More accurately, use social media.
Because you’re supposed to. On every writing/publishing/author website dedicated to us “indie” authors, you know, the ones who can’t catch the interest of a literary agent or legitimate publishing house because our stuff is (a.) dreck and/or (b.) poorly written or (c.) boring or doesn’t meet the stringent politically correct/woke characteristics that the Bryn Mawr interns guarding the slush pile have as criteria, a social media presence is hammered. And hammered. You gotta have a platform. You gotta have a mailing list. A newsletter. You gotta be tweeting and posting and videoing and podding and blogging with a frequency slightly akin to those guys calling about your car warranty.
Spare me.
I used to be a twitterer and an f’booker and could be found on other with-it sites, believing that frequent postings hither and yon were vital to my success as a writer, but, no more. Yeah, yeah, I still have this blog and the Youtube channel, but, if you check the posting dates, you’ll note they are infrequently updated. And even less frequently visited. Not a lot of people are clinging to my URLs breathlessly awaiting the next pearls of wisdom. No, there’s something else I’ve discovered that is more vital to my success as a writer…
Writing.
Novels. Short stories. Book reviews. Game reviews. You know, the stuff people actually want to read…or, would if they knew who I was so I guess I better tweet and tweet and post and posture and ruminate and pontificate and opine and drop pearls of wisdom in 240 characters or less until somebody decides I’m so cool they’ll take a look at one of my books or stories or something.
Or I could use all that time and energy to write better books. And upload ‘em and one day, somebody goes, “Hmm, this looks interesting” and reads it until the end instead of throwing it across the room and gives it to a friend who gives it to a friend and next thing you know, I’ve got some reviews and a couple of people who don’t think I suck.
Could happen.
If-I-Write-It-They-Will-Come syndrome, a debilitating condition that drives thousands of mediocrities such as moi to write a 1000 page novel in a weekend, spellcheck it, have your Mom read it and she likes it, slap a generic cover on it and upload to Amazon and then wonder why no one will read much past the first page, much less pay 2.99 for the entire thing. I have, of course, learned those lessons and like to think my quality has improved. I mean, I’m getting at least three phone calls a day from Filipino book publishers desperate to represent me. For a fee, of course.
But I am still one lemming in the herd, indistinguishable from my fellows, the onrush of our indie novels careening over the clifftop and how do I stand out, how do I get noticed? Tweet and blog and Facebook, just like all my herdmates.
Or just don’t worry about it. Que sera sera.
Besides, I’m fairly boring. Just read through some of these posts.
Please?