So one of the things I’m tackling again is social media. Some dipshit hacked my Facebook page and it’s no longer under my control, so I need to revamp. OTOH, I don’t want to turn it into a task, either. Posting here is easy, it’s just talking to you all. But I’m looking at Instagram, too, sort of half-planning to overlap posts. Like do a Good Book Thursday there, too, but just post about a single book I’ve loved for a long time over there. Do a Conversations with Bob Monday and recycle some of the stuff I’d put up on FB which is now gone. That kind of thing. And if there are deals on books, I’d put those up, and the notices that we’ve published a new book, but those are just random and there wouldn’t be many of them. And when I get my damaged laptops back, I might even be able to recover all those Egg Cups of the Damned posts I’d written. I mean, there are possibilities here.
The big thing, for me, is that wherever I go, it’s entertainment, not a constant stream of BUY ThIS BOOK. I’ll still talk about the books, but the posts won’t be about the books, they’d be about problems or mistakes or questions, work-in-progress stuff for writing the books. Plus, of course, the in-jokes (we are never doing an ice pirate book).
So here’s a question: what’s effective social media in your experience? Bob wants me to dance on TikTok, but that ain’t happening. But maybe something else on TikTok. I have to rethink all of this, so might as swing wide. What do you think?
Oh, and what did you work on this week?
139 Responses
Hi Jenny, more presence on insta would certainly be good. I’m quite unfamiliar with tiktok, so no help there.
Below some ramblings on what I like of the posts some authors I follow on insta do:
Some authors do quite extensive postings for publications of their titles – for some this generates quite the hype (see Saxon James and Eden Finley, especially the former manages to create A LOT of noise around new titles).
I’d love to get these kinds of posts:
– post with info on pub date /pre-order possibility
– usually post first with a working-title cover
– then (kind of a count-down for the pub date): a cover reveal post
– release day post (can be countdown, can be just a release day post)
What some authors also do:
– if arcs were sent out, re-posts of the reviewers insta posts
– re-posts of readers reactions to the released book
What could also be posted in between releases:
– book birthday posts for anniversaries of older books
–> some authors combines this with sales of these books for a very short time (book for free for 1-2 days, or for -.99 ct for one week only etc.)
Some readers do elaborate collages for books: you do those anyway, so this might be an easy way to generate posts.
Some post snippets of wip with inspiration pics (Ari Baran once posted a real estate pic that’s the inspiration for the house the MC of one wip might live in).
Which might be what’s an element of your work in progress is anyway.
I hope this helps?
For Working Wednesday I don’t have anything interesting. After two days off I’m back on the day job. Spent the days off mainly with my ears in my audios and caught up on my ebooks.
Addendum: I don’t expect you to post as intensivly as some other authors do who are clearly very social media conscious and use it as kind of PR machine.
But a couple of the stuff that I’ve listed (when is a book coming out? What might be inspirations? Cover – and maybe also what goes into the cover idea) you do on the blog anyway.
As Jane below, I don’t love being flooded by posts, but some authors (e.g. Jax Calder, Ashlyn Kane come to mind) post the important stuff and sometimes a bit more – re-posting more creative fan posts can be fun.
This is all sci-fi to me, but I’m interested in following the conversation this week.
My recent revelation is less about what I did this week than how my life has been a series of different lives (so far). I’d assumed that my years as a stay at home mom had defined me forever. But I counted up (difficult, I was an English teacher), and I spent as many years teaching as I did as a stay at home. And I’ve now had as many years again as . . . whatever I am. I like this way of viewing my life (so far) as sections. Plus, they break less naturally into work-or-not into the friendships and my personal growth which characterize different lives.
A really interesting and important revelation.
Your plans for the posts sound good to me; I think I might be put off by Dodo’s more marketing-led approach. I mostly follow gardeners, photographers and artists (I only do Instagram). The only authors are Deb and Lian; oh, and many of the gardeners also write books. All of them post stuff I’m interested in – places that inspire them, useful insights (gardening), beautiful and intriguing things they’ve seen. Instagram, of course, is primarily visual. So I’m happy to see posts about new books from them, mixed in with the other stuff.
Joe Swift, who’s a garden designer, also posts video clips of banter with a fellow designer he podcasts with, which are usually fun – maybe a possibility for you and Bob, though it probably involves a lot of work.
I’m finally better, I’ve decided, and busy cleaning & tidying the house ready for my sister-in-law to visit this weekend. Also did my tax return, and then spent a day getting my head straight about money, since I’m spending more than I’m receiving, although I’m still quite solvent. I’m going to stick to my usual approach of not looking too closely, because I then usually find I’ve got more than I think. Money is a mystery.
My life has overlapping sections. I have been a wife for 38 years. I spent 24 years rearing children (including 18 as a soccer mom!) and only 8 so far empty nesting. 40 and counting as a member of the workforce. 21 in Massachusetts, 12 as a New Yorker, and 34 and counting as a Marylander. 10 as a more than occasional gardener. And 59 as a reader. Each of those lives has its own story to tell.
For myself I stick to just facebook. I have an instagram account but rarely use it. Though for yourself, I think it would be perfect. As for TikTok, that’s beyond me lol
My daughter has been doing a series of short (maybe a minute or two) videos on instagram and TikTok about political theory ideas or what she’s up to. And also posts them on Facebook. A couple have gone viral which is wild. She does a couple of things in formatting that might be worth considering that I suspect make them more browsable and that others also do. She puts a one sentence description at the top that catches people’s attention like “older siblings are the original influencer” or “some books I stole” (got her publisher to give her). And she has captions so people can watch the reel silently and see what she is saying which makes it more viewable in public places (and probably at work!)
History with Amy also does these two things if you want to check it out.
