Every so often the same topics come around, and one that I’ve seen lately relates to social media as an author. As always, I believe that anyone tells you there’s one best way to do things is probably wrong. You can be on Tik Tok. You don’t have to be on Tik Tok. You can be on Twitter even as it descends from orbit in a flaming wreckage. You don’t have to be on Twitter. You don’t have to have a website, though you probably should.
I’ll leave the Tik Tok debate to people who know more about it. I’m mostly going to talk about websites, and a little less about Twitter/Facebook, as I know a bit about them.
Do you need a website/blog/other self-maintained space. The short answer is that you don’t *need* anything, so let’s toss that out right now. But it’s a good idea, once you get books published, to have a place where people can look up and find those books and for you to be in control of that landing spot. Why? Because when people read one of your books, they often want to learn more about your, or what else you’ve written. You can rely on Amazon or goodreads for this…and a lot of people will look there, but they’re going to make that harder or easier based on their own decisions. I get about 30 visits to my website daily even when I’m not posting new material, so I think it’s worth it to have a landing spot for those people.
You don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. Keep your press kit updated every 3 or 4 months with your picture and bio, get a good spam blocker for your contact form, and make sure you keep your book links updated. There are lots of good resources out there for what goes in a press kit, or you can look at mine, which isn’t great, but does the job.
What other purpose can a website serve? Well…the best thing it does is let you pretend that you’re accomplishing something on days when you’re not writing your next book. It’s *really* good for that. For example, I’ll spend two hours writing this post and I’ll call that work.
But seriously, it depends. When I write a post, I’ll get 100 to 300 views on it, depending on how it catches the algorithms or who retweets it. Once a year or so I’ll catch the attention of somebody with a big reach and I might get 1000 or more views. When I have someone do a guest post, it’s usually closer to 50 than 100.
So…is it worth it? Let’s look at some specific numbers.
My five latest posts did the following numbers:
So…what do the numbers mean? Not much. Most of these views are by the same people–the people who are fans of my blog–and they are very unlikely to buy my books, or, often, they were going to buy them anyway. So these views don’t drive sales.
Let’s look at clicks out to links in the posts. From the update on Writing, Reading, Publishing, etc, I got 24 clicks out on February 8th and 9th, which is 13%, which is great. 23 of those were to sales links. 13 of the sales links were for Generation Ship, five were for Ascension by Nicholas Binge, which I recommended, and 3 were for The Tyranny of Faith by Richard Swan.
From The Waiting Game I got 13 clicks out, or 10%. Still good.
From Publishing and Luck I got 5 clicks out, or 3%.
On Publishing Earnings, I got 6 clicks out, or 4%, even with a very heavy-handed approach to marketing.
What can we learn from that? First, I’m certainly not selling enough books to make the time investment in a blog financially viable. Second, there’s a decreasing level of commercial value to subsequent posts — because I’m getting the same eyes each time and if they were going to click, they probably already did.
Now let’s look at the debut SF post, which got the most views, probably because the authors themselves and their friends and fans came to look. That got 45 clicks out, or 18%, which is great. Those clicks were spread across the books I talked about in the post, with These Burning Stars and The Scourge Between Stars being the individual leaders in clicks.
Were these numbers enough to change anything for these books? Absolutely not. Has anything I’ve done on this blog changed the course of my own books from a sales perspective? Also, absolutely not.
So what’s the point? Why do it at all?
Because I like to. That’s going to kind of be a theme here. I like sharing information with other writers. I like highlighting books by other authors. I’ve had people come up to me both online and even in person at conventions and tell me that they got something from it, and that’s pretty cool to me.
So…should you do it? The numbers would say no. But if you’ve got something you want to say? Go for it. If you’re going to do it, here are a few tips.
a. Talk about things that you know that other people might not.
b. Talk about things that really matter to you.
c. Post the links and talk specifically about the things you want people to see/do/buy. This one is big. If I write a post with no links out, thinking that people will see my books elsewhere on the site…nope. Not happening. Some people call these links a call to action. Here’s a link to my latest book, The Weight of Command. (Do you see what I did there? Look. Here’s a picture.)
