Supporting each other on Social Media and Websites - Post your Handles and Links

@lost_bard thanks for for sharing your stuff! I’m going to subscribe to your newsletter now ? I have a newsletter on my website and a blog but both of those have been inactive for awhile ?

So I'm starting to tackle the business side of our craft now slowly but surely. By slowly but surely, I mean I've done one thing. I reactivated my twitter account. Follow me at @JESchleicher. Website and the all important newsletter to follow. Not gonna lie, I'm intimidated by this side of the game and whining more than my wife would like about it. 

Posted by: @doctorjest

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you should immediately take a look at the "muted keywords" feature

And emphatic yes! I mainly left twitter many moons ago cuz my feed became a stinky cauldron of outrage. Since rejoining, this is the first thing I did. It's a work in progress, but I can already see & importantly mentally feel the difference. 

@jeschleicher I quite enjoy twitter where I am @gideonpsmith given the low commitment needed. But then I don't over-involve myself and most of what I follow are writers, spec fic magazines and agents etc. I specifically blocked a man last name of Musk as I suddenly got a lot of his posts without subscribing to them, but beyond that it doesn't seem so much drama.

I had heard facebook and Instagram were better for finding readers, if that is what you want social media platforms for, but I don't enjoy either platform and... I would probably need to have published something to be worried about readers lol. I guess as a winner of WotF you are in a different boat now. Bon chance. Maybe see you out there.

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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I am @gideonpsmith

I'm following you now! There is much to like about Twitter. Also, a lot to dislike. It's a tool and the experience will depend on how you wield it. Five years ago or so I decided to get off all social media for mental health reasons and was happy I made the decision. My biggest worry now is how, sometimes when I'm not specific with my intentions, Twitter can gobble up time, my most precious resource, which I would rather use for storytelling. I just need to put systems in place to keep that from happening. Also, that mute function is key. I didn't use it last go around and each experience would find myself outraged over stuff I didn't know I needed to be outraged over. Honestly, it skewed my worldview for the worse. 

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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I had heard facebook and Instagram were better for finding readers,

I plan on joining one of these, maybe both. TikTok is now a no-go here in Montana. I'm sure other states will follow.

I'd love to hear what social media platforms others in the forum have found helpful, both for capturing readers and surrounding yourself w/ a positive community.

I've created an author-only profile on Instagram: author_tjknight

I invite all to follow along to wherever my journey takes me.

Pictures of stairs that lead to nowhere will continue on my personal profile. 😉

Hello, I added everyone that I could from this thread. All of my links are in my profile.

Marketing is a requirement for the self-published, and even the trad published. That's the nature of the beast. If you want people to read your stuff they have to know about it first.

Edit: figure I'll add them here to save you some time.

https://UndreamedAges.com

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093205737821

https://www.instagram.com/davidpittsenbergerauthor

Thanks for this thread! I'm sure it's very helpful to many.

I have only recently started to take part in the writing community through forums and social media, so I'm looking forward to seeing a few of you lovely peeps around here and twitter (@TheJSSolomon).  

Posted by: @undreamedages

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Marketing is a requirement for the self-published, and even the trad published. That's the nature of the beast. If you want people to read your stuff they have to know about it first.

 

Edit: figure I'll add them here to save you some time.

https://UndreamedAges.com

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093205737821

https://www.instagram.com/davidpittsenbergerauthor

 

So true. <sigh> I hate social media. I hate marketing. Ever since the hordes came in 1994 the internet has gone to heck. But you are right. I really should do more. I do wordpress websites as a hobby for myself and sometimes for friends, but I don't ever publicize -- not even my author site.

Posted by: @pegeen

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Posted by: @undreamedages

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Marketing is a requirement for the self-published, and even the trad published.

 

 

 

So true. <sigh> I hate social media. I hate marketing. 

 

I feel your pain ? 

But I will say, to try to add to the conversation, and to offer something that made it more palatable to me: I had a conversation with a successful author once about this. Someone who, to my mind, does a *lot* of marketing.

And to my statement that I just didn't feel that comfortable with marketing they replied what I am uncomfortable with is the verb, and I just need to find other verbs with which I *am* comfortable.

They pointed out that marketing doesn't have to be, and to be successful, probably *shouldn't be* all "here's my stuff, go buy it. But it should be about making people aware of you.

