I have not used the lists enough to offer much thought on them. I don’t think they are bad, but I still think they don’t offer the control I would want.

I realize you can have pages (I haven’t looked into them) but I wouldn’t want want anything professional related to the personal.

Also, you can make lists, and limit what information your contacts on that list receive. Click on the Help link at the bottom of FB, choose Friend Lists, and you will find a bunch of questions, some of which will be relevant. I have added a lot of “Friends” (I agree, contacts would be a better word) that I know professionally more than personally, so there is a lot of noise in my news feed. I use the Friend List feature to filter this noise out. I can focus on Relatives, Local, Clients, College, High School and other groups, and all the rest is removed from my sight.

If you ever feel the need to use FB professionally as an author, you would create a Page, not a profile. For example, Matt Mullenweg has a page. You become a Fan of pages, not a Friend. Pages work differently than Profiles, but I am not sure what all the differences are.