I’ve reached a point where I feel overwhelmed with social media chores. It’s not enough to choose one anymore. There seems to be pressure to be on several, if not all of them. Do you feel the same?
Many publishers at the present time believe it’s mostly the author’s responsibility to market a book. If you’re self-published—all of it’s on you. This puts an excessive amount of pressure on authors to have a vehicle to get the word out. Having a social media presence is one part of the marketing plan, but it takes time to lay a foundation, find followers, post consistently and create content that others want to look at. Is all the time you invest in creating this content worth it?
Suggestions about batching content, so you don’t have to make it every day and drop it when you need to, sounds fine, but carving out the time to do this is difficult. Does a writer have to be on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and Facebook to market their work? I find it hard to believe an author can find the time to write and maintain their social media presence themselves while maintaining a creative life unless they’ve reached the point of paying someone to handle some of this.
Every week I find more and more of my writing, editing, and recharging time taken up with social media duties. I’m contemplating choosing two and leaving the rest. Why?
I’m not sure likes actually mean anything. We live in a world of scrolling, button pushing and analytics. I divide followers into two types: those that like and those that don’t care. My analytics tell me I’m wasting my time on things others can do better than I — prepare interesting social media content others want to look at.
If I dropped all but two platforms I could write another novel instead of preparing little nuggets of entertainment that aren’t.
Do the trending sounds have more to do with my watched videos than any actual content I create and if so, why am I involved?
Does anyone really care if I post? No, they don’t, so why all the bother? FOMO, on my part, for sure.
Therefore, this week, I’m committed to cutting some loose. Social media sites that zap the energy out of me and give me little back, no matter how popular they appear—are now on the chopping block. At the end of every day, we are in charge of how we choose to use our time. Enough whining about social media. When I’m not writing, I like to explore other creative possibilities, bringing me to my next topic.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with AI-generated images. I’m currently using the Wonder app, but there are many more. (Night Cafe, DALL-E2, Deep Dream, Dream, Art Breeder, Big Sleep, StarryAI, Fotor, and Wombo Dream) They all differ and most offer free trials. If you want more control over the final image and plan to add your own personal touches, look at each app carefully for the tools it provides.
The Wonder app is straightforward to use but does not provide ways for you to alter it much other than a redo on the art generated. It asks for a prompt (some descriptive words) and lets you select different media (ink and pen, oil painting, etc.) and then creates several images based on your request. I used it the other day to make a piece for posts on social media to advertise my new magnet story, Hitman’s Honey. For the prompts, I put in: Romance, older hitman, and bees (Beekeeping is his hobby) and selected pen and ink as the media. It gave me three images, and you can see the image I saved above. The prompts, romance, an older hitman, and an older woman he is protecting created the image below.
AI art apps offer authors an opportunity to bring their characters into visual form and serve as an image generator for social media. I'll warn you, the app is addictive, and I could literally play with it for hours. This is probably not a good thing since I'm bitching about not having enough time to do social media. The truth is we have time for the things we enjoy.
Please comment on how you juggle social media with your writing and life goals and how beneficial you find its contribution to the marketing of your work. If you use other AI apps to generate art or write, please leave a comment.
Have an excellent week writing!
I intentionally didn't go down the social media rabbit hole. I have a blog site and 150 followers and I post once or twice a month. Then i have time to live and to write and to be. Fortunately writing is my Act 2 in life and I will continue to eat whether my books sell or not. I publish through a small indie press and fellow authors frequently complain they do all the work for social media and then FB or Instagram or Twitter use algorithms to limit who sees their work. So...I don't go there. I read other people's blogs. I share their information. I buy their books.
I agree. Social media marketing is a time and energy suck. I’ll probably cut back on posting. Facebook is the only place I’m sure I’ve gotten preorders for my book. And it was only because the people have known me personally for years.