Category Archives: social media for authors

Dealing with Digital Anger: When AI Gets it Wrong

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1,873 words
10 minutes read time

Last week I had a shock when I went on Facebook. I had a notification that said they removed a photo due to explicit content regarding a minor. The picture was from eleven years ago, and knowing that, I can guess what it was: a picture of my daughter on our bed snuggling one of our cats. Harmless. I would never put anything online that had the potential to hurt either of my kids, and the accusation, from nothing more than a Facebook bot, upset me a great deal. I felt dirty and gross, and honestly, confused because that picture had been up for eleven years.

It didn’t help that this came after TikTok decided a couple of my carousels were made with AI, and in a fit of anger, I deleted both of my profiles. It wasn’t the accusation, not really, but those two carousels performed worse than most of my others and I assumed that was the reason. I wasn’t going to put time into making content for a platform that was going to accuse me of doing something I wasn’t doing and then punish me for it by shadow-banning my carousels and videos and suppressing my account. Especially since whenever I scrolled I saw lots of AI content with a ton of likes–so you know those videos and carousels were being shown. Maybe I was too sensitive and had a knee-jerk reaction, but I had also gone a few rounds with them before with a different account. I had my videos and slides taken down for going against community guidelines when I would post steamy scenes, but then I’d see other authors post much steamier than what I was and not only get away with it, their posts were pushed to the “for you” page.

Then, if that wasn’t enough, I was scrolling Instagram, and my boosted post showed up, but the description wasn’t what I had written to go along with the graphic. I had forgotten to turn off the AI option to rewrite my description, and while that version wasn’t too messed up, it didn’t sound like me. Going forward I’ll turn it off, but it was an irritating lesson all the same.

I wasn’t able to let go of Facebook flagging my photo for a long time, and writing this post after the fact is probably a good indicator I still haven’t. I’m more upset about the loss of my TikTok account since for once I was having a bit of fun creating content, and I was getting likes and saves of my carousels. It’s disappointing not to be able to use a platform a lot of authors are using to push their books, and the hypocrisy behind why I can’t or why I won’t will rub me raw for a long time. I could have appealed–not doing so probably just seemed like an admission of guilt–but I also know from experience that once TikTok starts eyeing your account, it’s almost impossible to get them to leave you alone. So, for my mental health, I gave up.

Incidents like this aren’t going to go away. In fact, as AI usage ramps up, things like this will continue to be a common occurrence. Fighting it seems like a wasted effort, like bailing out a sinking boat with a spoon, so what can we do to at least not hang on to things that are beyond our control?

Get out if/when you can, and if not, be prepared to fight
There are certain things that get shut down that you may not want to live without, like your Facebook Author Page that you run ads off of, or your Amazon KDP account, if we’re being drastic but still realistic. Accounts like that are shut down simply because bots make a mistake and when it comes to Meta and Amazon, talking to a human to get things resolved is almost impossible. Some never win against Facebook and some only win against Amazon if they have an advocate like a representative from the Alliance of Independent Authors reaching out on their behalf. Sometimes it’s not easy to walk away, but it’s better for your mental health, like me deleting my TikTok accounts. I didn’t want to. I really didn’t because I was in the mindset to try to use that as a real way to reach readers, but I wasn’t going to put up with a platform that undermined all my work, especially when what they were accusing me of wasn’t true.

If you decide to fight, having a plan will help. Figure out who you can reach out to, be it someone at Alli or an IP lawyer. If you decide to walk, make peace with it the best you can. TikTok’s hypocrisy will rub me the wrong way for a long time. I just need to get into the groove of posting somewhere else, like IG, which doesn’t seem like it has such arbitrary guidelines to follow.

Remember that it isn’t your fault
This is a big one with me and that Facebook accusation. I would never post anything that would hurt my kids and knowing they took down a photo because of something like that will make me feel icky for a very long time. I know that there’s no way possible for a human to look at the amount of content that gets posted every day, not to mention all the content that has accumulated over the years, but that doesn’t make it better. And the hypocrisy here too, makes it sting because we all know Zuckerberg was at Trump’s inauguration, and Trump has a questionable reputation at best.

No matter what platform is giving you a hard time, there’s a 99.9% chance that what happened isn’t the result of what you did. (There are always going to be people trying to game the system, and unfortunately, when things like this happen to people who haven’t done anything wrong, they’re collateral damage.)

Don’t let AI hurt your feelings or make you feel bad. There are plenty of real people who will do that for you.

Find alternatives
Fortunately, there are a lot of places to hang out online. I don’t need Facebook. In fact, after that happened, I was tempted to take the app off my phone. I rarely post on my personal page and only post on my FB author page a couple times a week, if that. The only thing I would lose not posting there anymore would be the ability to run ads, but I could still do that if I didn’t scrap my account altogether. Instagram is a good alternative to TikTok and there are other places that I could post to that I never have before like Pinterest. I’ve heard Lemon8 is popular but they’re owned by the same people who own TikTok so I’d probably end up with the same problems. Best not to repeat any of that. But finding one platform that you like that you can commit to will take some of the sting away of having to avoid others.

Or figure out what you can live without…it might surprise you
Once I got over the anger of having my carousels tagged as AI, getting rid of TikTok didn’t seem so bad. Even though I was getting good at it, making carousels took time. Not only did I have to make the graphics in Canva, but I also had to pull the snippets. Not having to do that anymore was actually a blessing in disguise and took off a lot of pressure I didn’t know was there. I was trying to build an account from scratch and every post save and like encouraged me, but in both good and bad ways. You start to build momentum and don’t want that to stop. I was able to blame TikTok for stepping away instead of myself, but whether it’s a valid excuse or not, it was a relief. I know I said above it felt like a loss when I deleted it, but I can always turn my carousels into Reels. I just haven’t taken the time to do that yet.

You may decide not to post on social media at all, and that’s fine too. Finding different ways to get your book seen, like running ads and buying promos, can fill in some of that gap, but AI is everywhere and it may take some testing to see if you’re jumping from the pan into the fire. I haven’t run FB ads for a while, but I hear turning off the AI components is getting harder and harder to do. Instagram is still easy when you boost a post. Find the toggle on the right and turn it off.

Screenshot of Instagram boosted ad page. Enhanced ad toggle is on the right (pink arrow).

Whatever you do, take care of yourself
When it comes right down to your choices, you have to do what’s best for you. When the universe closes a door it opens a window, or something like that, and maybe something that feels like the end of the world actually opens you up to other possibilities. I used to really miss Twitter, but I don’t anymore. There are a lot of nice people on Threads, and getting away from the toxic environment was good for my mental health in the long run.

Will Facebook ever take down another photo? Maybe. I have a lot of pictures of my daughter when she was small cuddling on our cats. How Facebook decides what’s explicit, I have no idea, but it could happen again. I’ve had my FB account for seventeen years and I might just take ten minutes every day and start deleting albums from around that time. No one is going to go back and look at those pictures anyway, so there wouldn’t be a big loss in getting rid of them. They give you an option to download before you delete, so that’s always something you can do too, if you think you need to purge some old content there. It sucks you have to do it at all, but since I’ve become an author I’ve started to very carefully weigh what I put online anyway.

You can’t control the bots, the mistakes, or the algorithms. But you can control where you go next. AI is here to stay, so take precautions, take care of yourself, and if you let him push you around, let him push you somewhere better.

As part of my “favorite things” segment, I’m highlighting romance author Jennifer Probst’s nonfiction books and her Substack. I love the down-to-earth way she thinks about writing and publishing. I have to admit, I’m a bit behind and I only read the first one, but the other two are on my list, and I read her Substack whenever she publishes a new one. You can find the links below (they are not affiliate links.)

graphic of Jennifer's book covers. l-r: write naked, write true, write free. background is a peach color

Write Naked: A Bestseller’s Secrets to Writing Romance & Navigating the Path to Success
https://www.amazon.com/Write-Naked-Bestsellers-Secrets-Navigating-ebook/dp/B01N16FESI

Write True: A Bestseller’s Guide to Writing Craft and Achieving Success in the Romance Industry 
https://www.amazon.com/Write-True-Bestsellers-Achieving-Industry-ebook/dp/B08FLGFLL5

Write Free: Personal Essays on Craft, Career, and the Writing Life
https://www.amazon.com/Write-Free-Personal-Essays-Writing-ebook/dp/B0G1D358TW

If you want to subscribe to her Substack, you can do it here: https://substack.com/@jenniferprobst

Thanks for reading! See you next week!

Monday’s Author Update

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1,617 words
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higher view of a state park in autumn. browns dull greens and oranges over a hilly field. lake to the left a murky green water.
Maplewood State Park, Maplewood, MN October 2024

It’s cooling down in the evenings and the leaves are just beginning to change colors, which is lovely. We’re tiptoeing into my most favorite part of the year, the yummy months when it isn’t summer but it isn’t winter. In Minnesota, no one can accurately guess how long that time will last, but I’ll enjoy it for however long it stays.

My editing and proofing is done!
I finally finished proofing my Christmas novel that I was re-editing in time for the holiday push. I ordered a second proof just to make sure the formatting is still okay, but I’m not reading it over again. I changed a lot of word choices and phrasing, just like I did for Faking Forever, and going forward I’ll be trying to sound more conversational while staying true to my voice.