And Josh Johnson. Who I think has a whole team so probably gets good advice on formatting?
Oh yes! When I put lettering over video or photos it tends to grab a lot more interest. And when you make a video on tiktok it automatically pops into my photo and video section on my phone, so I can just share it around everywhere else.
I don’t like the separate, temporary videos at the top of my Instagram home page (I view via a browser; don’t use the app). I ignore them all ex from one friend’s daughter, since that’s the only way she posts.
But maybe that strand reaches a different audience?
For me, that seems to be where I reach people who are already following me. I also use that space to share things that aren’t mine, political stuff, cute animal videos from other creators, etc.
The proper posts are how I try to reach new followers. Used to anyway. If I get two likes that aren’t myself, I am lucky. Regardless, I will make a post and then share it to my stories. Same content, two places.
Instagram is pretty much dead for engagement for me and most of the creatives and small businesses I know. Nothing gets seen without paid ads. But you can link it to your facebook so that both get updated with the same content at the same time. I have disabled this option because I keep in contact with elderly family members and they don’t want to see my politics or what I am trying to sell, but it is a help. Video used to be king there, but even that has flatlined for me so idk. I don’t do fancy editing or anything. Alexis Hall has a cute account that manages to be engaging without being too commercial. And following a lot of book accounts, book reviewers, book stores used to help because then you would pop up on people’s suggestions to follow.
Tiktok is good. I mostly post photos, not videos, and just throw some music behind it. Very haphazard. But I don’t even use hashtags and I usually get around 500-800 views and Booktok is huge.
I also post on Bluesky, with hashtags and engagement there is good. And Cara, which is for art, but you are an artist so why not? I don’t need hashtags there either. Just drop a photo and run away.
And I put little short videos up on youtube, but that is all vintage goods. Just playing there. Sometimes I get over 1000 views, sometimes I don’t get any. Not sure what the secret sauce is.
For hashtags, I tend to use the same ones over and over, so I just have them saved so I can copy and paste them. No need to recreate the wheel every time.
Last thing I learned from watching other creators is that you can recycle content. You don’t need to start from scratch. Miss Wondersmith reuses her imagery and work regularly, year after year.
Forgot about ads on Instagram: that’s why I only look at it via my browser. Every month or so they start putting ‘sponsored’ posts in my feed, but I always tell them not to show me the posts again, and choose the first option (‘it’s irrelevant’) why not. I assume my ad blockers stop them showering me with ads. I don’t know that I’d use IG – which I really enjoy – if it was littered with ads. I never watch them on TV, so live in a relatively ad-free world.
I only look at IG because I can sort the feed by “Following” to avoid ads. Plus considerably less exposure to the algorithm that doesn’t understand me.
You get 500-800 views on TikTok?! Wow. I’m lucky if I get 200. But I confess, I don’t put a lot of effort into it, and I’m mostly posting my Cranky Crone videos.
It seems to depend somewhat on the music that I choose. And it is mostly the cat drawings. They are very low entry, you know? No commitment past a second. I don’t have the skills to do anything fancy either.
Link so I can follow you?
Followed you!
Did you use a different name? I don’t see anyone named Lupe following me.
I’ve been telling an author friend who’s making herself miserable trying to get started on Instagram that it’s not worth the effort and stress, so it’s validating to hear your experience with it. On the platforms where you do get engagement, do you feel like it drives sales? I’m a little skeptical that social media is better than doing paid newsletter promotions and building your personal newsletter list. But I’m almost totally off social media, so I wouldn’t really know…
I am not an expert. Etsy is handy in that it will give me a breakdown of where my traffic comes from. By far the biggest draw is Pinterest, but I am selling goods, so that may not be a help to your friend. I don’t do a newsletter, but I think that social media is probably a good tool to drive the newsletter recruitment. Just not Instagram. It is almost impossible anymore. And they keep fiddling with it so things that used to work don’t anymore. I just use it as a photo diary for myself, out of habit. Plus I had already built a following there. Booktok really is a thing, so maybe its a better fit for your friend.
I was going to say what Lupe did much better above about Instagram. Personally, I think it’s dying, and all the features I enjoyed have been disabled. They just switched their search function so you HAVE to use AI and can’t just ask it to pull up all the posts with a given hash tag. They’d already partially destroyed the hashtag search (killed the ability to pull up “recent” posts with the hashtag, so you only got to see the “top” posts, which were generally the big-name accounts), but now you can’t even, as far as I can tell, basically tell it to pull up all the most popular posts with a given hashtag. I used to enjoy scrolling through holiday quilts, with the #Christmasquilt hashtag, but that forces me into AI and sometimes really bizarre results.
I know that some of the big animal-foster accounts on IG have said they’ve been hit hard with the various changes there, and have trouble getting any engagement at all.
As always, I think it comes back to — do the social media that YOU ENJOY FOR ITS OWN SAKE, and forget about the rest.
I am glad, then, that I never got started with Instagram. I have only so much time to spend not reading fiction! I enjoy following links there with pictures of your all’s stuff, but this blog, and one other, and skimming Bluesky, is all I have time for besides my twenty minutes a day on FB to keep up with people from work.
My father is coming home from the hospital today (pray for me) and my husband still has the house torn up in at least three places doing little “get ready” projects. There is a significant change my father will come into a house that has no power while he tries to get the bidet installed. I am not thinking about that.
I have mostly finished everything for my little works on paper show. I install it tomorrow afternoon. A few hangers to add to the backs, etc. Will be glad to have that off my plate.
I have to finish the nutcracker masks. My aunt the dance teacher has been bugging me for them under the guise of checking in on my dad’s commission. Subtle she is not. Argh. But they will get done. This month has been a blur. I feel like I have been rushing around frantically the whole time but nothing got done and I have no idea where the time went. Double argh.
