to reach out to me again.

Readers, how do you handle scenarios like this? Is it necessary to create two different accounts and can you effectively mix your two images together? Let me know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim