I am somewhat fascinated by writers, especially on Reddit, who claim to have found scores of buyers and ARC readers on social media. How can this possibly be true?
My history with social media is pretty long. Shoot, I even had a MySpace page. (Hi, Tom!) When Facebook was new, I rather liked it. I had a limited number of friends, people I actually wanted to interact with. I felt free sharing goofy things and our band's new tracks. Then suddenly every single acquaintance I had began sending me friend requests. Certainly these folks were tolerable (I worked with a lot of them), but I didn't care to let them in on my private life. I'm someone who feels rude ignoring a friend request, so of course I approved all of them. One day one of my co-workers posted an innocuous comment under one of my photos and I replied (again, innocuously); then someone in my "friend" group, completely uninvolved in the discussion, took offense. That was when I'd had it. I remember deleting practically all my personal info and most of my pictures. I could have simply closed my account, but far-slung members of my family still used the app, and I wanted to share in their lives. However, ever since that day I perhaps pull up Facebook once every six months or so.
But back to authors...the Facebook (or Meta or whatever the hell it's called) interface is one of the worst I've ever seen. Try finding something specific on it. Go ahead; try. And all the f'ing memes! If you don't have something of your own to say, just shut up. But as much as I hate Facebook, I dutifully set up an author account. It was strictly a means of promoting. Almost immediately I received friend requests from other authors. Here's the deal: Other writers aren't interested in buying your books. They want to sell their own. So, what is the point? I also found an article that listed a few Facebook ARC reader groups, so I joined those and posted a blurb about my book. Nobody cared. Facebook is the most useless social media site for authors, bar none.
Instagram ~ I don't really get it. I was late to the Instagram party. What little I knew about it was that people mostly posted little five-second videos. I write under a pen name for a reason; I'm a private person. You couldn't even bribe me to post a video of myself. Once I got more into the site, I found some non-video posts as well, but face it, it's all mostly video. I tried promoting my books by posting their cover images with a few accompanying words. I even used Canva to create a couple of attractive posts. I offered free books in return for a newsletter signup. I advertised for ARC readers. Zero response, other than a few people "liked" my covers. Uh, thanks.
X ~ I use X daily, just not under my author account. As with Facebook, lots of authors began following me, so of course I followed them back. And then? Well, that's it. I have no idea how any author manages to move books via X. Under my personal X account, I added my author website to my bio, but nobody ever clicks on bio links. Nobody.
TikTok ~ Never used it. Won't use it. I could maybe weigh the benefits of creating an account versus having all my personal data stolen (!) if the app catered to my demographic, but it doesn't. I know there is such a thing as BookTokkers, but again, not my demo, so there really is no point.
I almost forgot about Pinterest (who hasn't?). I read somewhere that an indie author got most of her purchases via her Pinterest account, so shoot, why not try it? I think maybe that woman was insane. Pinterest has so many technical issues, it's exhausting trying to maneuver through it. I did set up an author account, but I quickly gave up on it and I've never been back. I'd try to add a new book to my "board", with all the requisite descriptions and links, and it would create a new, separate board with none of the info I'd spent time adding; just the cover. The site is simply impossible to navigate.
In summary, any author who claims that social media has benefited their career is either lying or really, really lucky. I don't waste any time on those apps. I'll check in on Instagram the few times it crosses my mind. I can't even remember the last time I pulled up my X author account. Facebook is pure evil ~ I never go there.
If you're a writer, don't waste precious time on any of them. They'll do nothing for you but distract you from what you need to be doing ~ writing.
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