And now it is just the crazy downhill slide into Christmas. I will list as much as I can and try not to think about it too much 😛 One day at a time. I almost look forward to January.
Oh! And Pa managed to retain our supreme court judges despite an intense campaign from a local wannabe rich guy. He can go pound sand. My local election was more disappointing, but that is to be expected. Still, it’s the hope that kills you.
I will be thinking of you Lupe and sending many pocket hugs. Let us know how the week goes.
Best of luck, Lupe. Be chill.
When I took care of my convalescing 92 year old Father I found the secret was to agree with him and then do what I thought was best. That just ended the arguments and he invariably would forget about his ideas: e.g. ” of walking the dogs tomorrow, while he was wheel chaired due to a bruised knee ” However I understand your concern!
As a confirmed Canadian atheist, I don’t pray but I am sending thoughts, good vibes, etc.
I am not picky. XO.
Sending strength and pocket-hugs!
I’m trying to find ways to be able to sit at a computer long enough to be productive on day job. My surgery gets scheduled today, I suspect for December, so I need to figure this out!
Also trying to be consistent on elliptical so that I go into surgery in good shape and recover faster.
New project is trying to help a sister figure out if she can retire now. She asked me this with only very general info—I can’t imagine how she thought I could answer. She needs to do the basic analysis (how much does she spend). So I’m walking her through that.
And trying to get through the old New Yorkers this month.
Please keep us updated on the surgery-date. <3 Good luck with the prep-routine. Hugs!
Just got it—December 9.
Can you stand or gently walk instead of sitting? Not possible for everyone I know but I always found standing was better for my back.
I can and do but I can’t do the day job like that .
Instagram is all about visuals. I mostly follow gardening and fashion posts so visual content is easy. Linking to FB is a good idea (once you get your FB account figured out).
Gardening is pretty much done, except for planting garlic and spring bulbs. I’m figuring out what my late fall/winter schedule looks like. I made roasted squash soup with coconut milk earlier in the week and enjoying eating it for lunch.
All the spring bulbs I ordered are showing up and I can’t plant them! DH will have to do it and he wants to do it in planters. I will have to bite my tongue. There is always next year.
Aww. That is a shame. Is he a tool guy? There is a digger attachment you can get to put on an electric drill that makes the process faster. Maybe he will be more into it if he can go vroom vroom?
And I always force some bulbs indoors in little pots and terrariums for the holidays. Usually paperwhite narcissus, but I have done crocuses and hyacinth too. They make me happy in the dead of winter.
Vroom vroom is always helpful. I used to love using the mixer when I was little and making cakes with my mother, but when I set up my own kitchen I decided a spoon was much easier to clean.
We got a scrubby brush attachment for my husband’s drill and he cleans the shower now. It’s almost fun, I think. Tools are good.
Yes, but a Kitchen Aid mixer does many different things even without extra attachments and lasts a very long time. Mine is 37 years old and the only part that is showing any wear and tear is the plastic bowl cover. And it has made a LOT of cakes and cookies over the years (as well as catering 1 Bat Mitzvah, 1 wedding reception and a retail store grand opening.)
He is a tool guy. And I love the idea of forcing some bulbs. Thanks!
Jenny, I have neglected FB, lately, It has evolved into a very disappointing use of time. For some reason, my friends’ post don’t show up in my feed.
I gathered up all the skeletons on the front patio from Halloween, and my son took the boxful downstairs for me. I will need to wrap and pack them, soon.
I dusted the basement windows and the upper rafters with diatomaceous earth, as the cockroaches are encroaching inside. The cats take care of the mice that come in at this time of year.
I am not really into social media, so can be no help in that area. I like this blog a lot.
If you click on the x at the top right of your Facebook feed you won’t see the posters stuff for 30 days and when I do this to a bunch I see my friends stuff more. Then I like their posts and see them more often.
The X at the top of the feed? I did not find that.
On the top right of each post —sorry!
This sounds similar to the way I get rid of ‘sponsored’ posts in my Instagram feed.
I spend half my time on FB doing that. It thinks I live in Colorado and shows me lots of ads for brick and mortar businesses there. At least it’s no longer trying to get me to vote in Illinois….
Please let us know when Bob posts his ‘dancing on TikTok’ video! I’m sure we’ll all want to see it. 😉
LOL.
Oh, he wanted me to do that. Not happening.
Turn about is fair play.
I have a niece who only does the reels on Insta, so I watch for those. I mostly skip through the others. But I definitely check on both Facebook and Insta every day – looking for the latest from my friends. I enjoyed what you had been posting on Facebook, so I’d say more of that.
As for me – I made a new list and got through a bunch of it. The most significant thing was working in my sewing room. I had basically piled things and didn’t know what I had in there. I started by opening boxes and grouping things – my lord I have a lot of yarn – and gathering trash to throw out. I finally made it back to the closet in the room. When I opened that up, I found MORE fabric and MORE yarn! I really shouldn’t have succumbed to the ads for sales on yarn the day before!! Oh well, it should be pretty.
I did some more work on my great niece’s quilt – Big Red. I framed out the Block #2 pieces with more red, so they’re now done. On to Block 3!
And I worked some more on the Crochet-A-Long. Still plugging away on step 2, as step 6 is posted today. Not really a “CAL” for me, but what can I say? I’ve been busy!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DQrT1D2jtt7/
I have included two kitty pictures. First is Stanley. He really wants to go out today, but the past several days he’s been very reluctant, potentially even concerned, about coming back in. Yesterday, I had to close the other three in rooms, and have him come in through the garage / laundry area – lots of doors open to the outside! I didn’t want to do that again today, so he’s inside.
The last picture is a blurry one from Halloween evening. Both Charlie and Stanley were very intrigued by things going on out on the street – lots of folks in costumes going up and down the sidewalks!
