Writers and Social Media: Beware of the Tale of Perfection
by Laura Rossi
Every time I speak to a fellow author, we end up talking about how frustrating and time consuming—not to mention money consuming—promotion on social media is.
Let’s be honest, when you are a writer all you want to do is write. Not edit, not think about blurbs or promotion. We just want to write and everything else just feels like a huge imposition, an obstacle standing in our way.
That’s exactly how I felt in the beginning and I bet this has happened to you as well.
The journey begins.
Years ago, when I started the publishing journey, I met this wonderful lady online in a book club group on Facebook. She messaged me in private and said, “My dear, you’re doing it all wrong. That’s not how you promote your work.” I literally fell off my chair. I had no idea what I was doing.
I’d simply wrote my first romance book and felt pretty happy with myself—that I’d managed to complete it without tearing it apart, for one thing.
Was I suppose to do more besides clicking ‘publish’ on KDP?
That’s how I was introduced to things like
‘group takeovers’
marketing concepts such as logos
branding
sharing social media handles and amazon links
having a readers group and a street team.
It was just after writers like Colleen Hoover became known and successful, when bloggers influenced what people clicked and read.
I’m sure I’m not alone when I say this. I was just a girl who wanted to write and was trying to catch on fast on how be noticed and hopefully read. That’s all I wanted, isn’t that what we all want? To be considered and our work read. Hopefully appreciated.
But it was hard, incredibly demanding and time consuming,
with a fulltime job
a family
little time to write
spending time on social media to share my work
living in Europe and trying to be active online when people in the US were online…
At some point I even hired a personal assistant to help me out. I had friends sharing daily in groups. I got little sleep and some writing done. Eventually I collapsed. Slowly, steadily I started to dislike what I was seeing, this world I was getting sucked into. In the end I called myself out.
Here’s what I discovered.
1) Most of the things you see on social media are construed. Unhealthy, toxic. People attack you for the silliest reasons. If you have an opinion, you’re trouble. If you don’t have an opinion, nobody even notices you. So many use social media strategically to fit their needs. They make up situations, post drama or salty messages deliberately to gain likes or sympathy. Drama becomes their fortune. Plotting at its finest.
2) It can make you question your talent. I faced authors who wrote one book a month, yes you read that right. One book a month, when I was struggling to write one a year. How in the hell were they doing this? And why?
People kept telling me I needed to work fast, get a new story out constantly to stay in the spotlight but I just couldn’t. The more I learned about promotion, about the book community, the more I felt different, not part of the trend.
Fast stories to keep swimming, construed drama to get attention. I saw people, writers jumping on the safe side of the drama bandwagon just to get a few likes, earn popularity. Naming and shaming others, getting people to write bad reviews on books by said authors… toxic doesn’t even begin to describe this scenario.
What the hell had I gotten myself into? I wasn’t like that. I could never be like that. This is not writing, this writing community is nothing like they said it would be—it’s neither kind or supportive, it’s mostly harsh, fake, and could possibly end with a ‘friendly’ backstabbing.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I called myself out.
I took not a step back, but a whole mile back, and it just happened to coincide with the downfall of takeovers and self-promotion.
There was a shift on which posts were seen and those that weren’t. The algorithm became the enemy and soon we were all trying to understand how to get around it.
All of a sudden, it’s either you pay social media to promote your work through ads or you’re invisible, you’re doomed.
Money to stay afloat, money to stay visible.
Don’t get me wrong, ads work, to some extent. If you gamble with them for a bit, you can get them working. They actually help you sell, help you climb those amazon charts. But to be able to make money, make a profit, it takes more than pretty words lined up in an ad. Or the right picture to go with your snippet from the book. You need time and money.
So, this is where I started asking myself the inevitable question, the one I think most writers in our era, having so much material and so many authors out there, ask ourselves.
What happened to talent?
Writing not because you want to make a profit, but because it’s who you are, what you do? It’s what you were born to do. What happened to picking up a book not because an ad tells you to, but by word of mouth, because it inspires you, as you flipped through the pages and enjoyed the first snippet?
