In just over a week's time I'll be taking a well earned break in Scotland. Spending seven days in this beautiful part of the world fills me with joy but the concept I won't have an Internet connection makes me even happier.
As a writer I spend an awful lot of time on social media. But I often wonder how much of that time is wasted and would be better spent if I just focused on writing. My American friends and fans all think that if you want to be a best selling author you have to build your audience first. Networking is crucial to them and if you aren't willing to talk to anybody then you may as well forget it. And while I respect that opinion, I often wonder just how true it is.
I network with plenty of people from the Americas but I always sell more books on the Amazon UK site. Being British myself I can safely say we don't place as much importance on social media as other people do in the world. And it doesn't matter how many people I talk to week to week my sales for the month always seem to stay the same.
So, in your opinion how effective is social media? Do you find a sudden increase in sales the moment you network, or do you have to endlessly promote before you see any difference in sales? Or, like me, do your sales stay the same from month to month no matter what you do?
(I found your post on LinkedIn this morning...a bit ironic.)
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog L.K., and timely too. I've been wondering how much of my time I waste on social media too. Not only professionally, but personally.
I do understand the importance of building a network/platform, but I too wonder how significant of a role social media plays in selling and how much of a writer's time is wasted on ineffective modes of marketing. (I honestly don't know as I am a newbie and haven't finished a project yet)
I'm also concerned about the emphasis we place on social media for personal relationships. Sometimes I feel that I waste much of my time and energy maintaining a bunch of surface level relationships with people all over the world, rather than putting more time and effort into my closer relationships (both proximity and relationally).
Thanks for your thought provoking post!
Blessings,
~Jenn
Hi Jenn,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for commenting and I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks this way. I bet more people secretly harbour these feelings but don't say anything because they are scared of what others may think.
I couldn't agree more!
ReplyDeleteI'm just a newbie at all this (sorry for the plug but I gotta - http://thechildishman.com/) and this is good information so I don't get too attached to social media.
ReplyDeletePart of me thinks SM (not S&M mind you) is attractive to introverted writers - we think it's easy to throw it out there and get readers to come to us. I have been astounded at how unrealistic so many writers in writing groups often are, wanting to find an agent before they even know how to build a basic sentence.
SM surely has a place, but I wonder if there's still nothing like old fashioned networking. It wouldn't surprise me if SM loyalty was rather brief. And when I talk with people in my town, I pretty quickly find editors or those who have worked for publishers, and many other published writers. So I wonder if it's more worth my time to cultivate those relationships than sinking hours into SM.