Stanley looks disapproving!
I’m loving the red quilt.
If you’re thinking of video, I’d recommend YouTube. It’s available on TV as well as the app, so I think it gets a broader audience than TikTok. TT seems very age-specific.
And you don’t have to do a dance on YT. A lot of people get huge follower numbers with videos of them just chatting to the audience. Check out Rob Words, Todd in the Shadows, and Ketchup with Max and José for a few different approaches.
For social media, I do only YouTube, Bluesky, And LinkedIn. And the Argh Ink blog, of course.
Good luck!
Unlurking for a moment. Lots of book talk on TicToc. Rachel Reid does a good job in Instagram. Mostly in reels and I see her there often. For what it’s worth.
Ann Patchett who owns a bookstore shows up in my Facebook feed and it would be worth checking where she posts
Ann Patchett, Parnassus Books, and her wonderful posts show up on my Instagram so she probably has them linked.
I don’t do Facebook or TikTok so I don’t know about those venues, but I would LOVE to see Jenny on Insta!
Good things about YouTube: you can make a video as long or as short as you want, subscribing to channels is easy, a user can easily see ONLY what they go to YouTube to see, and ads (while they do exist) are not terribly intrusive since they run with the video vs popping up in your face no matter what you’re doing. I’ve watched everything from one-minute dance or skating videos to hour-long author interviews. 🙂
As an Instagram consumer, I favor photo posts with some text telling me what the creator wants to say in connection with the photo, and short videos with captioning. Because 99% of the time I do not turn the sound on. Long videos (over 3 minutes) get skipped. Insta creators tend to post A LOT which means the feed can be very cluttered. I’m not willing to go searching for whoever’s latest post. I skim down the feed for a few minutes and then I’m out.
As a Facebook consumer, I’m happy to read fairly lengthy posts because I’m a reader, can’t help myself, it’s what I do. In general I prefer FB because it works well from the browser and I get a broader range of posts than I see on Insta, which has a very short attention span. Also people I actually know tend to be on FB more than on Insta, so keeping up with the humans in my real life happens there.
As an Instagram creator, I barely use it except – from my phone – to take a picture and post (which cross-posts to FB) with a short bit of text. If I have something to promote, I do it from my browser, so I can easily insert images, links, @, etc.
As a Facebook creator, I post photos with text, or text alone. Strong suspicion that most people don’t read a post unless it’s got an image, but sometimes I just want to SAY something, and I don’t want to spend an hour on it, so I don’t bother trying to find an eye-catching image.
I don’t do video. Not willing to do the hair, makeup, clothing, lighting, sound, etc work to make a good one. I already have a full-time job. 🙂
Working: we got the piano moved upstairs yesterday, so now I have the means to begin re-learning how to play. Day Job is going fine. My publisher wants more novellas for next year, so I’m considering which of the simmering projects should be brought to a boil.
Oh, btw, I have a correction to the post about ebook pricing etc that I put up last week … It’s Kindle Select, not Kindle Unlimited, that locks in an author to AMZ exclusivity.
I got schooled on this by my publisher, who just asked her authors if they want to be listed in Kindle Unlimited along with the rest of our platforms. KU is the “rent a book” thing where you pay a monthly fee for unlimited reading of the books included, and authors get paid a fraction of a cent per page read.
Ah. I didn’t realize this either. Thanks for the clarification. It’s all so confusing. Sigh.
As I understand it, KU does not restrict an author, but it does restrict that particular ebook to being offered on Amazon only. (Non-KU subscribers can still buy it, but only through Amazon. )
Argh.
Patrick, this might be more complicated than you point out.
I’ve got some books loaned via KU that I have found on other (German) platforms available in ebook and paperback format, eg. Ashlyn Kane’s Textbook Defense.
Otoh, I know from at least one other author (Hannah Henry) that she’s bound to amazon with her books. Which is a fr*ing pity as I try to get my books elsewhere nowadays.
Chacha1, interesting about the KU. So does this mean if that for all those 19 books I’ve got downloaded in KU but not read very far, the authors only get paid for the few pages I’ve read?
Yes. What’s even worse its not a fixed rate.
If I understand it correctly its the % of the total pages read that gets paid so there are people using bots to write books and it doesn’t matter to them if no one reads more than a page or two because they effectively get paid on turnover. Thus reducing the amount available for authors who have put in the work.
Horrible practice.
Am I facilitating an author not getting paid reasonably by keeping my KU subscription?
One way to think of it is, pages read in KU help the AMZ AI rank its member authors. It helps the recommendation engine push those authors into “also read” or “also bought” promotion menus, which do sell books.
Authors not in KU or Kindle Select get zero promotion within AMZ unless the author buys ads, which are expensive and a gigantic pain in the ass (ask me how I know).
Do what works for you financially; that’s why I buy at least 60% of my books on sale. I think it’s fair to say that an author in KU is more likely to sell books on AMZ than an author who isn’t. I’ll be looking into this more since my publisher asked us to consider it. As long as those titles can still be on other platforms, I’m likely to authorize listing in KU.
Thanks, chacha1.
KU helps me get insights whether I like an author’s style.
If possible, I nowadays buy directly from their websites.
Yep. And it’s literally a fraction of a fraction of a cent.
Well, then I better make sure to at least page through the books even those I decide to not actually read…
While the payment for pages read makes sense to me – and its more than the author gets if someone reads the first few pages in a traditional bookstore – the idea that its not a fixed amount is awful. As is Amazon’s tolerance of bot-written content.
It seems to be one of those things that everyone would be better off if it didn’t exist, but given that it exists sometimes it makes sense for the individual author.