Independent publishing has been a fantastic tool for wannabe writers out there and I’m so grateful I’ve had the chance to use it myself, but I do wonder if all this material available online has made us all dramatically invisible. To be seen you have to climb, step over others, be creative in how to emerge. It’s not a question of talent, but rather about creating the perfect stunt, or knowing your stuff when it comes to algorithm. Or paying.
I called myself out.
I got myself an agent and I try to focus on writing more than anything else. Which doesn’t mean I won’t be promoting my work in the future, but I’m one hundred percent out of this rat race where everyone pretends to be friends, pretends to be supportive of other women, when in reality it’s just a matter of time before it backfires, hard.
Ask yourself these questions, does:
Stephen King promotes himself on social media?
write a book a month?
take part in any sort of drama?
Does JK Rowling spend time online sharing her work? Sure, I’ve just mentioned two very famous writers, who surely don’t need introductions or paid ads. But that’s the kind of writer you should aspire to be, someone so well-known because of their talent that they don’t need all the fluff, all that nonsense to get around.
Social media is just a blur, it hides the truth. It’s a detour to what is really important.
Final thoughts.
Write your stories, make sure they’re the best you can do, and look for someone—a professional, like a literary agent—who can make the difference, who believes in you, who falls in love with your words and supports you.
Don’t get tangled in the jungle. It will make you want to quit and keep you from writing the book that needs to be read.
What are your thoughts on using social media for promotion? What has worked for you? Have you felt the need to call yourself out?
* * * * * *
About Laura
Laura Rossi is an Italian multi-genre writer. Raised in the US and in the UK, where she graduated in Psychology and Criminology, she now resides in Italy with her family.
Devotedly interested in the human mind, Laura likes to scare people saying she goes ‘from sweet to psycho in a matter of seconds’ with her characters. One day she’s writing something sweet and funny, the other she’s crafting dark, flawed characters for edgy, twisted stories.
When she’s not busy working in her family business or being a mom, she loves to travel and attend rock shows. If you see her wandering around town with a wicked smile on her lips, she’s probably thinking of putting you in one of her novels, plotting a new thriller in her head or figuring out which character needs to get the bullet.
For any rights or sub-rights query, Laura is represented by agent Nikki Groom at SBR Media.
24 comments on “Writers and Social Media: Beware of the Tale of Perfection”
Laura, you nailed this! So many writers are swimming in the swamp. I think the idea of publishing vs writing vs social media fame gets lost from the beginning of a story. Figuring it all out takes stepping back.
I don't recognise the toxic place you mentioned. All the writers I am in contact with, and have been for the last 10 years I've been writing, are pleasant and helpful, reading and reviewing my books and helpfully critiquing them, too.
They have offered congratulations for my successes and commiserations for failures, helped me with plot points when I've been stuck, and given ideas for book titles.
I have no money for ads, so have to rely on social media. Fortunately, I am contracted to a publisher who does a lot of marketing, and that is a big help.
And I would very much like to be well-known like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King so I needn't spend time on promotion, but to get there, you need to promote!
I'm happy to hear you're having a wonderful experience.
My experience has been slightly different and although I have met some lovely writers, bloggers, readers etc etc, I have also come across the exact opposite.
I totally agree the social media world has become overwhelming and too much exposure gets counterproductive for an author - although I don't agree that it's 100% toxic because I've been publishing for 15 years and I have carved out a consistent persona for myself and a good, genuine network of author friends and co-workers. But it takes increasing time and teeth-gritting patience to navigate the sincere from the nonsense.
I don't make a living from my writing! but I sell a few books each day, and it's enough to balance my life between writing and promoting, and managing my expectations.
Over that 15 years I've seen a huge explosion of books into the market, though, and however good your book is, it's still the case that the #1 objective is to get it noticed in the first place. So some promotion is needed - and then a maintainable level going forward to keep it in readers' sight, because your book has much longer life online than it used to have solely in bookshops (an advantage for earning royalties, but a disadvantage for needing more attention LOL).
