Social Media etc

I’m now a week into the publication of BAGMAN HITS THE ROAD and I probably need to think about what support I can give the book via social media.  I must confess at this point that I know very little about it – fortunately, all three of my daughters understand how it works and spend a large chunk of each day actively demonstrating their skills.  So that’s where I’ll go for advice.

Why is it important?  It’s important for me because I don’t have the backing of a publishing house.  But even if you do, these days a publisher expects its authors to do most of the promotional work themselves.  If an agent or publisher is interested in your work, the strong likelihood is that you will be asked about your ‘online presence’.  Saying that you don’t have one will not be a good thing.

Most of us have dabbled with Facebook and maybe the odd post on Twitter (as it used to be) but Instagram and (God forbid) TikTok?  Aren’t they just a bit too teenage?  Well, it turns out that because of the BookTok community, the latter app is now pretty essential when it comes to author self-promotion, even if you’re not a teenager or aiming to appeal to a teen audience.  The key to success, apparently, is to attract the eye of the all-seeing algorithm – which means that you need to generate audience engagement.  Essentially, if no-one watches your output and ‘likes’ it and/or comments on it, you may as well not bother.  Hence some of the more extreme examples of click-bait, designed solely to be shared by enough viewers that the content goes viral – the R2 exponential growth-rate that was so feared during the worst days of Covid.

Right now, I’m still at the experimental stage with all this – and I have no intention of appearing on screen myself – but once I’ve put something out and observed what works and what doesn’t, I promise that I’ll be back to let you know.

Meanwhile, as always, happy writing!