I’m only using Bluesky now, I ran out of energy trying to keep up with others. Bob Mayer popped up in my feed and I wondered “THAT Bob Mayer?” It was, so he got a follow. I prefer to read posts more than watch, and I rarely listen, just use the captions. That said, if you do post on Insta, I would go over once in a while to catch up. You Tube was mentioned, and that would be a great idea. That’s usually what I have on in the morning while I get ready for work.
I didn’t know Bob was on Bsky. Just followed!
I will go hunt for Bob.
Second on Bluesky. I love it and follow authors there. You could probably just post a subset of your blog posts there if you are looking at minimal effort. It lends itself to longer posts. Take a look at how John Scalzi uses Bluesky vs his blog.
Social media. Argh. I still post on Twitter, usually just a quick picture, and repost author friends to support them. Instagram is probably my main space these days, and I cross-post everything to Facebook, which I don’t spend as much time on. It is interesting to see which things get more enthusiasm on which place. The algorithms definitely make it hard for people to see anything remotely promotional. I post cat and nature pictures, books I’m reading, and some things about Witchcraft. My Cranky Crone videos (2 a week, one a quick rant and the other a quick tarot card pull using my own deck) seem to be gathering some momentum, but not as much as I’d like. A friend is pushing me to do TikTok more, and put my videos up on YouTube, but I confess, both places are a mystery to me. I post about my monthly online classes most places, and share the same pictures and videos most places. I’m on Bluesky, but honestly, haven’t gotten much traction there.
I like all the ideas you proposed. Just make it fast and easy so it doesn’t become a time and energy suck, and don’t worry about being everywhere.
I’m still working on the Cranky Crone book, plus (of course) I got the final proof edits for the Llewellyn book coming out next April. I’m going to give a class on Connecting with Deities this month (the upcoming book is on that theme), I still need to write this month’s newsletter, and I’m trying to get everything prepped for winter. Mostly just feeling overwhelmed, although I’m damned happy about the election outcomes from yesterday.
Deb, thanks for your insta posts – those are always great!
I hate FB and try to avoid tiktok so wouldn’t get any of yours without insta. I tried Bluesky but haven’t got the hang of it (too used to how instagram works) yet.
Youtube has introduced auto-dub recently. When trying to watch from on my phone, I get horribly auto-dubbed content – it seems the creators have to tick some box to avoid this auto-dubbing and it’s one more step to be mindful of.
I haven’t found a way to change this. However for some reason I don’t have the same problems when watching on my computer (which I won’t do nearly as often).
Longwinded to say that for those abroad, it SUCKS to have content altered without a chance to hear the original voices and content.
I’ve actively unsubscribed because having to watch and LISTEN to awful automatic voices is giving me a rash from frustration.
Ah, and the interruption by commercials on youtube (Germany) is more annoying than the ads on instagram since I just scroll further or click on irrelevant to botch the algorithm. On youtube I have to endure at least two commercials BEFORE I can even see the clip and often enough there’s a commercial break within the clip, sometimes more than once (not with all of the clips though).
Youtube used to be great.
I follow a couple of authors on Bluesky, KD Charles who posts about various things including life stuff and KD Casey who posts about baseball. Both occasionally post about their writing and mention/promote their books or special offers.
I am rarely on Instagram, I just go there to see pictures from my son’s travels. A few months ago when I rejected all cookies I was informed I would have to watch a 1 min ad instead, so of course when the ad came on I left. More recently I didn’t get the ad, which I suspected was them trying to make a point about the EU regulation that required them to have an option not to save users data (or something like that) rather than as a commercial proposition. I follow some authors there but mostly can’t be bothered to wade through the mess to read them.
I do hang out on Reddit in various subs as I like reading more than pictures and sometimes there are very funny exchanges or good discussions.
Workwise, after a month with a lot of work travel which fried my brain, I am very happy to be back at my desk for the forseeable future. I can start to think about writing again, as that goes out the window when work stuff crowds it out.
Physical work today as I had 960kg of wood pellets delivered in 10kg bags (that’s 1 ton in the US I think). They have now made to to the top of my driveway, they had to be loaded into the car and driven up and unloaded. That took 3 loads and now I have 96 bags to stack in the shed!
I should be writing and cooking, but we’re all a bit under the weather and it’s raining, so maybe I’ll just read today…
The only social media I use anymore is Reddit. I get all my book recommendations from newsletters (Book Bub, Book Doggy, etc.). Maybe that puts me in the minority, but I think that’s where I’ll focus my efforts when I have a book to promote again.
I spent a good bit of last month working on promotional stuff for the December anthology I have a story in — writing blog posts mainly, and coordinating blog posts written jointly by multiple authors in the anthology. The first two weeks of December, I’ll have to link to the blogs in social media, but I’m only on Bluesky and Instagram these days, so it won’t be too time-consuming.
I’m also still finishing up quilt UFOs. I actually finished the last one (not counting one new top I made when I couldn’t stand working only on older projects, and actually, that one’s been quilted/bound now too): https://www.instagram.com/p/DQem11IkY-R/?img_index=1 And then I immediately started a new quilt top (but it’s a Christmas quilt, so I’m determined to finish it by Thanksgiving — top is done, and I basted the layers last night).
I spend more time on Instagram than Facebook. That kinda started when FB became so politically hateful. I’d rather see photos and it seemed easier to control what I was exposed to there. I have never jumped on the Tik Tok wagon as I have enough distractions without adding one more.