Thanks for your post, it highlights well the ongoing struggle that authors have between writing for personal joy and also publishing for commercial reward. In my experience, they're 2 potentially full-time jobs!
I don't believe in coincidences just synchronicities and I think I saw this blog at the right time. I am at a crossroads right now with my writing and I had to call myself out and ask what I really want out of my writing career. I think this blog helped me see what I already knew was just scared to say it. Thank you!
I totally agree with everything you are saying. I have also had to take a step back from online media as a way to get my name out there. Instead, I am learning to discover other ways to get my writing out into the community through the support of an author's group I started. We can promote ourselves together as local writers while saving money and share our contacts. We share venues as well as tables at the venue to save money as a few examples.
I do have one question, however, isn't a literary agent more for someone who wants to be traditionally published, and don't they cost money?
Years ago family expert, working in publishing, read a completed book, advised me that I'm not a writer.
I did have a great agent, encouraging and supporting my work, able to say when material needed more polish. Thanks to her, I had a meeting with Hodder, in London.
She died, far too soon, attempts to find another failed, but another major publisher liked something sent to their slush pile, asked for more. Failed again. For a different book, I was asked to write in the missing years ,after a protagonist's long absence. Time consuming, and ultimately rejected, I suspect because I believed those years should remain a mystery. For a fairly obscure academic project - three way, UK, French, German, a former codebreaker, almost 90, advised us to publish independently and we did. Academic, so conferences offered some publicity.
Promote my own work ? Highly unlikely. Stop writing ? Even less likely. Or social media.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I've been there, being rejected and things just not working out for some reason, it's really a tough scene the book world. Keep up the good work and don't let anyone tell you that you are not a writer. I know it was one of your relatives but just because someone works in publishing doesn't mean they're absolute experts.
Excellent points! The algorithms are not in our favor these days! Congratulations on getting an agent and enjoying your writing journey!
I don't like doing a lot of paid social media. I do more product sharing than I usually would these days, trying to get the word out about a new venture, but mostly I just focus on the interactions that I enjoy. I also tend to spend time on smaller venues.
Terrific post, Laura. I've been self-publishing for the past eight years, and have definitely seen organic reach, on both Amazon and social media, fade away. Moreover, IMHO social media in general is in trouble as engagement drops and pay-for-play/being shown is less and less effective.
The one thing writers control is the writing itself. Finding and connecting with readers will always be challenging--we can influence but not control that. At this point in my indie career, my newsletter is the main way I do that. Rather than see myself as an aspiring "big-name" author, I'm aiming for indie equivalent of a successful small press published author 🙂
Thank you for reading and sharing your experience. Yes, exactly my point on social media and social media reach. Keep writing and putting your name out there.
Hi Laura,
Thank you for this post and your directive to "call yourself out". I am currently in a season of refocusing on my writing and the creative aspects of art of writing. It's a nice reminder!
Kris
Ciao Kris, thank you for reading. It's a relief to see I'm not the only one who's struggling with these aspects related to publishing. Keep up the good work
Social media can be a tool, but it shouldn't be your only tool. Not all platforms may work for you, but you can find the ones which do, and you can use those for good.
Hi Denise. Of course nowadays there are various social media platforms one can use. I still find that all the ones I've used (Facebook, Instagram, tiktok...) haven't been very helpful lately, not as they once were and I strongly believe that it's because there's been a huge shift from sharing and promoting to paid advertising. It's getting harder and harder, but I'm glad you found something that's working for you. If you'd like to share anything with us, please comment below ☺️
Nice essay Laura... I write (4 self published novels now) because it's an enjoyable process for me. Each novel required a year. I'd like to be read, but few have taken me on. Erotica has a very niche audience.
Matthew, keep writing and publishing. And at your own pace like you are doing now.
There are a lot of readers interested in your genre, try looking at Facebook romance readers group, I'm sure you'll find bloggers too willing to read and help you share.
