Social Media is Soul-Sucking

I didn't purposely write an alliterative title for this post, but hey, I like it!

Ever since I somehow landed on a list of X users who are authors, I've been thinking about what an intrusion on my privacy that is. While I have a separate X account under my pen name, which I rarely use, my real X account is a way to step out of the writing/marketing realm. X is my exhale, if you will. It's personal, not business. 

I've tried every social media site except Bluesky because, well, you know. Those are not my people. I've yet to find anything good or worthwhile about any of them.

I started my journey with Instagram. Instagram is visual--entirely visual--so in order to grab anyone's attention, an author needs to present eye-catching visual content. Reels (video clips) are the most popular, which are prohibitive for an author who abhors being on camera. That's me. One can always create reels that feature his or her books, add some appropriate background music and "backdrops", but those are pretty run-of-the-mill on the app and tend to get overlooked. Thus, I designed static posts using Canva, but these got very few views. I was diligent, though! I kept it up for far too long before my lack of engagement and other annoyances drove me away.

A big issue with Instagram is the inability to add links (except in one's bio). This restriction allows Meta to box users in, so they don't go wandering off somewhere else. Not great for selling books.  

It was the direct messages, more than anything else, that soured me on the app. Non-stop solicitations for book trailers and character art and paid reviews. Instagram is overtaken by spammers. Sifting through them all was exhausting. There was no way to know if the DM was from a potential reader or a spammer until I opened it. I was polite at first, but I eventually stopped responding, although that didn't stop some of these people. They'd get mad over my silence. "I know you read my message!" Piss off!

I can't imagine every going back to the app.

Does Facebook count as social media? I guess. It's not very social, though. I created an author page and posted regularly, but I could count my followers on one hand. My book posts sometimes got one like, two at the most. I know "the rules", so I followed quite a few people and liked and commented on their posts, but it was rarely reciprocated. 

It's often said that Facebook ads are more effective than any others, and one needs an account in order to set one up. I tried those, too, but my definition of success appears to differ greatly from the experts'. 

Facebook also has many groups--ARC groups and general book promotion groups. I joined or tried to join a bunch of them, but these yielded zero results. My suspicion is that the only people who engage with these groups are authors. 

My suspicion is that Facebook is almost exclusively a personal site where members can talk to their friends (why not just talk in person or text them?), share photos...and brag. That pretty much sums up why I hate it. I'm not a sharer. So, if I don't even want to interact with people I know, why would I want to talk to strangers? Maybe my antipathy came through on my (innocuous) posts. Or maybe the site is just useless. I haven't visited my page in months.

I gave TikTok a whirl, but I knew immediately that it wasn't for me. It wasn't meant for someone like me. TikTok is a young person's game. I posted a couple of my Canva video clips, but the algorithm didn't care to find them. I kept checking back, but nothing changed and I was bored. Like Instagram, TikTok is entirely visual. Unlike Instagram, one can't get away with static posts. Well, technically you can get away with them, but everyone will scroll right on by.

I recently tried Threads. I liked it at first. Since it's entirely text-based, Threads was like a breath of fresh air. It was fun talking about writing with fellow authors, since I have no one in real life to talk to about it, other than myself. The writing community on Threads is very welcoming and I accumulated a few followers immediately, just by replying to a few posts. 

That's the good part, which is worth noting. I never found a sense of community on any of the other apps. 

The not-so-good is the algorithm. Once I figured out how to choose the communities I was interested in, I assumed my feed would include those, in addition to "writing". It didn't. I specifically chose "reading" (or "readers"; can't remember), but if there are book readers on the site, they never showed up in my feed. I'm not marketing my novel to other authors; that would be silly. And I'm only on social media to try to sell copies of my book (frankly). Sure, shooting the breeze can be fun, too, but not profitable. 

Too, I was disappointed to be pretty immediately targeted by someone wanting to sell me their services. At first she replied to one of my posts and asked if I had any character art. Despite knowing what was coming, I said, yes, some AI-created images for my website. Well, that didn't stop her. Her art is better. She DM'd me an example. It's not anime, per se, but similar. What in the world would I do with childish illustrations? For a women's fiction story? So, I didn't respond. A couple of days later, I got a "Hello?" Hate that. As if I owed her my attention. 

Tip for Newbies: Leading questions always have a motive behind them. Gotta love the old, "Are your books online?". Yes, check my bio, spammer. If people are genuinely interested in reading your book, they'll buy it, not pepper you with questions. That's what the blurb is for.

It's not that I hate Threads, but I found no real use for it. After about a week, I realized I wouldn't be going back.

I really don't consider LinkedIn to be social media. Maybe it can be used that way, but not really. Some authors claim to have found success promoting their books on it, same with Pinterest. (Again, I don't consider that to be social media, either). Reddit? No. Is there any harm in trying them out? Not unless you despise constant LinkedIn connection requests from foreign spammers/scammers. I've finally stopped approving all requests. I set up a Pinterest account, but I never visit the site and generally forgot all about it. Reddit is fine for discussions, but that's about it.

I'll never abandon my personal X account, because X is a relaxing pastime for me. And my feed is not filled with other authors' posts, at least not yet. (Another hint: Stop "liking" those posts and eventually the algorithm will catch on.) 

As an introvert, forced interaction exhausts me. That might be the primary reason I abandoned Threads. It quickly felt like an obligation.

Bottom line, I've never sold one copy of my novel via social media. That's reason enough to abandon it.

So, if you ask, which social media site works, you'd have to try them out. Some, TikTok primarily, might work for certain genres. No site works for mine. 

That's actually a relief.