The Social Media Conundrum...

As an author, I'm supposed to be on various social media platforms so as to...

Be out there to connect with fans, to network, to help advertise my books...

I guess.

The problem is...unlike the gripes I hear from writer friends...social media is not a huge draw for me. Well, most platforms aren't. There are a few I can get lost down the rabbit hole, as it were, but those aren't the ones where my (potential) fans are.

Many moons ago, Kristen Lamb was the speaker at my group's annual/biennial conference. One of the things she said that stuck with me was: Find what you enjoy and do it. If you don't like the medium, it will show and could be counter-productive.

Facebook for me is a time-filler. I have no problem spending time there--if I'm bored. I'm rarely bored.

Twitter is another place that my writer colleagues seem to congregate. Twitter is mostly a mystery to me. I don't get it. Although, it's making a little more sense to me of late as I've had to get alerts from a podcaster I follow because he's going to be announcing an appearance in Dallas I want to attend. He tweets A LOT. How does he get any work done with the number of tweets he makes, not to mention the probable metric-shit-ton of tweets that he gets...? So I have it, but I'm a consumer.

I'm on Instagram too, but again, as a consumer of only a few--and I do mean only a few--other accounts. I do post on occasion, but only random or interesting images. I doubt anyone sees them, but whatever.

I have this blog of course. Why why why do I need more than a blog and a Facebook page? Quite frankly, I don't think I do. I don't offer a newsletter because--I blog three days a week (usually). If someone wants to know me, then can stop by or they can subscribe to the feed.

You know what sells books? Not social media. Not newsletters. Not blogs. The next book sells books.

Now if only I could write the next book and the next one as easily as I can spend time on social media. *sigh*