No TikTok for me either as almost all the books with the label “tik tok made me buy it” turn out to be total busts for me as a reader. lol
I’m not into Social Media, but if you do tik tok, you can post on youtube shorts as well. Also put it on instagram, basically the same core material spread out on different platforms, just adapt it to each one, so it’s not identical, that should save you a lot of time. You don’t have to dance on tik tok, just whet watchers appetites so they’ll keep track of you. People have short attention spans, so you could literally throw up a list (pile of books ) you love or a crochet, art, collage piece you made, recipe from one of your books, weird thing you found on amazon, so your audience feels connected and then throw in the odd book announcement when you actually have a book for sale, maybe some merch everyone has merch from coffee shops to influencer quotes.
Also if you do a video of yourself lip synching and dancing to Dancing Queen by ABBA I actually sign up to tik tok just to watch it
In Bob’s dreams, but thank you for the suggestion!
Jenny you have awakened my marketing brain.
The most valuable way to talk to people is to understand them and know who and how they are. If you already know this ( via your work team and analytics) then the ideas should come more easily. If your “people ” mostly are women 25-70 years of age who enjoy creativity and gardening then I would say talk about those things in social media platforms that they use the most. Easier said than done. 9
That said the following is from a quick search on top social media for women:
Facebook
* The most popular platform among older adults, with a significant number of users aged 50 and above.
* Features like groups and events foster community engagement.
YouTube
* Widely used for video content, tutorials, and entertainment.
* Older adults often seek educational content and hobbies.
Instagram
* Gaining popularity among older users, especially for sharing photos and connecting with family.
* Visual content appeals to this demographic.
Hope this helps!
Very much. Thank you.
Also all women
Women Across All Age Groups
1. TikTok (used by 62% of adult women)
2. Facebook (used by 60% of adult women)
3. Snapchat (used by 60% of adult women)
4. Instagram (used by 59% of adult women)
5. WhatsApp (used by 51% of adult women)
He-he, that makes me wonder how many of those are crossovers. Potentially 40% of women use none of the above, like me 🙂
I only do FB and I have to do it for theater stuff. I haven’t felt the need to get Insta at all and so far I don’t do videos because I’m afraid of attracting stalkers and doxxers and harassment.
While we’re talking web stuff, I don’t understand WordPress anything worth a damn and I’m so tired of being told how EASY it is and yet everything I want to do on it to replace my old TypePad blogs seems to be impossible and too complicated. I got the Dummies books from the library and they helped not a bit with my issues. Anyone have any suggestions for ACTUAL dummies who aren’t programmers?
As for actual work: working on memorizing lines again. Working on going through documents at work. I spent a lot of time on hold and finally finished getting that issue taken care of (ugh). Working on Christmas presents and auction donation things. I’m going to make Baby Yodas in Santa coats and made a scarf for my mom. I cast on for the Kira K Honeycomb Prismatic shawl or whatever it’s called, but I’m nervous trying to make a bunch of tiny hexagrams. Still trying to figure out the yarn to do the butterfly cardigan.
Baby Yoda Santa! Yes!
They sound adorable.
The most media-savvy writers I follow create content on TikTok and share it on Instagram. You can also share posts on Instagram directly with Facebook if you want to create a new account there. I don’t use TikTok, but I check out IG daily. I know people who use TikTok but won’t do FB or IG….
You might want to check out Substack, too.
Hard no to substack. It platforms and even encourages Nazis. Also has issues with creators not controlling their mailing list. There are other similar newsletter services that don’t have those issues.
I’d never heard that!
I’ve subscribed a couple of times to substack newsletters because its the only way to access those creators but have been dismayed when people discontinue their newsletter and move in favor of substack – seems unwise to put all your eggs in one basket.
I also find substack’s email format annoying but that’s just me.
And just co-incidentally Substack just gave me, unasked, a “bonus” subscription to a newsletter. If you weren’t paying attention to your feed you could end up with anything turning up regularly.
One of the reasons I don’t use social media is that I want to consciously choose what I consume – not have an algorithm directing me down some dark tunnel. So Substack just increased the liklihood of me completely unsubscribing.
If anyone’s interested in the Substack issue, here’s a link to Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg on moving from Substack to another platform: https://bsky.app/profile/theradr.bsky.social/post/3knoaw5z4ek2v That thread starts with the reason she moved (because of Nazis), and I know she’s written more about the reason, but can’t find it. (For Leverage fans, Rabbi Ruttenberg was the inspiration for the amazing “redemption” monologue that Hardison does in the pilot of the reboot, about redemption being a process, not a single action.)
There’s also an article at NBC’s website, with a quote from Marisa Karabas (independent journalist), about the Nazi problem here: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/pressure-builds-newsletter-company-substack-stop-paying-nazi-writers-rcna132593 (Marisa has since left Substack, although I don’t recall what service she uses for her newsletter, even though I’m subscribed to it.)
You made me think about my social media footprint. Once upon a time, I belonged to a lot of Yahoo User’s Groups. I was an active poster on two Usenet Newsgroups, alt.callahans (which still exists) and alt.sex.stories.d, the “d” standing for discussion. Eventually, the trolls and spammer took over the latter. The former still exists, without me.
Sometime back then, circa 2004, someone talked me into starting a LiveJournal account, and some of my friends from those other places posted there as well. The account still exists at gary-jordan dot livejournal dot com slash. Sadly, there are a page full of diet official weigh-in day posts (in 2023) followed by (what else?) an October 2022 Farm Report. The page name is The Musings of an Idle Mind – Things that go ‘Bump’ in my head. I should post farm reports there again.
There was, for a brief time, a dedicated site called IThoughtHisWeightWouldCrushMe dot com. The name was an homage to my very brief college stint where several would-be authors were writing pornography by committee. We named it Travels of a Countess, and the only rule was that EVERY chapter had to start with the words, “I thought his weight would crush me”. I have no recollection of what I might have posted on that site. Fortunately.
Then there was FaceBook, which I began solely as a way to communicate with the kinder. It parallelled LiveJournal and duplicated posts there. Then they gave me grief over something and I totally deleted that account.