It's really strange read this post (because I follow this blog for a glimpse in foreign publishing markets), recognize the feelings of many author's friend here in my nation and in the end discover you are Italian like me! 🙂
I'm not really published. Well, I published some weeks ago a guide to writing software yWriter, in Italian - but it's a guide, not a novel. I write sometimes true stories for a female Italian magazine, but they're true stories, not fiction. So, I'm not considering myself a "published" writer, for now. But I write from a decade, I have a good blog and a good group of bloggers/writers friends in the Italian publishing market and these are exactly their feelings with social media in the last two years: impossible become visible without advertising; some writers aren't so friendly online (ritorsion feedbacks included); more followers on social, less quality of writing. It's very hard to continue to write in these times...
Ciao Barbara, si si I'm Italian like you 😊 I'm bilingual so I've written most of my novels in English.
You are a published writer, just not a fiction writer but one day, who knows right? That's the beauty of this art, you are on a journey and that journey can change any moment.
What you said about social media is exactly what I'm talking about. I do believe we'll see an evolution in publishing soon, something will happen to change the balance again. Keep up the good work bella
Laura, you nailed this! So many writers are swimming in the swamp. I think the idea of publishing vs writing vs social media fame gets lost from the beginning of a story. Figuring it all out takes stepping back.
Thank you for reading, yes. Sometimes you need to step back to realise what to do next.
I don't recognise the toxic place you mentioned. All the writers I am in contact with, and have been for the last 10 years I've been writing, are pleasant and helpful, reading and reviewing my books and helpfully critiquing them, too.
They have offered congratulations for my successes and commiserations for failures, helped me with plot points when I've been stuck, and given ideas for book titles.
I have no money for ads, so have to rely on social media. Fortunately, I am contracted to a publisher who does a lot of marketing, and that is a big help.
And I would very much like to be well-known like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King so I needn't spend time on promotion, but to get there, you need to promote!
Catch 22.
I'm happy to hear you're having a wonderful experience.
My experience has been slightly different and although I have met some lovely writers, bloggers, readers etc etc, I have also come across the exact opposite.
I totally agree the social media world has become overwhelming and too much exposure gets counterproductive for an author - although I don't agree that it's 100% toxic because I've been publishing for 15 years and I have carved out a consistent persona for myself and a good, genuine network of author friends and co-workers. But it takes increasing time and teeth-gritting patience to navigate the sincere from the nonsense.
I don't make a living from my writing! but I sell a few books each day, and it's enough to balance my life between writing and promoting, and managing my expectations.
Over that 15 years I've seen a huge explosion of books into the market, though, and however good your book is, it's still the case that the #1 objective is to get it noticed in the first place. So some promotion is needed - and then a maintainable level going forward to keep it in readers' sight, because your book has much longer life online than it used to have solely in bookshops (an advantage for earning royalties, but a disadvantage for needing more attention LOL).
Thanks for your post, it highlights well the ongoing struggle that authors have between writing for personal joy and also publishing for commercial reward. In my experience, they're 2 potentially full-time jobs!
Thank you for reading and sharing your experience 😊
I don't believe in coincidences just synchronicities and I think I saw this blog at the right time. I am at a crossroads right now with my writing and I had to call myself out and ask what I really want out of my writing career. I think this blog helped me see what I already knew was just scared to say it. Thank you!
Thank you for reading. I'm glad if I helped you in any way 😊keep writing, keep it up and focus on what you love.
I totally agree with everything you are saying. I have also had to take a step back from online media as a way to get my name out there. Instead, I am learning to discover other ways to get my writing out into the community through the support of an author's group I started. We can promote ourselves together as local writers while saving money and share our contacts. We share venues as well as tables at the venue to save money as a few examples.
I do have one question, however, isn't a literary agent more for someone who wants to be traditionally published, and don't they cost money?
Ah Gillian, this amazing. This group you guys have built is great. Happy you're getting the right support.
No, literary agents earn their living when a publisher signs you up. It's a percentage of your earnings.
Years ago family expert, working in publishing, read a completed book, advised me that I'm not a writer.
I did have a great agent, encouraging and supporting my work, able to say when material needed more polish. Thanks to her, I had a meeting with Hodder, in London.