One of the things I had in the back of my mind when I re-edited those three standalones (Rescue Me, Faking Forever, and A Heartache for Christmas) was those books not sounding like me if I made too many changes. But, I’m trying to lighten up because since I’ve been reading a little bit more I’ve noticed that popular romance books just don’t get too deep with the prose and vocabulary. Whether this is a conscious choice of the author or just their own light writing style, I’m going to try to meet in the middle. I can only write how I write . . . but I can be mindful of word choices and syntax and maybe my books will be a little easier to read. I wrote a blog post on the changes I was making in A Heartache for Christmas and you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2025/08/18/when-dumbing-down-your-writing-isnt-dumb/

I’m going to set up an Amazon ad for it, I think, and maybe set up a Facebook ad for it at the end of October. I really let up on the Facebook ads this year, and the only ad I’ve purchased was for getting my ARCs of Loss and Damages seen. I did manage to give away quite a few ARCs of that book through the ad, but since I gave them away on good faith (meaning no Google form to fill out and no email collection), I doubt much will come of it.

Goodreads giveaway update.
My Goodreads giveaway is doing well, though I guess I don’t have a gauge to tell. I have 1,150 entries at the time of this writing, and I’m pretty happy with that. Like the ARC giveaways through my FB ad, I doubt much will come of it, but if you don’t get your name out there somehow, no one will know who you are. It’s especially true these days with so much content to choose from.

New book and new editing project.
I’m 6,563 words into Bitter Love, but I’m going to have to table that for now. One of my friends I edit for has the next book in her series ready for me, and I’ll be putting Jesse and Jordan aside to take care of that. Because of the changes at my work and just basic free time slipping away, it will take me a while to get that editing project done and I probably won’t get Bitter Love finished this year like I wanted. My day job has just been stressful overall, and I’m at the point where I’m not sure what would be harder: staying and toughing it out or finding something new after twenty-four years. All I’m grateful for is that I’m feeling better physically every day, so if/when I decide to jump into the job search I can at least handle the change. It still won’t be easy because change is hard, but at least I won’t have the physical stuff to deal with if it come to pass.

Posting on social media.
I’ve still been trying to post on socials, and though I’ve pulled way back on FB ads, I’ve been boosting posts on IG a little more. That hasn’t translated to sales as far as I can see, but I have gained a few followers pushing me close to 500 after having the account for thirteen years. I only post graphics, not reels, so I don’t know if growing my IG account will do anything for me, either in the long or short runs, but I think I prefer posting on IG rather than my FB author page. I have come to realize I hate that page. I have three friends who like all my posts and besides that, reach is non-existent. I wonder if it would be smart to start over, but I’ve had that page for almost as long as I’ve had Instagram so I have no idea where that link is out in the world. I hate broken links so I’ll keep it up and just repurpose my IG posts for it. I started a new TikTok account and just named it something generic that has to do with books. I’m testing to see whether a “book” account will do more for me than an “author” account, like my reader page on Facebook I run ads off of when I bother. It doesn’t seem so advertise-y, so we’ll see what comes of it. Content creation is still the main issue, but I’m good with Canva and just try to juggle creating on my laptop and posting on my phone (I have the Canva app). Even if I’m stuck in what’s considered the TikTok dungeon, the low views (my last carousel got 353 views) still beats what I get on FB and IG combined, even when I boost a post on IG. I don’t want to try to be everywhere, just where I can have the most eyes without a lot of work.

Blog cleanup.
Speaking of broken links, I’ve been cleaning up my blog posts and trashing some of my older ones I did with other authors who have since flaked out or have changed their own links (or even author pen names!) making the post useless or obsolete. I didn’t like doing that, but some of my relationships with those authors have gone so far south I didn’t like having them on my blog anymore anyway. So if you happen to run into a link that doesn’t work anymore, you weren’t missing much and there’s a reason why the post no longer exists. I’ve also gone back and updated a few older posts that kept getting hits even though they were six, seven, or eight years old. Back then I had no idea what I was doing and the posts are only getting hits because my SEO on this site is actually pretty good. So, I updated those older posts with actual relevant information and now I won’t feel bad when people are reading them to find out about something.

Library distribution of Kindle Select books.
There’s been a lot of talk in indie circles about KDP letting ebooks into libraries even if you’re enrolled in Kindle Select (the author side of Kindle Unlimited).

I didn’t jump on this bandwagon for one simple fact: you still have to be selected by a librarian to be in a library. Your books don’t just automatically show up there because they’re available. And with the deluge of indie books now being available, your chances of being selected are that much worse. So, no I didn’t go upload all my books to Draft2Digital to use their site as a distribution service to libraries, and I probably won’t. My paperbacks have always been available through IngramSpark and as far as I know a library has never purchased one of my books. Like being in a bookstore, being in a library has never been a dream of mine, and I just don’t care. If you care about being in the library system and want to take advantage of that for your Kindle Unlimited ebooks, you can make an account with Draft2Digital and when selecting storefronts, select library distribution only. This article gets a little more detailed: https://newshelves.com/kindle-unlimited-authors-can-now-distribute-to-libraries/

What’s on the blog next week.
I was going to get into if writing a long series anymore is a good idea and talk about some current information I’ve run into that has possibly proved that it’s not. But right now, this blog post is already eight minutes long, so it’s probably better if I wait to talk about it another day.

Peak leaf-looking season will be coming in a couple of weeks and I’ll be taking a day off to go to a state park near here with my sister and daughter. We went last year and I took some amazing pictures. It’s nice to spend the day outside in cooler temperatures and then we go out to dinner after we get back into town. Things will change a lot for me if I have to get a different job, but change doesn’t have to be bad. It’s the getting-through-it part that’s uncomfortable, but with my health issues, the past five years have been hellish and maybe finding a different job will be a piece of cake after that. Anyway, I will keep you posted on all that as I know more.

Next week, let’s say I’ll write that blog post on whether or not it’s worth an author’s time to invest in a long series. With attention spans dwindling and a reader’s need for instant gratification, I feel the old advice of writing a long series is slowly becoming as obsolete as some of my old blog posts.

Chat more about that later! Have a great week!

murky photo of a lake through dark brown and black tree branches. brown and orange trees off in the distance
Maplewood State Park, Maplewood, MN. October 2024.

Splitting Your Author Life in Two: Readers vs. Writers

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white background. black piece of torn paper. text says in black and white, splitting your author platform.

One of the biggest mistakes authors can make is trying to talk to everyone from the same place. Back when I first started publishing and writing my blog, I did this, and it actually took me years to figure out that not all readers are created equal. If you don’t know what I mean, let me explain.

It may not feel like it, but once you publish, your author life is suddenly split in two. You have your author pals who support you, maybe read your books (and that’s a big maybe), promote you on their socials that may or may not have readers in the audience, and after a while can even turn into accountability partners, alpha and beta readers, and friends. Then you have your readers, your actual readers who, if they are on social media at all, aren’t part of the . They use socials for other things like connecting with family and reading articles about gardening, cooking, movies, and politics. Maybe they like their favorite authors’ Facebook author pages because that’s where they hear about new releases, giveaways, book boxes, and in-person events.

I came this realization a while back, and when I started my pen name, decided I needed to have a hub just for readers. To be honest, I didn’t want readers reading my nonfiction stuff anyway. I use this blog as a way to help others in their publishing journeys, let other indies know what worked for me in terms of marketing (promos and ads), and just talk about what crazy BS is going on in the publishing industry. That information isn’t for readers, and it shouldn’t be. They don’t need to know how many books I’ve sold, what Amazon pays in terms of KENP, or that I make my covers in Canva and format my own books.

But, I understand this decision isn’t for everyone. I pay for two websites, and some authors don’t even like paying for one. I enjoy blogging for other indies and connecting to the industry makes me feel “professional” so I eat the cost of the WordPress plan and domain name. But, if that’s not for you, don’t feel bad. Not every indie author wants to share their journey, stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the publishing world (both trad and indie) to have something of substance to write about, or pass on what they’ve learned because writing tutorials can take a lot of time. There are weeks when I’m at a loss as to what to say too, and I either just default to an author update or scroll Threads looking for dirt a topic. I feel fortunate when I can share a podcast I enjoyed and/or learned from or I’m able to find a subject like this one that might resonate with someone and help them move in a better direction. You don’t have to lock yourself into writing every week like I have, but if the views and visits are what get you out of bed, consistency will always make that happen faster. I owe a lot of my SEO to my tutorials, particularly my Canva post on how to make a paperback cover. I’ve tried to keep this blog relevant and helpful, but if you already have limited time to write, nurturing a blog that won’t sell books won’t sound appealing.

That said, if you really want to make a go of this publishing stuff, you should have an author website, a place to point readers in the backs of your books. This is where you’ll have your backlist of books and where readers can find them, a newsletter signup, your reader magnet, trigger warnings, direct sales, and any in-person events. If you check out other author websites, you’ll find that they don’t blog about process or complain about Amazon payouts or how they package author copies for shipping. Author websites cater to readers and what they want, not other authors who like to hear about behind the scenes news.

The problem with only writing to only readers is that if you don’t have a lot going on, there’s not a lot to say and that can make you feel disconnected. I write my newsletter on my author blog once a month, and I usually have something to share. A sale, a new release. Maybe highlighting an older book in my backlist that hasn’t gotten a lot of love. Creating content can be challenging if you’re a one-book-a-year author, and it might be tempting to write about what you’re working on, but unfortunately, readers don’t care until you can give them something to buy and read. When that happens, when you aren’t constantly updating, it may feel like people are forgetting about you, but you know, as I’ve said in the past, they will. You can be afraid of something that will happen, but there’s no point to that. There is so much content out there it’s inevitable, but it’s better to jog their memory after a few months of silence than waste their time blogging about something that doesn’t concern them.

