This topic came up recently in a client meeting where we were talking about what were, and were not, good articles to link to.

Lots of people in social media pay attention to their brand and message for posts they create, which is good. And then they sink themselves with an ill-considered retweet or share on Facebook.

No, I don’t mean porn or anything that obnoxious, although I’ve seen that too. I mean the seemingly less damaging post, generally around religion, politics or entertainment.

What’s the harm, you ask? This year politics is going to be a hot topic. Why not share? Plus it’s 2012. Lots of good fodder there for humor.

Sharing controversial topics isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Just do it with caution.

Take me, for example. I have strong political views, and I’ve basically made up my mind how I’m voting this fall. I’m disgusted with some of the antics in government, but I don’t think its appropriate to share that with the social media world. I can and have worked with people of all political and religious stripes. I really don’t want to piss off people who don’t share my views. I can work with them as clients and compartmentalize my own views.

If you are in public policy or your work is religious in nature, your guidelines on what is appropriate to share may be different than mine, but I’d still recommend following the advice that “if you can’t say something good about someone, say nothing.”

Civil discourse does not have to descend to name-calling and insults. You can disagree with an opinion in a respectful fashion.

Remember, you are judged as much by what you choose to share as by what you write.

Now that I have two books published, one each way, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what it’s like to be published and what the differences are between the two. Time to answer.

In this post, I’ll talk about what it’s like to work with a publisher. On Wednesday, I’ll discuss what it’s like to be self-published. I’ll also discuss some of those things I’ve learned by doing.

Working With a Publisher

There’s no question there’s some nice things about not having to do it yourself. In the interests of full disclosure, I did not work with one of the big publishers. Crispin Books is an independent publisher who found me through LinkedIn. So I never had to go through the lottery of sending manuscripts out to find an egent or publisher. Nor do I have a big marketing budget behind my book.

That said, some things are true anytime you work with a publisher.

What I liked the best was having someone else handle the layout and cover design. My degree is in magazine journalism. In theory, that means I should have had the skills to do my own layout. Unfortunately, one of the things I learned in college is that I have no talent for design. I can look at a design and tell if it’s good or not and why, but I can’t produce good design myself. If I had self-published The Enthusiastic Networker, I would have had to pay someone to design the interior layout and the cover.

I was very happy to let my publisher handle all that, and it’s probably been the biggest advantage to working with him.

What about avoiding the “stigma” of self-publishing? It’s a factor, but it’s not as big a one anymore. As more authors self-publish through Amazon or other outlets and as the big publishers continue to make stupid business moves, there is a growing understanding that self-publishing is a valid way to get your book out there. That said, being able to land a publisher has been an accomplishment to make me proud. And finding him through social media just added credibility to my message.

Having a professional editor was also an advantage. He did a good job, and he sharpened the book. I had some excellent beta readers, but he gave the book an editorial polish it didn’t have before.

What was the biggest down side? Not having control of the timing of the process. Everything took longer than I’d expected. The book came out about six months later than I’d thought, and that affected my ability to do pre-publishing publicity, and it had an impact on growing my business in 2011. It was a frustration, but fortunately, it’s not an issue now. The book is out, and I can work on growing my readership with an attractive, professional product.

Something to think about when you think about publishing your own book. E-books are exploding. I was fortunate to retain my e-book rights, and The Enthusiastic Networker will soon by up in electronic format. Few publishers are allowing authors to retain e-book rights, but try to get them if you can. The royalties are much better if you keep them, and having the ability to control the pricing of one format can be a good marketing strategy.