She died, far too soon, attempts to find another failed, but another major publisher liked something sent to their slush pile, asked for more. Failed again. For a different book, I was asked to write in the missing years ,after a protagonist's long absence. Time consuming, and ultimately rejected, I suspect because I believed those years should remain a mystery. For a fairly obscure academic project - three way, UK, French, German, a former codebreaker, almost 90, advised us to publish independently and we did. Academic, so conferences offered some publicity.
Promote my own work ? Highly unlikely. Stop writing ? Even less likely. Or social media.
Gillian's group sounds great.
.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I've been there, being rejected and things just not working out for some reason, it's really a tough scene the book world. Keep up the good work and don't let anyone tell you that you are not a writer. I know it was one of your relatives but just because someone works in publishing doesn't mean they're absolute experts.
Excellent points! The algorithms are not in our favor these days! Congratulations on getting an agent and enjoying your writing journey!
I don't like doing a lot of paid social media. I do more product sharing than I usually would these days, trying to get the word out about a new venture, but mostly I just focus on the interactions that I enjoy. I also tend to spend time on smaller venues.
Thank you for reading. Keep up the good work and doing what feels best for you.
Terrific post, Laura. I've been self-publishing for the past eight years, and have definitely seen organic reach, on both Amazon and social media, fade away. Moreover, IMHO social media in general is in trouble as engagement drops and pay-for-play/being shown is less and less effective.
The one thing writers control is the writing itself. Finding and connecting with readers will always be challenging--we can influence but not control that. At this point in my indie career, my newsletter is the main way I do that. Rather than see myself as an aspiring "big-name" author, I'm aiming for indie equivalent of a successful small press published author 🙂
Thank you for reading and sharing your experience. Yes, exactly my point on social media and social media reach. Keep writing and putting your name out there.
Hi Laura,
Thank you for this post and your directive to "call yourself out". I am currently in a season of refocusing on my writing and the creative aspects of art of writing. It's a nice reminder!
Kris
Ciao Kris, thank you for reading. It's a relief to see I'm not the only one who's struggling with these aspects related to publishing. Keep up the good work
Social media can be a tool, but it shouldn't be your only tool. Not all platforms may work for you, but you can find the ones which do, and you can use those for good.
Hi Denise. Of course nowadays there are various social media platforms one can use. I still find that all the ones I've used (Facebook, Instagram, tiktok...) haven't been very helpful lately, not as they once were and I strongly believe that it's because there's been a huge shift from sharing and promoting to paid advertising. It's getting harder and harder, but I'm glad you found something that's working for you. If you'd like to share anything with us, please comment below ☺️
Nice essay Laura... I write (4 self published novels now) because it's an enjoyable process for me. Each novel required a year. I'd like to be read, but few have taken me on. Erotica has a very niche audience.
Matthew, keep writing and publishing. And at your own pace like you are doing now.
There are a lot of readers interested in your genre, try looking at Facebook romance readers group, I'm sure you'll find bloggers too willing to read and help you share.
It's really strange read this post (because I follow this blog for a glimpse in foreign publishing markets), recognize the feelings of many author's friend here in my nation and in the end discover you are Italian like me! 🙂
I'm not really published. Well, I published some weeks ago a guide to writing software yWriter, in Italian - but it's a guide, not a novel. I write sometimes true stories for a female Italian magazine, but they're true stories, not fiction. So, I'm not considering myself a "published" writer, for now. But I write from a decade, I have a good blog and a good group of bloggers/writers friends in the Italian publishing market and these are exactly their feelings with social media in the last two years: impossible become visible without advertising; some writers aren't so friendly online (ritorsion feedbacks included); more followers on social, less quality of writing. It's very hard to continue to write in these times...
Ciao Barbara, si si I'm Italian like you 😊 I'm bilingual so I've written most of my novels in English.
You are a published writer, just not a fiction writer but one day, who knows right? That's the beauty of this art, you are on a journey and that journey can change any moment.
What you said about social media is exactly what I'm talking about. I do believe we'll see an evolution in publishing soon, something will happen to change the balance again. Keep up the good work bella