So yeah. Nothing really earth shattering in this I don’t think. I probably could have just said “Have a website, use it if you want.” But what’s the fun in doing something in 8 words when you can use 800?
2. Do I need Twitter/Facebook/Instagram?
Twitter, no. Facebook/Instagram…maybe.
Let me caveat all of this by saying that if you’re a big presence on any of these spaces, then what I’m saying here doesn’t apply to you. But then, if you’re a big presence, you already know it’s value to you, and you don’t need me to spell it out.
Let me say this bluntly. Twitter doesn’t sell books. It just doesn’t. It didn’t back when it was working well, and it definitely doesn’t now. You can use it. If you like it for engaging with fans or other authors, then great. But the thing with Twitter is that the people who are engaging with you, for the most part, are the people who already know about your books. You’re not converting new eyes.
Now…for me, what I do get with Twitter–and I have like 5000 something followers–is the chance to put eyes on other people’s books. If I tweet about something, it might be the first time someone hears about it, or it might draw the attention of a reviewer, and those things are useful. But we’re talking 10s, not 100s, and so the value is minimal.
Facebook/Instagram can be a different thing. I maintain a facebook business page, and I do very little work on it and even with the algorithms failing to show it to a lot of people who follow it, I still get pretty good engagement. It’s a really easy spot to post updates and links and some number of people are going to find that stuff. But mostly, the value comes from being able to do ads. Targeted FB/Instagram ads can be a valuable tool for self-published authors (less so for traditionally published.) I’m not going to go deep into that, because I’m not an expert — but there are plenty of people who are, and so if this applies to you, maybe go track that down.
But Mike! I heard this unnamed agent say that I need to be on social media if I want them to sign me! Cool. I’ve heard that too. And I have some really good advice in that situation. Don’t query that agent. They’re looking at the wrong things, and if social media isn’t your thing, there are plenty of agents who will respect that. Might your agent, after you sign, encourage you to engage in some way on social media? They might. Most won’t, but I’m not here to criticize those who do. That’s between you and them. But if they won’t consider signing you? They’re at best, the wrong agent for you, and at worst, completely off the mark.
No editor is going to buy or not buy your book because you have zero or 300 or 3000 followers. If you have 300,000? Okay, sure. But again, you already know how to use that if you’ve got it.
Now…might an agent *not* sign you because of your social media? Absolutely. If you’re posting hateful stuff, that’s 100% fair game for consideration. If you’ve got a cute cat? Definitely ups your odds by 10%. (I’m joking. Mostly.)
To sum up: I blog because I enjoy blogging. I think I’ve got something to say, and the people I engage with seem to like it. Win-Win. Twitter? I used to like it. Less lately, though I’m still there. And that’s about it.
One thing I mentioned above in the blog post section was a call to action, so here’s mine for this post:
If you’ve enjoyed or benefited from my blog, I’m asking for a bit of help. I know you don’t owe me anything, but you can do this for free with just a few seconds time, so I don’t feel bad about asking.
I’m running a writer’s conference as part of Atomacon in Charleston in May. I get to work with developing writers, give them feedback, help them work on pitching, and just do all that cool stuff that comes from hanging with people who want to get better at this business. The conference is free with the purchase of a convention badge, which is $40.
We’re going to work in small groups on critique, we’re going to have panels with editors, authors, and an agent, and everyone who signs up will get professional feedback on their first ten pages at no extra cost.
So here’s where I need your help. I REALLY want to do this, but the only way we can make it work for the convention economically is if some people sign up. Hotel space costs money. So here’s my ask: help me get the word out. Please take this link and post it in your spaces where writers hang out. If you’re so inclined, maybe talk about how awesome I am. I’ll leave that part to you though.
Or sign up yourself if it’s in your means. Charleston is lovely in May.
Just to lay out all the cards, I’m not being compensated for this in any way. This is my local con (Savannah doesn’t have a good one) and Covid really hit it hard, to the point where if we can’t turn around the attendance, it might not survive. I would really like to help fix that.
Thanks.
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