If that describes you, if you feel like if you’re not reaching out then you’re invisible, then yeah, you might want to blog for indies who are interested in your process, would like to know how well your promos did, and/or how you make your covers. It gives you a reason to communicate and not feel so alone, and you’re writing to the people who actually care what you’re working on. Sales won’t come of it, which is why in the end I moved my books off this website and put them on my author website, but the more you segment your efforts, the more effective each one becomes and you won’t feel like you’re shouting at people who aren’t listening. Reaching out doesn’t even require a blog. You can create an indie Facebook group or Discord channel. A place where other writers and authors can get together but where you also know the score: your peers won’t buy your books. You can let go of that expectation and just be happy you’re in a group of people who are going through what you are and know how it feels to have zero sales on your dashboard.

So you might ask how is my author platform split in two?

Here’s what I do, and I made a graphic in Canva so you can save it or print it out if you want a quick reference.

png image: SPLITTING YOUR AUTHOR PLATFORM* Nonfiction/Authors/Writers Fiction/Readers Website: Blog Indie news, writing process and progress, marketing tips and progress, tutorials Website: Blog/Newsletter New releases, cover reveals, sales, promos (mine and events like Stuff Your Ereader Day), ARC opportunities Facebook Personal Profile Author groups like Vellum, Optimizing Amazon Ads, Romance Support League, Grow Your Publishing/TikTok Instagram I don't post nonfiction content on my Instagram account. Threads I use Threads to stay up to date on industry news. I follow people like Jane Friedman and Kathleen Schmidt. Sometimes I'll post a blog like my Canva tutorial if I think it will be helpful Facebook Author Page Cover reveals, sales, promos like Stuff Your Kindle Day, book memes, snippet graphics. sharing what I'm reading, holiday mentions; running Meta ads Instagram Mostly graphics with snippets. Cover reveals. Some reels but haven't bothered to repurpose what I've used on TikTok in the past Threads I don't promote my work there. I know from others complaining about how useless it is not to bother. *The point is, wherever you choose to spend your time, decide if you want to attract readers or authors. They are not the same.

There are a lot of places to hang out that I haven’t listed. I just can’t be everywhere and don’t want to be. Lemon8 is popular, so is Pinterest, and let’s not mention TikTok because I really don’t want to use my time making videos, but the fact is, if you’re a slow writer and you want to talk to only readers, you’re not going to have a lot to say. You can share book memes and pet photos, where you went to dinner on your anniversary, but you’re going to lose readers to other authors who publish faster. The industry in some ways is very slow, such as trends are very very slow to change, but when they do, it feels like it happened over night. Trad authors can seem like they get away with a book a year, but behind the scenes, they’re worried about getting a new book deal, if their publisher will pay for marketing, how their launch is going to go since they haven’t had a new book out in however long. Indies face the same trouble, trying to find traction while others are zooming ahead because they have more time/motivation/whatever than they do.

Figuring out where and what to post is a mental health issue, it really is. I’ve gone through my own struggles, beating myself up for not wanting to post on my Facebook author page, not making videos for TikTok when everyone says that’s where you belong if you’re an author. I boosted a post on my Instagram account and got a few new followers, but they aren’t going to do me any good if I don’t post. And you know, I’m pretty prolific, so it’s not that I don’t have content, it’s just that I don’t care. I let Amazon ads, promo newsletters like BargainBooksy, FreeBooksy, and Fussy Librarian, and author-driven book blasts like Zoe York’s ZoeBub pickup most of my sales weight, which I can do because my series and trilogies have solid read-through. Maybe I have to pay for it, but I’m reaching readers, not shouting at other authors then getting mad when my books aren’t selling.

Splitting up your author platform can take a lot of the stress off your shoulders. You know who you’re talking to and what they want to hear. Shouting to everyone will never work and you’ll only get frustrated. It’s difficult to break out of the bubble, but the longer you do it the more natural it will feel and the feedback will become more positive because you’re staying in your chosen lane and once you draw the lines, you’ll actually have more time to write because that urgency to post and reach anyone you can will be gone.

Again, I know this advice isn’t for everyone, but if even reading this makes you step back and look at how you’re posting on social media, you may make some small changes that could turn into big results. Let me know what you think!

I better get off here and finish proofing my proof of Loss and Damages. I’m almost done then I can put the changes in and order another proof. I’m really excited to jump into more hockey research. I’ve put that aside to get Loss and Damages ready for ARCs next month, but I’m eager to start again. Take care everyone, and have a great week ahead!

Monday Update: What a Mess

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1,641 words
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cleaning supplies. black spray bottle and plain bottle. two white tubes of paper towels with a sprig of baby's breath (god knows why) Text says, monday author update. what a mess

There are so many things that are baffling me right now, and I just don’t know where to start or if I should even write about any of it. Let me start with what I’ve been doing and then I’ll see if I’m brave enough to write anything else or if I’ll just call it good.

First, my fifth book in my King’s Crossing series launched on the 3rd. I made a handful of pennies because there were a few people who preordered it, then I made another handful because I had a couple people read it in KU. Honestly, this is not what I was hoping for launching this series, but I’m barely doing anything to promote it, so I guess the blame falls on me. On March 5th I paid for a Fussy Librarian bargain ebook promo, and I sold 15 copies on the day and two more the next and then sales sank to nothing, which is to be expected. Here’s what the promo looked like if you’re interested:

screenshot of fussy librarian cruel fate promo entry. picture is of cruel fate's cover and the blurb that says: Six months ago, my parents were killed in a plane crash. They left behind me, my sister, and a billion-dollar company that’s my responsibility now. The only things that have gotten me through are Zarah and my best friend, Ashton Black. Until I meet Stella. Ash hates Stella as much as I love her, and as I try to uncover the reason why my parents’ plane crashed, I struggle to keep both of them in my life. When she disappears, Ash says, “I told you so,” and all I have left is our friendship built on years of family loyalty, tears, and blood. Cruel Fate is book one in the King's Crossing six-book serial and ends with a cliffhanger.

I paid 26.00 USD, so the results were fine for how much it cost. Plus there is always read-through potential to the other five books, so we’ll see what happens. Generally speaking it could have been better, but I’m glad I remembered at the end of the blurb to mention that it was a first in series and that the book ends in a cliffhanger. Not everyone likes those, so it’s good to keep that out in the open and may account for why I didn’t sell that many. I should have also put in there the series was complete as many readers won’t start a series unless they’re all available and I’ll remember that for future promos.

I started some very low cost-per-click Amazon ads again and unpaused some of the ones I turned off months ago. Those never got the traction back they had when I turned them off, and the new ones aren’t doing much because the bid is too low for Amazon to show them. Don’t know why I’m bothering if I’m going to half-ass it like that, but sometimes I think doing a very little is better than doing completely nothing, though it’s probably not true. I don’t have anything else planned besides releasing the last book in my series in April, then all I have left this year is the launch of my next book in September. (I’ve been telling people it will be live September 15th and plan to stick to that.) But that’s too far ahead to think about because I’m not rushing through summer. I hope it’s hotter than hell so I can lie on my balcony and bake. Your girl is tired and needs a break.

My Rocky Point Series giveaway went okay. I mailed out copies to the one winner who emailed me back. I should have probably chosen someone else as a second winner, but if I would have done that, the actual second winner would have emailed me (that’s how my luck goes) and I would have needed to purchase more copies which would have taken a while. So I have a paperback set the second winner didn’t claim and I’ll figure out what to do with those later. I didn’t expect huge results and mostly it gave me things to write about on my FB author page and my newsletter.

Speaking of my FB author page, since I’ve been boosting posts, I’ve gotten a deluge of followers who just want to make me book trailers and others who didn’t look like they would care about a billionaire romance author. So, I took a couple of hours and culled my followers from 270 to 210. I know it’s better to have quality instead of quantity, but it really gave me the feeling (again) that my FB author page isn’t worth the energy and I haven’t posted since I did that. It’s something I can’t get rid of because over the years I’ve shared that link in various places and I hate beyond reason broken links. I may post on it every couple of days, just so it looks somewhat active, but it’s one of those things where I can’t measure ROI, I can only measure how I feel. I really don’t know what to do with myself in that regard because the motivation to post on social media just is not there, and I’m not really sure what would inspire me to post more. Sales, probably. Not engagement. Everyone yells about how much they want engagement, but if you’ve known me for a while, you know how special you are if you DM me and I answer you back. So, I’ll figure something out. The only good part about posting at all is that Canva makes it so easy, and I have to pay for that until I die because I have a lot of assets trapped there and I’ll never stop doing my own book covers.

Right now I’m about 60% done with WICKED GAMES but at 58k words I’ve lost motivation to work on it. I’ll finish it, no doubt about that because I still love Seth and Avery and want them to have their HEA, but I’m not running a sprint or a marathon and I work on it when I feel like working on it. It’s part of the “new me” I have going on for 2025, but I also think some of it has to do with hormones and the lackluster feeling I have sometimes of just being old and still alive. I mean, it’s not serious, I don’t have depression. I used to have depression, before my son was born, so I definitely know how that feels. This is more of a “meh” feeling, and it will pass. Spring is actually kind of gloomy here right now, the snow melting uncovering all the dog poop people didn’t pick up and the air stinks like dead things. Once it gets warmer and the sun shines more consistently and starts drying things out, that will perk me up.

My despondency is actually opening me up to reading a few books, but it’s a sad thing because these authors are on social media asking readers to share and I just can’t. I want to refer people to good books, and one book I read has so many commas they could have prevented the Titanic from sinking and the other has an info dump at the beginning that’s so boring that I cut out after 5%. Luckily one I had picked up during a free promo and the other I borrowed in KU and returned it, but still. While we’re complaining about the Amazon boycott and how people feel trampled because of what’s going on in the state of the world, I think it’s important to remember that as authors who might have people listening to our opinion, we shouldn’t waste our readers’ time and money. I want to recommend books that blew me away, that made me feel something other than annoyance. So, while I’m feeling listless, I’ll be going through my TBR which is a nice change from feeling like if I’m not writing to publish I’m not moving forward.

