Will I use social media to market my new book?
The answer may surprise you -- but probably not.
No. Call it foolish — but I call it sanity. 5 years away from socials and I never want to return.
Now, most authors — especially self published — would open up the floodgates to promote their books. Websites. Newsletters. Socials. Totally understandable because I was once them. Podcasts, cross-marketing etc, — wherever I could get out the word.
And then social media wasn't fun anymore, especially my beloved early Twitter. It became a demanding task master, overlord and had serious privacy concerns well before the sell-your-soul TT platform arrived on the scene.
Yet I did consider opening an X account as an author but as soon as the new account page popped up, I had a visceral NO. Just couldn’t do it. Too much time passed to allow my nervous system to be exposed to social media. I get why people love X. Many, many interesting thinkers and futurists are on there — but they aren’t my friends and my time left on the planet is limited and precious. I won’t get sucked back in, regardless of the positives when it comes to my new novel.
Some readers have asked how I can write so many books — and the main reason is that I’m offline. There so much more headspace to consider ideas and start projects, whether or not they actually go anywhere. I don’t have monetization front and center, nor the need to keep up with likes/comments and whatnot. Plus, I have a business to run and leave the rest of my day to do with what I want.
It’s a matter of trust, not marketing.
I’m about ready to release I Was Once A Person, though a friend recently commented that reading has become a niche art — but that’s fine by me. Readers will come. Reviews will come. People will share on their socials. As a writer, my words are eternal and I have written long enough to know that my books have a honing radar to those who are meant to discover the story. It sounds a little gauche but I don’t have the interest to strive for recognition, especially in the bullhorn world of social media — though like any artist, of course I want my readers to love my creation. I want them to think it’s brilliant and engaging, written just for them.
My writing, like my work as an intuitive, is very word of mouth and built on trust. This wasn’t always the case. I craved being a famous author in my 20/30s, until a friend who worked in the industry said, Don’t be in a rush because once you lose your anonymity, you never get it back. This was pre-social media and I’ve never forgotten it.
Fortunately as a writer, my books speak for themselves.
Let’s add privacy to the niche arts.
Quitting social media is like giving up gluten. It will take time but imagine the books you’ll write.
These are the last days — oops, just sounded like a previous iteration of self — the last vestiges of books as we know them with the rise of the Android Age. Might as well tell your story before your robot assistant decides they can tell a better one than you — about you!
Quitting social media has made me a stronger writer, simply because I have more energy to let a book be crafted from my imagination, rather than dreaming up clever replies — and now that my accounts are long closed, I can’t imagine ever going back into the fray. I’ll let my marketers in the unseen world do all the PR for I Was Once A Person.