Why I'm Giving Up on Instagram

I dislike most forms of social media. Social media is about sharing, and I'm not a sharer. I like X a lot, because I follow interesting people who aren't there simply to market their wares. I get to watch video clips I never would have found on my own, I learn about breaking news immediately, because the people on the ground post about it. (I don't have to sit through seven minutes of commercials in order to get the lowdown.) And yes, I can leave a comment on a post that either entertains me or infuriates me, and nobody cares or even notices most of the time. But doing it makes me feel better.

Instagram, as well as the majority of the others, is a marketing platform. There's just no two ways about it. That's why I joined Instagram in the first place ~ to market. But it's really a cacophony of people shouting, like in those New York Stock Exchange videos, and very few voices manage to break through the din. If I'm really bored and I pull up Instagram just to scroll, I never actually see posts from the people I enjoy; it's just random accounts, mostly writers and 'grammers ~ my own fault for following a bunch of them. Now IG thinks that's all I want to see. (Damn you, algorithm!)  

Before I decided to create an account, I kept reading about how bookstagrammers can really make a difference in sales. Bookstagrammers are "really popular", everyone said. What I think happened over time, though, is that everyone decided they wanted to call themselves a bookstagrammer and the app is now flooded to the point of the dam being ready to burst.

Maybe they were popular when there were about twenty of them. Maybe they really did influence readers to buy a book. That's no longer true. I've pulled up a few posts from those with large followings, and rarely is there any engagement at all, except from fellow 'grammers. (Good to be supportive of your own group, I guess.)

The new crop of them don't even post reviews. They stick up an image of the book with a fancy background like the ones I can create with Canva in about two minutes. And they charge for doing it! They might get some "likes" ~ anyone can click the little heart icon; it doesn't cost anything.

Worse than this scam, however, are the DM's. I dread getting them. I really dread it. I've lost count of the accounts impersonating famous authors. They're always happy to "connect" and they ask appropriate questions (really the same questions every time), such as, what genre do I write in, how many books I've published, how my marketing is going (ding! ding! ding!). I replied to one person who claimed to have won the Booker Prize or some such thing, who asked about my marketing efforts, and when I was still under the misconception that the guy was real, I told him the things I'd tried and asked him the same question. "He" (who wasn't even a he) repeated back to me the same things I'd just told him. (Really, no creativity. Shame!) That's when I asked myself how many times I was going to fall for this. The next time it happened, I asked Google if so-and-so author had an Instagram account. The first result was a quote from the author, saying how much she hates social media and refuses to participate in it. I actually did more research than the impersonator! 

And really, take a look at the user names. For some unknown reason, I didn't feel a need to include a "_" or a number after my name. It's just my name. I'm not apriltomp_kins or apriltompkins25. 

Next are the pests. I'm not interested in talking to a book trailer specialist or a formatter or a, heaven forbid, publicist, but I don't know what the hell they are when I follow them back. I was once uncomfortable being rude, but no more. I just delete their messages. But some of them don't give up and I have to block them. If I just leave the message unopened, I'll soon get a "Hello?" F**k off! If I wanted to talk to you, I would have. Don't pull that snarky sh*t on me! That ain't gonna gain you any customers, baby.

Unfortunately, it's not just the scammers who can be pests. There's a particular music act I follow, and I get that he doesn't run his own account, but whoever you are, stop DM'ing me! The social media manager, after a few attempts, asked me why I wouldn't talk to him (or her) and they wouldn't give up. I didn't want to have to block the account and thus be unable to read the artist's news, so I finally said, "I'm just here to follow (artist name)." That was apparently offensive, and the intern didn't stop. So, bye be, artist, I guess. (Hey, Marty, fire that person.)

Then there are the "gentlemen". They're spread evenly across the globe, and they're either lonely or lechers. Or lonely lechers. I refuse to engage. One of them bitched me out. "I see that you read my message, but you're not responding! Am I wasting my time here?"

Um, yes?

And...BLOCK.

I've come to the conclusion that Instagram is a cesspool. What benefit have I gotten from it? I think my Google Analytics showed that one time someone visited my author site from Instagram. Oh, boy! 

I fell for a couple of so-called bookstagrammers who DM'd me. Here's the result from one of them. Another talked me into an interview, which amounted to five generic questions, and she responded to my answers with, "some separation between the answers would have been nice". Oh, sorry; it was a formatting issue. Wait ~ who's paying who here? Sorry I impinged on your copying and pasting.

Instagram is like everything else I've experimented with. "Experts" claim it's the absolute best, most surefire means to sell books ever. They gush even harder over TikTok, which is laughable.  

There aren't many things for which I proclaim, "I can't take it anymore", but this is one of them. Fellow authors, save yourself some grief. Instagram is not going to sell your book anyway.