This Amazon boycott everyone (on Threads) is talking about is a real downer, and it’s interesting how all that blows up only to eventually disappear and never to be spoken of again. A friend told me that she hasn’t seen any of it on Twitter, and I have no idea if it’s made its way to BlueSky or not as I don’t scroll there. But personally, I think it’s all just talk because even if there are a few who actually do cancel their KU subscriptions or whatever, it’s not going to make a dent in the number of readers who use Amazon to buy and read their books. It’s frustrating to have to read that when I’m on social media. If your book sales are low or non-existent, again, it’s something you need to take responsibility for. I mean, I get it. There are ebbs and flows to publishing and any author who has been publishing for a while can tell you that. The political and economic climate also is not helping, but something isolated like this isn’t going to cause the collapse of sales for hundreds or thousands of authors. My sales stopped the second I stopped running ads. My experience might not mean anything to you, but to me it means that I actually do control my sales (not to be confused with royalties). No one can buy your book if they don’t know it exists, and I think it’s easy to forget that. If you truly are concerned about something like this and its effect on your sales, take a look at what the big-time authors who write in your genre are saying. If they are taking a hit and can trace it back to something like this, then maybe it’s time to be concerned. But if they’re carrying on as business as usual, then what you are experiencing probably isn’t caused by whatever people are talking about that day. We have to keep things in perspective. As I say, there’s a big world out there and it’s always a good idea when you get to caught up in the day’s/week’s/month’s drama to step out of that bubble and touch some grass. (Just avoid the dog poop. Gross!)

I think that’s all I have for this week. Thanks again to Brandi Easterling Collins for the interview she so graciously said she’d do that I posted last week. If you missed it, you can read it here.

No clue what I’ll write about next Monday, but I’ll be here with a smile on my face!

Have a great week!

Thursday Thoughts: Social Media

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sell phone with chalk drawings depicting social media icons like cloud, envelope, speaking bubble and envelope. different colors: yellow, teal, and purple. text says, thursday thoughts: social media

So, a couple things caught my eye this morning while I was having coffee trying to wake up. Thursdays are my Mondays and I don’t always handle the mornings as gracefully as I should. Becca Syme says maybe not opening social media (or checking your sales dashboard) the minute you open your eyes could help, but for now this is my way of easing into my day.

The first thing I saw this morning was this lovely Thread by Holly June Smith (typed out in Alt text):

Snapshot of a thread: Hollyjunesmith Today in Unsolicited Indie Author Advice Nobody Asked For But Might Find Useful Anyway (yep, it's a series now): You have to detach your self-worth from social media numbers. Yes everyone wants their book post to go viral and sell a bajillion copies. Yes it's depressing when your carefully crafted posts get 100 views. But checking them all day long will not push that number higher. There is no magic answer. Nobody truly knows how these algorithm works even if they act like they've nailed it. I've had the rush of a post doing big numbers and thought "Yes, I've finally made it!" only for the next thing to flop. These sites are never going to make this easy for us, they want us to keep coming back and posting more.
Snapshot of a Thread: Hollyjunesmith You can look at what others are doing and try to emulate that yourself, but what works for some doesn't for others and you need to try things more than once to gain traction (then they'll probably change the algorithm anyway 🫠) Very few people see overnight success with social media the only thing I've ever seen actually work is to keep posting, and let the numbers be what they are. More often than not, consistency will be rewarded over creativity. Bit depressing, but that's the game. tl;dr Make regular content that doesn't use a lot of your time and energy, and keep going.

I really love this and what I needed to hear because underneath all the blog posts I write about doing better, complaining about low views when I do actually post, and just overall wondering if social media really moves the needle at all, is the fact I have a really difficult time posting. Even on my personal Facebook profile, I rarely post anything. I don’t care much about “checking in” when I go somewhere or telling people about my day. I don’t take pictures of my breakfast, and if I take a picture of a boozy drink like the one I ordered last night when I went out with my sister…

Southtown Pourhouse, Fargo, ND

…I usually forget to post it and delete it off my phone later. I learned years ago on Twitter that followers don’t add up to a whole lot.

Then right after I saw Holly June’s perfect thread I read someone’s bragging about her social media growth. It made me feel crappy for about two minutes because while she can brag about how quickly her account grew, I have a lot of things I’m proud of that (in my opinion) are more important than that.

If you ever feel down because your social media growth isn’t what you want it to be, remember what’s important. Here’s a list and you are welcome to print it out and tape it somewhere to remind yourself that there are more important things than follower count.

write your books make real connections be helpful build a community on your own property each with an envelop black filigree in corners of graphic

Write your books!
Remember why you got into this game to begin with. Everyone is talking about what will happen when TikTok gets banned, and when you have 40k followers and use that platform to sell books, yeah, it’s going to be a devastating development. I’m still pretty optimistic that TikTok won’t go away anytime soon (I’ll believe it when I see it), but social media platforms and the billionaires who own them are fickle beasts and one way to control that is to keep your eyes on your own paper and write your books. Your books will always be there no matter what kind of social media disappears and what takes its place. I’d rather say I wrote three books this year than say I gained 50 followers or whatever. Remember what’s important. Besides, even if you do have a ton of followers, they can’t buy what’s not there.

Make real connections.
Personally, the only reason I know of to have social media is to make personal, genuine connections. Obviously, 100% of my online friends I’ve met through social media. Though, some have reached out to me through this blog and we stay in touch through email or the messages part of a platform like Instagram. Network with others in your genre, build bridges with those you can help and who can help you. That’s what social media is really for. (I’ve said for years if you’re not connecting with other authors and using it to find out important book news, you’re using Facebook wrong.) I’ve been friends with a handful of people for several years that I met on Twitter and I wouldn’t have met them if I hadn’t be a part of that platform.

Be helpful.
It’s going to sound dumb, but helping my friends and other authors is probably the most important part of this whole thing. I learned how to do book covers, I have Vellum and learned how to use it. Now I help other authors who can’t afford to hire out those services. I edit for people when I can. I beta read. I like helping people and between that and writing my books, publishing them and hearing feedback from readers that they loved the story, those are the two most important reasons why I keep writing and publishing. It’s why I keep coming back to this blog every Monday. Just the other day I got a message on Instagram from someone who thanked me for writing the Canva tutorial on how to make a full paperback wrap. I’d rather have someone reach out and thank me for giving her the tools she needed to publish her book than a million followers.

Build a community on property you own.
I can’t stress this enough. Like the future of TikTok and what Musk did with Twitter, you never know the outcome of some of these platforms. Some seem to be around to stay, but for every platform that hangs on, there are more that don’t like MySpace and Google +. As an author, even if you don’t want to hear it, build your reading community on land you own and that way it doesn’t matter what social media does or doesn’t do. Create a website, blog on it if you want so you can build SEO. Start a newsletter. Collect those email addresses and back them up often so no matter what happens to your aggregator, your readers are yours to keep. Sometimes we put our energy into the wrong place. I’m not saying building a following anywhere, like TT or your Facebook author page, is a bad move, but also have a plan B, because just like we say about Bezos, they don’t care about you. The last thing Mark Zuckerberg cares about is your book business. You have to take it upon yourself to find a way to stay in touch with your readers that doesn’t depend on anyone else. If you have an FB page, frequently remind them to sign up for your blog or newsletter or as an alternative, tell them to follow your author page on Amazon. Amazon may not be around forever either, but if they don’t want to give you their email address, I think a follow over there is the next best thing. Now that Zuck owns Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, when their servers go down, ALL that goes down. Having a way to reach your readers that doesn’t depend on someone else is a must. It really is.

You can get down looking at other authors’ follower counts, but behind the scenes, those followers might not be doing anything for them anyway. I know my followers on Twitter didn’t, but I also made friends and that’s what really counts. Post if you want, find joy in sharing your work with others. I’m not saying having a social media account and trying to gain followers isn’t valid, it can be in this world of being online, but it’s definitely not the end all be all of your publishing journey. I have to remind myself of that when I see others’ social media accounts exploding and mine is a stagnant mess. But I’ve accomplished a lot in the past year. I’ve finished a 6-book series and started publishing those books. I’m editing a standalone that sounds so good, and the cover I’m tweaking is a perfect match. I’ve picked up a reading and formatting project I’m going to start working on soon.

I’m on social media. I like talking to other authors, talking shop, supporting them in bite-sized Threads pieces. I’m trying to like posting on my FB author page, even if my reach is bad and my engagement isn’t any better. But with anything, what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it, so I’ll keep posting my favorite lines out of my books, talking about my books, and my life as an author. If those posts find fans, they do, and if not, that’s okay. I’ll keep editing Loss and Damages, and it will be a solid addition to the backlist I’ve written over the years.

And unless I’m starving, my breakfast won’t have anything to do with it.

Come back on Monday. I’ll have my usual post and I’ll be talking about the 2025 Written Word Media publishing predictions. Have a good weekend!

Monday Author Update (The Grownup Version)

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I’m not sure what got into me last Thursday, well, I do, but I think I need to start finding other ways to, ah, voice my displeasure and unhappiness. I’m not all gloom and doom–if I didn’t like being an author and publishing books, I wouldn’t do it. Anyway, read on if you want a more sophisticated update on what I’ve been doing lately.

