To piggyback on Theresa’s excellent post at Five Scribes, I’d like to take a moment to chat about social networking in general. Whether it’s on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, e-mail lists, forums, or anywhere the digital world can take us, we see authors pimping. And well they should. The Web offers so many ways to get the word out about new books, but these authors miss the most important point.

Social networking is meant to network us…socially. You can do what you like with your blog, your tweet feed, your online presence in general. But how you put yourself out there will affect your relationship with readers.

I’ll say it again: Relationship. Social networking builds relationships between people. That’s the primary reason folks use Facebook – to connect. And the masses are often very annoyed when all they see in a feed is pimping. They unfollow, unfriend, unlike, unhook. They disconnect.

The best way for you to sell your books is not to tell us all about them every time you have a second and 140 characters to spare. That’s not why we’re watching you. We want to connect with you. Even if you’re only comfortable telling us about your writing journey, your perspectives during the editing cycle, your dread at the insane blog tour schedule your publicist has given you, that’s preferable to an endless reminder that you’re trying to sell your book. Even better, if you can share some details of your life — under the guise of your author persona — we will connect with you. Interact with us, respond to us in these public forums, and you might have a fan for life.

Authors who only log on to Facebook or Twitter or Bigtime Authors Discussion Board or Awesomesauce Word Divas Group Blog to tell the world about the release date or links to their next book will lose their online audience. Poof! Gone. And then all that work they’ve put into building a community is lost.

Don’t be that author. Build your community. Build your tribe. Invite us in. Offer us a place to connect.

That’s how you sell books. That’s how you build your audience.