Around April 2023, I started or possibly restarted a FaceBook page. When they asked me to name my page, I entered “Pagey McPagename” because of course I did. My anal wisdom is high. I think I’ve made five posts on that page, mostly changing the graphics.
Concurrently, I started a webpage named Some Things Must Be Endured (dot com). Clicking on my name above takes you there. I’ve been posting monthly “farm” reports about my hydroponic gardening, Complaints and observations abou owning a home (“Home Moanership”), stories about the dotter and home decorating (“Woman at Work”), and kitten stories. It also gives me a place to post pictures I want to share.
BUT, by sheer volume, the majority of my engagement with social media is right here. Argh Ink. 🙂
Dammit, I miss usenet. I tried following people from LJ over to Dreamwidth when they departed, but mostly they seem to have stopped posting (and/or died, viz. James Hetley) and I go there about once a month. (My Dreamwidth account is named, accurately, Just a Few Comments.)
I have on occasion perused ancient Usenet posts using Google Groups. On alt.callahans, I had posted as the crew of the alternate universe Confederate submarine CSS Robert E. Lee. Said sub would come to periscope depth, observe someone’s horrible pun, and fire a “torpeanut” at them. Throwing peanuts was the appropriate response to puns. Sample post:
Here’s an entire thread from alt.callahans containing Guard Offal puns and some of my response posts… which also mostly contained puns:
I am Not Making This Up”
I never knew most of these posters IRL except Denny was my editor and Sea Wasp is author Ryk Spoor, published by Baen Books.
Looking at Usenet, I was reminded that many posters used “taglines” as part of their signatures. DennyW used, “Money talks. Chocolate Sings. Beautifully!”
Mine changed over time, but here’s a partial of one:
Gary
8 of pi, secondary adjunct of apple
I cannot tell you how exhausted I am after returning from AUS/NZ on Saturday. I am restless all night long, read for a hour or two in the middle of the night. Finally at 5:00 am I fall sleep, then my alarm goes off at 7:00 and I DO NOT want to wake up. Then I drag my tail all day. Going to Australia/New Zealand and making the switch was a piece of cake. They told me it was so much worse coming back and they were right.
Yes, this is a high class problem.
Well you are a high class person.
bahah!
Tammy, Sympathies. I was in Australia for a month at the end of the millennium, I didn’t find adjusting to Oz time any piece of cake (lots of suffering for the first week, and my rapid introduction to instant coffee from Indonesia rather than South America or Africa). But I did find the return even worse and I’ll bet it took a month to get my internal clock fully reset.
In the present, even the return to standard time has been a bit of a hassle for me, despite the fact that my internal clock had been moving in that direction anyhow as sunrise got later and later.
Silver lining: the one hour time change has been a drop in the bucket for me so I haven’t even noticed I’m so exhausted by the whole time zone difference – 17 hours.
Tammy,
Since we have opposite DST, it is 19 hours for half of the year. On the few occasions I tried to call my friends in NZ, I rarely got it right. And the only way my friend Judy coud get her ticket paid for by her employer would be if she could get a paper accepted at an academic conference. So every time I woke up at night after I met her at the airport, she would be sitting up in bed, revising her presentation. I don’t know how she did it.
I don’t know how she did it either!
Hugs for the jetlag. It’s horrible.
Made me think about a great discovery when down under ourselves:
Before flying back from NZ (ages ago) hubby and I by chance found a homeopathic complex thingy called No Jetlag at Christchurch airport. It was amazing: time felt completely suspended during our whole journey back.
After landing in Frankfurt, I was too preoccupied by having missed the connecting flight home before I realized that NO JETLAG whatsoever. Same for hubby.
Never found the medication again but it still exists according to internet search.
Should even be available in the US.
Not in Germany. not in Canada. I’ve tried…
I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 and still use it, albeit less actively than before. I post to Youtube very sporadically, which I hope will change but time will tell! Instagram makes me furious and makes me wanna tear my hair out, so I’m only on there when I post things. Most accounts don’t use alt-text to their pictures and many don’t even write a caption, so it’s a frustrating place for blind users. And, the app isn’t very accessible either, it has a lot of bugs if you are a screenreader-user. I like Bluesky, even if I’m not incredibly active there either. Have hated FB forever; I had a page there for a while, but discontinued both it and my forced-on-ne-FB-account because NO. Those were my 5 probably not very helpful cents.
Working: Knitting poodle! Butt, back-legs and tail and all of the body between the bag-legs and front-legs are all done, plus one front leg and I’ve started on the second one. Whew. After that: Chest and neck-area, and then the body is done and I can move on to the head.
We had a visitor here over the weekend, and I showed him Speedy the Knittycat. It took a while before he understood that I had made him, and then he kept picking him up and looking at him on and off. It was very sweet. He said Speedy looked so good and well-made that he thought I must’ve bought him somewhere. If that’s not a great compliment on your work, I don’t know what is!
I’ve got an appointment at the ENT’s on the 21st to check what’s going on with my voice/vocal cords.
Except this, mostly just taking care of Sven. Long story short: “Something” is going on with him, discovered during a routine-controle with his GP-cardiologist back in September, and we don’t know what yet, just that there’s too much white bloodcells in the urine samples. All his other tests have come back fine. He’s got an appointment with a specialist come Monday, at which we don’t expect to know anything more for certain (they’ll likely want to do more tests), BUT at least might get to know what it could possibly be. He’s feeling increasingly unwell, but whether its actual physical stuff caused by whatever is going on or a reaction to subconscious stress is impossible to know. Doing my best to be supportive and get him to eat, drink etc. We’re trying to think that since the Internist didn’t feel it was necessary to put him on the “need to be seen asap”-list, but instead let him wait for 1.5 month, it shouldn’t be something incredibly dangerous… Right? Right?