I’m almost done editing my series. After a heart to heart talk with myself, I admitted I need to rewrite most of the ending. It’s not as heart-wrenching as I want it to be… what I have now isn’t worthy of half a million words. It probably won’t take too long. I’m just not happy with the last scene where they get together for good, although I thought it would be a good idea to end the whole thing with an epilogue so I’ve been writing that in my head for the past few nights while I’ve been trying to sleep. It’s not so I can add more words or tie up a very tiny loose end that I left open in book 2, but rather, I like when a book’s ending circles around to the beginning. I started the series with one couple and ended it with another couple, but I want to bring the first couple back and let them wrap it up. It will add a few days of writing and editing, but that’s okay. These books will be perfect the first time out, and I can’t say that about very many (none) of the books I’ve published.

As far as series go, I’ve talked before about having two books done of a different six book series, but I’ve been dragging my feet because writing four more books feels really daunting and I don’t want to do it. So, I thought rewriting parts of book one to eliminate the need for two of the books would be a lot easier than forcing myself to write all four. I don’t want the two I have to go to waste–they’re good stories. After I decided the amount of rewriting would be worth it, I was relieved and instead of working on my mafia books, I’m going to write a quick romantic suspense standalone and then work on those for a 2025/26 release. I want to write a standalone for something easy after all the work I’ll have put into this series. I’m burnt out, but I don’t want to not write, and since I have something partially plotted out, I thought I might as well. And also since I have a love/hate relationship scrolling through stock photos, I think I might already have a cover which will elevate some stress while I’m writing it. Things could change, but I like what I have. It was actually a little difficult to figure out a romantic suspense cover that didn’t have a couple on it (the same issue I had when I was working on A Heartache for Christmas‘s cover), but I didn’t want to deviate from the brand I have going. My covers all have a single man on them, most in suits, the only one who isn’t is Sawyer, but that’s a small-town romantic suspense as well, and sometimes my guys aren’t dressed in suits all the time.

So, I’m happy with what I’ve got scheduled for books in the coming 24 months or so, and the cover I created for the standalone is icing on the cake.

I don’t have much else going on. I mentioned my health in Thursday’s post so I won’t bother going over that again. Threads has been the filler I needed to let go of Twitter, and I haven’t been tempted to log in just to see what’s going on and I don’t miss having it on my phone. I have come to realize though, after engaging with some authors there and just generally scrolling, I’m in the minority concerning what authors believe in about 99.9% of the time. It’s not that I don’t care about my books, it’s that I don’t take my books as seriously as everyone else takes theirs.

What I don’t mind but seems like everyone else does:

I’ll give ARCs to whoever and don’t check up on them after the ARCs have been sent out. ARCs and forms confused me way before I joined Threads and I even wrote a blog post about it back in November. Authors on Threads take ARCs very seriously and I’m still kind of appallingly fascinated at some of the forms authors ask potential reviewers to fill out. I guess I’ll never be an ARC reader because I’ll never fill out a form for the privilege. I feel readers are doing me the favor, not the other way around, and I would never subject a reader to that. Ever. If you’re interested in that blog post, you can read it here: https://vaniamargene.com/2023/11/06/arc-forms-creating-a-review-team/

I don’t mind giving books away. I get a sense of loathing when we talk about giving books away, though I haven’t come across a thread that expressly addressed that subject (besides the hoops authors make their ARC reviewers go through). But the tone on Threads overall seems to suggest that authors want to be paid for each and every copy and they don’t understand or don’t want to understand the value of giving away free books. I put Faking Forever into a giant promo last December and gave away over 9,000 copies. Since the date I gave it way, that book has made $206.00 mostly in KU reads. Though that may be small potatoes, I haven’t done any other promo on it, so if someone asks me If I want 200 dollars, I say yes. Plus, I’m finding readers. Not the 9,000 people who downloaded my book because I know, just like I have started collecting free books, that a reader actually reading it is slim, but readers saw it, and I have 206 pieces of proof that they did.

Not to mention, I have a free book hanging out on my sister site, and overall, My Biggest Mistake has been downloaded over 1,000 times. I think that number may rise as a lot of my subscribers didn’t even bother to open their welcome email after they subscribed to my newsletter. Now it’s more easily accessible, so I’m thinking I’ll be giving away even more copies in the future.

I don’t care about pirates pirating my book. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. The only crappy thing is Amazon shoots first and asks questions later, so I’m fully prepared for them to shut down my account at some point because my books are elsewhere, though not with my consent. It’s why I pay for an Alliance of Independent Authors membership. I won’t panic, I’ll just reach out to them and ask them to help me get my account back. I won’t even bother trying to take on Amazon alone. It will be futile and I’ve had enough mental health crises over my book business to last me for the rest of my life. Blasé? Maybe. But I tend not to worry about stuff I can’t control. Authors will watermark ARCs, change one word in their books to try to pinpoint where the pirated copies are coming from, blame being in KU. The fact is, your book can get pirated anywhere at anytime and pointing fingers and throwing out accusations is not the best way to handle this. You could inadvertently offend someone and honestly, it’s not worth playing Nancy Drew. It’s going to happen, so there’s point in being bitter.

I doubt I’ll ever put a PR box together. Ordering author copies, ordering bling, packaging it all up (gotta have a pretty box too) and putting it in the mail to a bookstragrammer who may or may not do anything with it sounds like something I don’t want to do even if I could afford it. I didn’t even know this was a thing–well, I knew it was a thing, but the number of bookstagrammers on Threads and that I have access to them surprised me. Like, if I asked if anyone wanted a billionaire book box there might be some that would actually say yes. You would have to enjoy that kind of thing to bother to do it because with the number of complaints on Threads, the ROI doesn’t seem to be there. Like a book that doesn’t sell but you’re proud of it anyway, you would definitely have to enjoy the process. It did make me think that now that I have more of a brand established I could order some business cards or bookmarks. Stickers, though, I’m not fan and have never put a sticker on my Mac or my Kindle cover–not even the cute Vellum flower I picked up at my last writer’s conference. Now that I have a real bookshelf, I ordered a few author copies of my books to have on hand, so business cards at least would make some sense. I’ll think on it and get back to you. Do you have business cards?

I don’t care about paper. Signings and having your books in bookstores is a big deal to a lot of authors, and I just couldn’t care less. One author was pushing her hardcover, and it was 35 dollars. I have to work two hours to afford a book like that. Readers who can afford to buy paper are not my target audience and I only offer paper as an alternative to a Kindle because some people can afford to buy paperbacks, but that is a very very small percentage of my readers. (I sold 64 paperbacks in 2023.) I think authors who push paperbacks don’t really understand that it’s a whole different audience of readers who have access to expendable cash. The economy is such that people are being priced out of their rentals, no one can afford to buy a house, and grocery prices have not dropped, even though COVID is “over.” You’ll have to decide if the glamour of having your book on a bookshelf is worth the hassle, because for me it is definitely not.

I try not to engage with posts I don’t agree with like the person who’s worried she’s losing readers because there’s 18 months between book two and three of her trilogy. Of course she’s going to lose readers. People don’t wait around that long. There’s a lot of content out there and there’s no reason for a reader to wait for you. If you push book three and let people know it’s finally published, you may be able to corral some of those readers back into the trilogy because they’ll want to see how it ends. But that takes money and a lot of social media posting, and it could have been avoided if she’d just saved up her books. I get people are impatient and no one wants to do that, so you take the pros and cons of whatever choice you make.

I don’t know if I can think of other things off the top of my head, but it’s safe to assume that I’m a square peg of an author trying to fit into a round hole of the writing community. Still, there’s a professionalism over there that I like that Twitter lacked and if you haven’t joined Threads, it’s not a bad place to scroll for book news.

I received an email the other day and the subject line was Vania Margene Rheault featured in Feedspot Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs. I get stuff like this sometimes, especially to my other gmail accounts I don’t check very often and I usually discount it as spam. I opened it, and it was a legitimate email! It read:

Hi there,

My name is Anuj Agarwal, I’m the Founder of Feedspot.

I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog Vania Margene Rheault has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs on the web.

I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world. This is the most comprehensive list of Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

We’d be grateful if you can help us spread the word by briefly mentioning about the Top 100 Contemporary Book Blogs list in any of your upcoming post.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Best,
Anuj

I’m flattered as this is the first recognition of my blog. If you go onto the site, https://blog.feedspot.com/contemporary_book_blogs/ you can scroll through the rest of them. I did and found some great blogs to follow… I’m in good company! So, thank you, Anuj, for the honor.

I guess that’s all I have for this week. I hope next week I can give you better progress report on my series. Things keep popping up during my days off that cut into my editing time, but I’m going to put my head down and plow through the rest of the month.

Until next time!

Owning vs Renting: An Author’s Dilemma

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Time to read: 8 minutes

Is anything completely ours in this business? Maybe only our books.

Good morning! I hope you all had a good weekend! I worked more on my last book–getting ever so closer to finishing up. I’ll still have to take a break and read the proofs to look for typos I might have edited into my books, but the end is in sight, and I can’t wait! I might treat myself to a new Mac–my T is still driving me crazy, and it would be a nice little present for myself after working on this series for so long.

So, a week ago, on Monday, March 5th, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Messenger all went down. They were down for a couple of hours, but to say it spread panic across the author universe would be putting it mildly. I know a lot of authors happened to have releases that day, and I’m sure not being able to post was upsetting to a lot of people.

It was kind of eye-opening for me as well, because this was my first outage while on Threads instead of Twitter. Outages never bothered me because I was always able to flip from one platform to the other, but since Meta owns all of them, there was nowhere for me to go. A friend and I went to email for a quick exchange (just to assure each other we hadn’t been hacked), so all wasn’t completely lost, but not having any social media felt strange… scrolling is just habit. I finally was able to kick my Twitter addiction only because I found a substitute on Threads.

Anyway, so this gave way to some thought about how authors are always told never to build on someone else’s grass. I agree with that wholeheartedly–especially since TikTok gave me such a hard time, always accusing me of violating community guidelines. I’m glad I never got invested because it ticked me off and a ding on one of your videos like that affects your entire account and how they show your content.

But after my hassle with MailerLite, I realized that even a list you cultivate on your own doesn’t really belong to you. If your account, for whatever reason, goes down or glitches and you don’t regularly export your list as a backup, those emails you worked so hard for can disappear in a puff of smoke. Sometimes tech support can help, depending on your aggregator. MailerLite charges too much for their tech support and plenty of authors take their chances and stay on the free plan (that does not give you access to tech support) for as long as possible.

My WordPress site feels like it belongs to me. I pay for the domain and for the plan. I have access to tech support if something goes wrong (like when I accidentally deleted DNS records I needed), but the fact is, anything online can go down so even selling direct to avoid dealing with Amazon isn’t always a sure thing.

I guess this post is kind of a warning to pick and choose carefully. Last night I was thinking about all the author things I’m “stuck” with, and it’s kind of scary in a looking-into-the-future-and-adding-up-spend kind of way. Every single one of my books has a link to my author website and a call to action (CTA) to subscribe to my newsletter. Every single book. Over 20, which is over 60 files I would have to change if my author website ever went kaput (the ebooks and paperbacks on Amazon, and then all my paperbacks on IngramSpark). I mean, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to amend all that back matter, but if I didn’t have an IngramSpark code for free revisions, it would add up quickly. I was lucky I directed my readers to go to my website instead of a MailerLite landing signup page, probably one of the few things I did correctly from the start. My homebase, has been, and now with my newsletter gone, always will be, my author website.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m locked into other things too–things I want to keep at the very least because I like how they work. Like Bookfunnel. I may have gotten rid of my expensive plan that supported MailerLite integration after my migration to the new MailerLite platform screwed everything up (saving me 150 dollars a year), but I like how they deliver my free book and readers are used to that platform. The easter egg that I hid in Addicted to Her is delivered that way too. At least the team at Bookfunnel doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and it helps that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of authors, use them.

I’m also locked into my Canva account. I have so many designs there, and without it, I could never make changes to any of my book covers. I’ll always need my account, but luckily their business and reputation seem solid and hopefully won’t be disappearing anytime soon.

Maybe it will make you feel better to think that being locked into certain services isn’t only an author thing. I think Amazon is so integrated into our lives now that getting rid of it would cost–I have purchased several movies and TV shows on Prime. I would lose a lot of money if all of a sudden Prime Video disappeared. The same with my Kindle account. I’ve purchased many books that would disappear if something happened to my Kindle account. Several years ago I bought books on Nook, and when I dropped it into the tub, I lost all that content. I could have bought another Nook, but I preferred being on a Kindle anyway, so I swallowed the loss.

When you’re a baby author, as they like to say, you just don’t understand what you’re locking yourself into signing up for all these things. That would be the time to weigh what you’re willing to pay for, for pretty much all of your indie career. You get used to having access to those things and you tie up a lot of your IP into an account like Canva. But, when you’re new, you don’t know what you don’t know, and if you’re proud of your newsletter and start putting the landing page link everywhere, if something happens, you have no idea the damage control it takes to fix it.

I’m very fortunate that I linked to my website everywhere, and I’m very fortunate that I chose Bookfunnel as a way to distribute my reader magnet. I didn’t have to scramble to update any links–I don’t think I can portray in writing how relieved I was that I could just shut down my newsletter and not look back.

Building on someone else’s grass is definitely inconvenient at best (career damaging at worst), but sometimes you just can’t avoid it. We subscribe to products and services every day with the hope that those products and services have the longevity we need to keep our business afloat.

Only time will tell if the things we sign up for have staying power–in terms of the business itself and how we need to use them. I had thought MailerLite was a good fit and I recommended them several times, but they proved to be just as sketchy as any other business has the possibility to be, and some people just learn that the hard way. Lots of scammers in this business, and you’d like to think a steady business like that won’t turn, but like my daughter says, the risk is low but never zero.

I was lying in bed last night thinking about my blogs and how to make them seem more professional, if only on my author blog now, so it comes off as more newslettery and less bloggy, and I decided to create a “footer” of sorts for the ends of my posts. For eight years I’ve struggled with how to end my posts, and I’ve gone through various footers, like creating a graphic that has all my books on it and attaching my Amazon author page to it. This isn’t the right audience for that, but I would still like to end my blogs with some kind of signature so I came up with this. It’s especially important on my author blog now so no one misses the link to download their free book which I will add to every post.

Tell me what you think, and I hope you all have a great week!

How to break out of the writing community bubble and sell books to READERS

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One of the biggest epiphanies I’ve had since I published my first book in 2015 is how to sell my books.

When we join social media and begin to build our platforms, we think that we’re building a base for readers to come together and talk about our books. The only problem with that is, we identify so strongly with being writers that we forget that we need to identify with being authors.

What do I mean by that?

When we’re writers, we’re writing, and we love to talk about writerly things. What tropes are trending, trading craft secrets, sharing blog posts and favorite craft books about showing vs. telling, how to build 3d characters, how to create conflict with stakes, goals, and consequences. And, of course, our wonderful notebook collection. We like to cheer each other on, beta read for each other, and support each other by retweeting snippets of our work. And most importantly, supporting each other on every platform. All that sounds really good, and it is.

It is until we want to sell books, and I mean, not to the handful of people we know on Twitter, or to the five writers we’ve gotten close to on Instagram. All of a sudden then, being a part of the writing community isn’t so great. We have thousands of followers but when we launch a book, no one cares. We might get a congratulations, or we might get a few compliments on our cover, but launch day comes and goes and the shine wears off rather quickly.

I don’t know how many books I launched before I realized all my followers on Twitter didn’t care. They were busy doing, or trying to do, the exact same thing I was.

And like a fish caught in a net, we struggle. How do we break out of our writer circles to sell books?

*Stop promoting your books to the writing community. Probably one of the very first things I did after realizing this is I stopped tweeting about my books. No one cared. Now I use my Twitter account for what I had been using it for before I published. I tweet about articles I find useful, congratulate authors on their finished WIPs, and point writers and authors to this blog. That’s it. I chit chat, but very very rarely I tweet about my books on there. My experience has improved, and I’ve gotten more hits on this website for my blog than I ever sold books.

I have a friend on Twitter who has almost 38,000 followers. I’m sure it hits her at times that if only 15% of her followers (5,700 readers) bought her book during launch week, she could make the USA Today bestseller list. When you have that many followers, it doesn’t seem so out of reach–until she tweets about her launch and not much happens.

As of this writing, I have 14.5k followers on Twitter. Lately, say in the past two years or so, I’ve been focusing more on writing books than networking, probably because of my realizations. I’m in KU and not eligible to reach the USA Today bestseller list, but it would take about 35% of my followers for me to reach 5,000 sales.

If you want to read more about making the USA Today bestseller list, read a really neat article by Nicholas Erik here.

Take a look at your accounts. Are most of your followers writers like mine are? That is not going to help you. You can start over, but if you don’t know how to connect with readers, you’ll fall into the same trap. I’ve been in the writing community bubble for so long, at this point, I have no idea how to use social media to find readers. Last month, I gave myself permission to stop posting on Instagram. I have 373 followers, and I would guess that at least 75% of them follow me on Twitter and or are actual friends with me on Facebook. I never knew what to post, and it was a weight off my shoulders when I stopped. My Facebook personal profile and my Instagram account are linked, so whatever photo I post on Facebook will post on Instagram, but what does it matter? I don’t post about my books on my personal Facebook page. I don’t want my friends and family reading my books. They aren’t my readers and spamming them is pointless.

*Use promos to reach reachers. Unfortunately, a lot of what I’m going to say now may require a little money. You won’t hear too many authors say that they can find readers for free. You have to learn an ad platform, or buy newsletter promos, pay for a Goodreads giveaway, join BookFunnel promotions, and/or start a newsletter. All of those will cost a little bit, depending on what you choose and what you have going on at the same time. As far as promos go, buying a spot in newsletters like Freebooksy or Robins Reads or E-reader News Today will bring in new readers and you won’t be bothering your writer followers with unwanted promos about your book. For a great list of promos, David Gaughran created a list. I’m going to work on my own list because some of them have a review minimum, and I want the ones who don’t handy when I start releasing books next year. Not all of them are expensive. The one I used to promote my holiday boxed set of A Rocky Point Wedding was $25 dollars. It will be up to you and your prices and marketing strategy to choose the promos that will give you the most bang for your buck.

*Publish regularly and add a link to the next book in your back matter. This is probably the best way to keep readers engaged and reading your books. No spamming required.

Bookbub did a blog post about using back matter to sell more books, and you can read it here.

*Learn an ad platform. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on ads. Just because you set a five dollar a day budget on Amazon Ads doesn’t mean Amazon is going to spend your five dollars a day. Plus, even if you set your bid at .30/click, that doesn’t mean every time someone clicks you’ll actually pay .30. If you choose dynamic bids down, sometimes clicks can come in a lot cheaper. The only way I have ever seen authors spend more money than they had intended was when their book wasn’t ready for advertising. When your “look inside” has typos, your cover isn’t to market, your title is off, and your blurb needs feedback–that is the only time I have ever seen an author lose money. Now, you may think all that is great and say ads don’t work, but more often than not, it’s going to be your cover or your blurb that wastes your money. If you want a free way to learn Amazon Ads, Dave Chesson has a free course through his website Kindlepreneur.