And Triple coughed today. Small cough, so hopefully that means that the air-humidifiers are helping, perhaps her lungs still need to adjust. At least it was one week between the last fit and this one instead of 2-4 days, so there’s progress.
And I’ve ordered new clothes. To me, that is work. Now to wait and see if it’s gonna be stuff to keep or send back…
Shass, I don’t know what’s going on with your voice and vocal chords, but I can tell you that mine has been affected by my constant post-nasal drip, which has caused something called “cobblestoning” of my throat. The ENT told me to stop clearing my throat. Good luck with that.
Well, you could do what I do for my post nasal drip, which is to drink hot drinks all day. Unfortunately, then you have to pee all day,
This body is powered by tea! … so yes, frequent bahtroom-runs is part of the daily routine. 🙂
I read about that! Really trying not to clear my throat if possible, but it is… a challenge sometimes. Sorry to hear you are dealing with that stuff. Didn’t the ENT have any other solutions for you?
Shass,
I hope that both you and Sven get good news about your ailments. I especially hope that you will continue to be able to sing. I remember a you tube video that you linked us to a while ago and you have a very lovely voice. But Sven’s is the scariest because it could any number of things. However, the difference in how you view Sven’s condition and how his doctor sees it may just be a matter of scale. When I got a staph infection in my lungs and needed surgery, I asked the pulmonologist what my chances were to get another one. His answer was, “In your lifetime, practically none. In my profession, I see this about once a week.”
Thanks for your sweet words, Aunt Snack! <3 I had a whole bunch of songs lined up to be recorded and uploaded, but I can't sing much as things are right now… so I do hope the ENT can figure out what's going on. A friend told me earlier this year that she had troubled with her voice and went to the ENT, and all she got was: "It's probably flu… or stress." Yeah I need that like I need a poke in the eye.
I agree wholeheartedly on Sven's thing, though. It's scary not to know what's going on. INitially he didn't even feel bad, it's kind of sneaking up on him, which is why we are now hoping they'll hurry up a little so we get answers. What I find strange is why they haven't requested more samples of all kinds already on beforehand, so they might have answers already when we go there. Oh well. We're one troublesome family of broken humans and cats.
Shass hang in there. The suspense is always so hard. Do let us know what happens. Sending many pocket hugs.
Yes, not knowing is the WORST. Much grateful for pocket-hugs! I’ll let you all know once I know more.
I would look at TikTok. You can do short and funny. They also have a book talk that you can #
I put up posts about some of your books for Book talk and TikTok and got some good response 1700 look on Rock Start and 2571 looks on the Honeypot Plot
Also, you can do strange and off the cuff things and sometimes they go viral, which is odd. I did one on after a long shopping eating a Reese‘s peanut butter in the car. And got 864.5 K views but that’s very unusual. The other thing, and you will need Bob’s help on this as you can knit another post to yours. But you really need someone to help you. The easiest way would be for you to post and then Bob to knit a post to yours.
I am truly not fond of doing social media, but I like funny ones.
My son Christopher Corbindid a commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts with Cynthia Erivo and the guy from Bridgerton who plays Fierro. And it was really funny. I thought you might enjoy it.
https://youtu.be/hhtufY4V5P4?si=27yQVO1Z4ojvFPQg
Wishing you all good luck with the media stuff. I truly not like that.
Link to your TikTok?
Okay I HAVE to say it – this could be happiness day as far as I am concerned. The election results yesterday make me so happy!!!
I am buoyed too – in a cautiously optimistic sort of way.
Ah, let’s see…I’m on FB and Messenger because my political groups are there. Instagram because of Argh, I watch a few things on UT, and I’m mostly reading posts on Bluesky. That’s about it. But, I am now following a few more people on Bluesky…
Very happy about our local elections. Luzerne County went Blue in a big way.
Need to go to bed. I’ll be up early tomorrow to watch the Election Board and Bureau wrap things up. I hope it goes quickly. Without too much sore loser drama.
I waste way too much time on Instagram and Reddit. I occasionally read/post on Facebook. No TikTok. I read but don’t post on Bluesky, Threads, and Twitter (can’t quite quit it). I’ll follow you on whatever social media you post on, except probably TikTok. But I find that stuff makes it to one of the other sites. I don’t scroll YouTube, but there are a few n0n-US shows that show up there that I watch.
Still not working, though perhaps last night’s results will push the Republicans to start negotiating. Maybe they will try and salvage the midterms by not actively working to destroy lives. (Who am I kidding?)
This is definitely happiness Wednesday. Very happy Virginian!
I have been trying to curtail my use of social media, so have timers – 15 minutes max per day for Instagram and Facebook. Recently, my Insta has been less and less friends and people I follow and too much random AI slop, so am dialling back on that.
The one outlet I check beyond the timer is Youtube because I am doing a masters in child psychology and there are a lot of interesting videos recommended by the course leaders. I quite like Youtube shorts.
Am also following quite a few writers on Substack which I like because it is longer-form.
Never signed up for Tiktok, never will, whether it is Chinese-owned or US-owned.
20something minions use Youtube and some Tiktok for music.
I went looking for information on where people get ideas for books to read and found this 2025 poll.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/most-americans-read-its-not-our-priority-leisure-activity
See item 15 for where they find books. Maybe that will prompt other ideas for outreach.
And then I found this interesting but not useful rabbit hole
https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/47712-how-many-books-americans-own-and-how-they-organize-them
Content: pictures of Johnny.
Seanan McGuire does that on her patreon – a short story and a picture of her cats (or praying mantis) once a month – I think as many people subscribe for the cat pics as for the stories 🙂
I’d love to see your Conversations with Bob on YouTube