*Create an FB author page, or group, but don’t tell anyone. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t tell anyone. Add a request into the back matter of your books asking them to like your page or join your group. Add a request to your newsletter…and that’s it. I didn’t realize until I was writing this blog post the whole reason I’m disinterested in my own FB author page is because most, if not all, of my likes are by other authors who don’t care if I publish another book. Why am I going to waste time updating my FB author page when I’m not going to get any engagement? We do this with all our social media: Twitter, TikTok, FB author pages/groups, Instagram, and our newsletters. Stop it. You may want to follow other authors who write in your genre on TikTok to see how they are promoting their books, but otherwise, don’t invite other writers/authors to like your stuff. It will get you nowhere fast. It may even cost you money. See newsletters.

*Start a newsletter, but only put the link in the backs of your books and use BookFunnel and StoryOrigin to promote your reader magnet and accumulate signups. When you reach your free limit with your newsletter aggregator (if you’re using MailChimp or MailerLite), you want the people on your list to be buying your books. Deadweight costs you money, and I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear that. Your friends aren’t deadweight, and okay, they aren’t. But if they don’t open your emails, if they sink your open rate, if they don’t click on the links, if they aren’t buying your books, why are they subscribed and why do you want them to be? They aren’t supporting you, and if you’re doing that to your friends, you aren’t supporting them. Stop it.

Breaking out your writer bubble on social media is hard, but if you’re happy with the results, then you don’t need to change. If you’re unhappy with sales, are disillusioned with social media and all the time you put into networking with “readers,” it’s time to try something different. I am a lot happier on Twitter now that I stopped trying to sell books on there. I get a lot of clicks to this blog if I have an interesting topic, but mostly I use it to connect with other writers so I don’t feel so alone in this endeavor.

Writers like to hide behind social media because writing/publishing/reaching out to readers is hard. Publishing consistently is hard. A lot of writers like to write in all genres and that makes finding readers difficult so they tweet into the void and hope for the best. This is fine if this is your business model and it meets your needs, but if you need more than what you’re getting out of your current situation, you need to change.

A new year is coming–how are you going to find readers in 2022?

Until next time!

Can You Follow Advice from Someone Who Isn’t Successful?

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There is no shortage of advice. Everyone has an opinion on what to do and what not to do, and not many are afraid to shove it down your throat either, or take offense when you don’t follow what they say, or want you to drop down on your knees in gratitude they gave you five seconds of their time.

I think about this when I’m blogging and sharing my experiences, tweeting my own opinions, and especially when I’m scrolling through Twitter and my Facebook writing groups. I was poking around for motivational quotes for another blog post, and this one caught my eye:

I really like this because we’re all struggling writers, all trying to find that magic bullet that will catapult our book to bestseller status (with as little work and money as possible, if we’re being honest here), and we should be open to advice. We should be open to learning from other people’s experiences.

Probably one of my favorite topics to blog about is scammers–people offering a service they aren’t qualified to provide. The indie community is full of them, and how many indies finding ways to game the system or relieve you of your money knows no bounds. I got into a discussion with someone on Twitter the other day who is getting to the blurb-writing business. I asked politely, as I have never had a problem with this person before, if he had a refund policy in place for the blurbs that don’t convert to sales. He said that blurbs aren’t part of marketing that therefore he had no refund policy in place as it wasn’t his responsibility to market your book and that conversion on a new blurb wasn’t measurable. I said I wished him well and that I hoped his own sales success was proof that he could write a good blurb. He said he was doing just fine. I took a look at his book rankings, and unless he meant something other than book sales, no he wasn’t doing just fine.

So he 1) didn’t believe a blurb was part of marketing a book, 2) didn’t have a refund policy in place if you were unhappy with conversion 3) didn’t believe blurb conversion could be measured and 4) his own books weren’t doing well sales-wise. I hope people followed along our tweets because there is no way this person should be offering a blurb-writing business AT ALL. I did the best I could to call him out, but there’s only so much I can do, especially without looking like a big B. I think I already have a reputation on Twitter as being a bit aggressive, and I’m trying to soften up my look. It’s not working.

This goes for a lot of other advice too–writing advice, cover advice, marketing advice. I know one writer who loves to give writing advice, is always sharing excerpts of her work, but it’s all telling and she’s not selling books. People who don’t know what covers are hot in their genre love to give advice on what they like and don’t like. Maybe their advice is valid, maybe it’s not, but if you’re trying to ask for advice from a perspective that others don’t share (like writing to market, covers to market, writing commercial fiction, or the other way–if you want to write your own thing getting advice from someone who doesn’t share that viewpoint won’t help), it can be tough. You’ll be inundated with opinions that would never help.

Sometimes a fresh set of eyes can help whether the people those eyes belong to have had their own success or not. I feel like I know what goes into a bestseller, and I can say easily that depending on Twitter for sales will only go so far, or you need to learn an ad platform, or you need to change your cover, simply for the fact your cover is horrendous and I don’t need to be a bestselling author to know it.

I think that’s why I like Bryan Cohen’s free Amazon ad challenge so much. When he shares his screen/Amazon Ads dashboard during the videos, we can see that he’s selling books. We can see that he’s written books that people want to buy. Yes, he spends a lot of money on ads, but he also makes it all back and more. His ad challenge wouldn’t be worth much if he wasn’t selling books.

Just the other day in a group someone was asking about a different indie author who offers classes (that aren’t free) and one poster said, “I stopped taking his classes when he stopped selling books.” Like the blurb-writing guy, people forget that it doesn’t take much time to go onto a book’s product page and see the ranking in the Kindle store. You can go onto any of my books’ sales pages and see that I’m not selling many. I’m very transparent–in fact it’s practically the premise of my whole blog–I’m not selling books, this is why I think that is, how I’m changing that, and I hope what I try can help you. I’m not interested in making money off this blog. When I get a couple of readers who thank me for the resources or thank me for sharing my experiences, or tell me they tried something and it worked, I consider my job well done.

So what do I suggest you do when you might consider taking someone’s advice?

  1. Take a look at their success rate if at all possible. Look at their covers if they are going into business creating covers and see if they know market trends, what’s selling right now. Look at their books’ rankings and decide for yourself if they’re qualified to give the advice their giving.
  2. Ask yourself if what they’re saying makes sense. Trends change, and maybe someone isn’t up on the newest thing–like that lady who told me my first person blurb isn’t how everyone else is doing it, when actually most are now, at least where billionaire romance is concerned. But it could be that you missed the boat with something and their advice is legit. Check it out and see if it’s something you want to experiment with.
  3. Where else are they online? Sometimes Amazon sales rank won’t always be the greatest measure of success. LIke the guy who wants to write blurbs, maybe he is successful somewhere else (like writing ad copy for his day job), but if he doesn’t make that known, it reflects poorly on the business he wants to start. Some writers publish to Wattpad and have a large following there. Some write for blogs that have good traffic and they have a large following in that circle. Some submit to literary journals and are published in lit mags. Dig deeper. You might be surprised–and learn their opinion is steeped in more experience than you think.
  4. Do they have a good track record giving advice? Sales aren’t the end all be all, I know that. Sometimes questionable books do quite well and no one can figure out why. Maybe someone has a great marketing tip that didn’t work for themselves but worked really well for someone else. Maybe they know a secret ingredient and it turns out to be the last piece of your own puzzle that can bring your books to the next level, like a promo that didn’t do much for them but made another author’s book rank high in the charts. I edit on the side for friends who can’t afford it. Just because my sales aren’t great doesn’t meant I’m not a good writer or editor. I have a handful of people who could tell you that I’m good at what I do and that I’m qualified to give grammar, punctuation, and writing advice.
  5. Look at the viewpoint of the person giving the advice. I tweeted about this not long ago–taking the advice from one writer on Twitter when there are a million readers out there probably isn’t the best idea. Writers read differently, and what would bother a writer may not faze a reader. I catch myself doing that all the time–stressing while editing or writing about something a writer said they disliked. Why should I care if a writer says she doesn’t like the word moist (or whatever?) Chances are 99.99% that she will NEVER read any of my books. So why does it matter? All that matters is what readers think–and they will tell you.

I’ve taken advice (and my cover for Faking Forever is better for it), but I’ve ignored my fair share. I’ve also given a lot of advice, and usually in some way the people I’ve spoken with aren’t ready to hear it–even if they’ve asked for it. I’ve told plenty of people their covers aren’t working. I’ve looked inside a lot of books and said they need another editing pass. I’ve pointed out blurbs that aren’t written well, and I don’t think a day goes by where I haven’t told someone that they need to branch out from Twitter for marketing if they aren’t seeing the results they want. Usually my advice consists of either spending time or money (it’s work, y’all), but you have to invest something in your books if you want to find readers and nurture an audience. Just today someone on Twitter said he would take down his YouTube channel if he couldn’t get up to a certain number of followers by the New Year, but when I asked him what he did to drive traffic to his channel besides Twitter, he didn’t answer me. So in that non-answer I know the answer. Nothing. I don’t need to be a YouTube guru to tell him he needs to promote his channel to expand his audience and threatening to take his channel down won’t do anything to build his audience. The opposite, in fact, because why would someone invest time in something that may disappear?

At the very heart of your business, only you can make decisions for you, and only you can decide what to apply to your book business and what not to apply. If you’re not seeing the results you want in blog follows, sales, YouTube subscribers, whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish, that will be the true test. Trying to achieve different results doing the same thing over and over again will not work, and you don’t need anyone to tell you that. (And if you can’t admit it, it won’t matter how many people tell you–you won’t believe them anyway.)

So, after all that, should you follow advice from someone who isn’t successful? I guess the murky answer is maybe. I certainly wouldn’t pay for anything if the person dispensing said advice couldn’t put his money where his mouth is, and in the indie publishing business, that usually means book sales. There are quite a few top-tier indies who do dispense advice through podcasts, non-fiction books, interviews, and various classes they’ve decided to teach. Some will do consulting, some blog and offer their advice for free. There is plenty of advice out there from indies who are making it, so maybe there’s no need to take advice from someone who isn’t. It could be that simple.

Do you give advice? Take it? Let me know!

Until next time!

Thoughts on video and why it’s not my go-to marketing tool.

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So, funny thing. I thought I already published this! Then I saw it in my drafts, and I must have forgotten I didn’t schedule it. Since I have more time sensitive material for a different post, this is going out three weeks later than I initially thought, and I’m sorry for the Monday I missed when I thought this went out!

There’s a lot of talk about video for book marketing these days, and if you’ve heard conversations about TikTok and the news that Instagram is going to be more video-focused to compete with the newish platform, then you’ve maybe thought that you should give it a go, too.

I haven’t jumped on the TikTok bandwagon for a variety of reasons, and not just because I don’t particularly care to be in front of a camera. I’m 46 years old and it took me 46 years just to be reasonably comfortable being filmed and having my picture taken. A lot of it comes down to not having any f*cks to give, and what completes that pie is knowing that I look better than I have most of my life because I’m happy with where I’m at and don’t care what other people have to say about me.

On the other hand, I know I could lose weight, my old, crying cat keeps me up at night and if I don’t want to look like a zombie, I need a full face of makeup, and my hair is a limp mess if I don’t do anything with it. That sounds like a lot of work for a sixty-second video, and while people say you don’t have to look your best when you’re in front of the camera, I wouldn’t NOT want to look my best–especially if I’m talking about my books or promoting someone else’s.

And then we get into voice modulation (who wants to sound like a cow, dying or otherwise?), the background (my space is extremely small without a bare wall to be had anywhere), and background noise (see cat above).

It all seems to take too much time away from writing. I have very little patience with that at is it. I’m doing the cover for my first billionaire standalone and waiting for cover critique and blurb feedback makes me restless. I haven’t written new material in weeks (that makes me twitchy), but I just can’t with the amount of books I have on my computer right now. I have to start putting out material or I’m going to be so overwhelmed with the work it will take to put them out I’ll suffer from analysis paralysis and won’t do anything.

You can’t get away from video talk, and I’ve listened to some useful rooms in Clubhouse about TikTok and using video to stay in the algorithm’s good graces on other platforms. Whether or not I’ll try video remains to be seen. It’s not only putting my pretty big nose face in front of a camera, it’s also learning the platform you’re going to post on, and if need be, learning editing software (internal or external) to make your videos look like you know what you’re doing.

I’m not on TikTok, and I get annoyed with people who post their videos other places. I know it’s a timesaver to repurpose your content, but I’ve complained for years about people posting the same content everywhere. There’s no point in me following you on IG, Twitter, FB, and anywhere else you are if you’re going to post the same stuff–practically at the same time. I might as well follow you one place and open my time up for other things. I’ve muted accounts that do that, and I’m sure others do it too. Videos can be shared a lot of places, and I have no idea how useful it is to share your TikTok video on YouTube, FB, and Instagram. If you’re going to go viral (which sounds like a goal for most people) it would make more sense to let/encourage OTHERS share your video other places otherwise you just look spammy. I’ve seen Dea Poirier’s tweets lots of places, and not because she puts them there. She’s had viral tweets of her own and not once that I’ve seen is because she’s shared on every platform she can find. The true test of popularity is when others start to share your content.

This is one of Dea’s tweets I saw EVERYWHERE on FB after she tweeted it. In fact, it took me five seconds to find it searching murder recipe meme.

Anyway, I believe it’s better to find one or two platforms you enjoy (for me that would be this blog and Twitter) and focus your time and attention there instead of spreading yourself thin and offering mediocre content because your book is under deadline and you’re pressed for time. Maybe I gravitate toward my blog and Twitter because there isn’t much call for video on these platforms. I was talking with a friend the other day, and I told her I don’t like IG because of the toll it takes on my hands holding my phone. Holding my phone aggravates my carpal tunnel. I like things I can do on my computer and while I can post on IG on my laptop, I feel like I’m missing the point of the platform when I do that. You’re supposed to be experiencing the world and sharing those experiences with others–something I’m not very good at because when I’m out and about, besides taking a picture a drink or two when I’m with my sister, I try to stay off my phone.

I’m not good on social media–my Twitter engagement is abysmal, I haven’t posted to my FB author page in months, and on my personal FB page all I share are photos of raccoons. I don’t have much use for social media. I think I come across as prickly and hard to get to know. That’s me in real life as well. I’m a loner at heart and it takes a long time for me to warm up to someone. (Though the friends I have made on Twitter I’ve had since I joined in 2013.) It’s not an ideal way to be if you’re hoping to connect with thousands of readers, and I am trying to put myself out there more in my romance group and asking for feedback on my covers and blurbs. I’m also terrible at taking a hint. I have a few people on Twitter who RT everything, or like all my Tweets, and I never reciprocate. They want to interact because they like my content, and I need to be more mindful of the people who WANT to talk to me.

If you’re looking to get started in video, these tips I’ve gathered might be of use to you, too:

Look at what other people are doing. If you’re a romance writer, look at what other romance authors are doing. Study their viral videos. What made them pop? The music they chose? A new book they’re talking about? We don’t need to copy others, but pick up tips from other authors who are killing it. We do this with covers, with blurbs, even POV (switching from 3rd person to 1st) and we can learn from our peers in other ways, too.

Choose who you’re going to be. If you’re going to film yourself without makeup or your hair done, be okay with that, make your peace with it, and embrace it. I don’t know how beneficial it would be to look like a beauty queen for the first six months while you build and audience then all of a sudden “be yourself.” Be yourself from the start and then you can’t fall off that path.

Figure out what your platform is. Romance is easy–hunky cinnamon roll guys, swoony love stories. I’ve never been good with posting about romance, when it should be my number one go-to for any post. I should read it as much as I write it, and I should embrace all my book boyfriends–the ones I create and the ones I love to read about. How I would get that into videos that promote me as a romance author, I have no idea. I’ve kind of turned into a billionaire romance author, and if Jamie Dornan wants to come over and make out with me while I film it for TikTok, that would probably be a good start. He’s married though, so I doubt his wife would be on board.

Focus on one. If you want to do TikTok, make it a primary goal to build your platform there. Like any social media app, it takes interaction for some algorithm love, and not just by your fans. You have to comment, you have to reply to comments. That takes time and it will be easier to find the time if you just have one platform you need to worry about. If you already have a following on Instagram and want to start posting video there, then do that. But no matter where you post a video, remember it’s the books that are the most important. You don’t have anything to market if you’re not writing.

Look at your genre and where your audience is. TikTok feels younger, but is it? I don’t know. If you’re running Facebook Ads and they work for you, can you say your audience is older? A quick Google search says the average age of a Facebook user is 40 years old. Does that mean your audience is older? Maybe they aren’t on TikTok. If you write Young Adult, it might be a place to consider. If you’re writing “seasoned’ romance and your target audience is a divorced woman in her mid-fifties, it might not be the best place for you to spend your time. Doing some market research and figuring out where your audience is on social media will at least keep you from wasting time on a platform where your readers aren’t hanging out. Romance readers seem to be everywhere, which makes it hard for a romance author not to (want to be) be everywhere, too, but I can look up the top ten billionaire romance authors and if they aren’t on TikTok, that takes some of the pressure off.

Stay out of the author/writer community. For most authors, Twitter doesn’t sell books because we’re so deep into the we can’t see straight. Unless you’re happy with a handful of sales for the lifespan of your book, other authors are not your readers. This is why Craig Martelle says it over and over again in the 20booksto50k group, it’s why in most FB author groups there is no self promo. Because the other members are not your readers. It’s going to be the same with TikTok and Instagram. Don’t tell other authors in your groups to follow you there, because your account will be following authors, and other authors will be following you. It’s really difficult to find that line in the sand and stay on the right side. Especially since we’re supposed to read in our genre, and I like to promote the romance books I’ve enjoyed. It will take more time to build a fanbase made up of readers, but it will be worth it in the end.

I don’t have many resources for this blog post. BookTok is still new and you will probably get the most out of joining the TikTok for Authors Facebook group. Clubhouse is now open to everyone (though I have 10 invites if you want to be personally invited into the app–DM me on Twitter), and there is a TikTok for Authors Club on there, too. You can join and listen in on conversations where they discuss what is working for them, and after a bit you might have a tip to share!

Search for the room in the app!

The last resource I have is a book I read a while ago when I was looking into getting video. Amy Schmittauer’s book, Vlog Like a Boss: How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging, has a lot of great advice when it comes to vlogging and those tips can help you at least feel comfortable in front of the camera.

Image taken from Amazon.

Getting comfortable and understanding your goals and the content you want to provide is half the battle when it comes to using video to promote your books. Consistency will help, and if you enjoy what you’re doing, that will come out in your videos too. I don’t know if I’ll ever get into video. It’s difficult not to jump into the next big thing when you want to market your books and feel like sales have stalled, but the one thing I can count on is writing the next book which is where you can always find me, no matter what kind of hot new platform comes along. Good luck!

I’ve been struggling with content for this blog for a little while–maybe that’s a good thing as it means the indie community is quiet. Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to still post four times a month, but my more informational blog posts on the first and third Monday of every month, and now that I’m back into publishing, a personal update on the second and fourth Thursday of every month. I think that will still provide my subscribers with the content they find helpful but it will take some of the pressure off me to keep my blog posts relevant. I still very much enjoy this blog and don’t plan to stop blogging, and who knows . . . maybe things will pick up once the summer is over and there will be more things to talk about again. Thanks for understanding!