So the verb they chose was "to teach". They went out, the ran discussion groups, the wrote on "how to" with writing and "how to" with publishing, etc.

For myself, I am not in any position to be 'Teaching" anyone else so I am no more comfortable with using the verb teach than the verb market.

But I am comfortable with viewing myself amongst peers, both other struggling writers, and fans of sci fi and fantasy, and as that I am comfortable with "sharing", "celebrating", "musing", and "asking". All of which enables me to participate in twitter and my own web page. I don't actively try and draw people there, and certainly not "fans" given there's nothing published for them to be a fan of. But it has allowed me to share my enthusiasm for other people's work, to learn how other writers solve things, to muse on my own stumbling and the solutions that have worked and not *for me* and to ask others for ideas on those things (characterization, writers block etc). 

This has enabled me to participate in social media, which no doubt does alert some people to things I do, but really isn't marketing. And its what I have found helpful and comfortable. Your mileage may vary ? ? 

@gideonpsmith that's pretty much where I'm at. I don't make a big deal out of it. I just try to have a larger presence on social media than I normally would. But I don't really post anything that I normally wouldn't. Honestly, it probably won't convert to many sales. I'm just having fun with it.

@gideonpsmith   Good points. I will keep them in mind.  I'll have to find a platform I can stand.  I've never done Twitter, for fear my  head would explode. I only let people I know on my facebook. I tried an author facebook, but facebook went crazy and kicked me off it, even though I'm the owner. I can't get it back unless I send them my driver's license and a notarized letter and a letter from other friends testifying I am me, and I think maybe my birth certificate. LOL! After that experience, I don't want to depend on a platform to communicate with anyone. I could put my website out there more. Experts say to collect emails but then I'd have to send out a newsletter or something. It all sounds like a lot of distraction. I will set a goal and look into marketing/promotion in 2025.

@pegeen Yeah, well, I do think it also depends on where you are at on this journey. I am super early in the journey and so probably anything I do is 'gravy' not completely necessary. You have to judge the value return to you based on your own stage. If you are querying agents I think having a webpage so agents can look at it if they want is good. But many agents have said it doesn't have to be big, involved or fancy - just a one page professional looking page is sufficient. And sounds like you already have that.

I think things like newsletters are a lot easier when you have something going on, like scheduled releases of a trilogy, and you can update people on the progress etc. But at this stage? Probably too much work for the return.

I am not in love with all the changes at twitter, but the reason I have historically been on there was the ease of involvement - 140 characters max, preferably as few as possible, and with a casual tone. And none of it has to be earth-shattering. And I probably wouldn't do it at all, except there are some writers I follow and ones I have connected with their that I enjoy interacting with.

I got my own website five years ago, initially because I was starting my Ray Bradbury 52 Week Challenge and wanted someplace to document and post my progress, but also because I had stuff I wanted to say without the trolls and sock puppets at Twitter and Facebook pouncing all over me. I love having my own sandbox because I can say whatever I like, and if someone wants to troll me, I get to kick them out.

I have no "fans", per se, and my own family barely reads what I post, but it's nice knowing I have a place I can mouth off without running the risk of being thrown in Facebook jail. Plus I don't have to deal with things like algorithms or Zuckerbergs or Musks telling me what I can and can't do. It's my way of sticking it to the man!

@gideonpsmith All good points. I've rented space on Godaddy for over a decade. It is overpriced but at one time I had so much stuff on there that the hassle of moving it all was too much to contemplate. But I will be moving in 2025 when my contract ends.  I used to have a few wordpress affiliate sites, a site for a friend's small church, a site for a friend's writing, site for a friend's daycare business a few sites for my son's college work and hobbies, and my writing site. I never charge $ since it cost me nothing to add a few low-space sites and takes little time to set up Wordpress postcard sites.  Friends have to pay for their own domain name that they own. BUT I tell them if they choose to evolve into something bigger than a "postcard" site then bye bye. I don't want to run a Wordpress website business. The last one just moved on. (She wanted the password to edit her site, which is fine, but then she blew it up and I had to fix it. Bye! Bye!) The friends all have migrated to bigger, Wordpress sites where they pay someone (or they switched to only facebook). My son graduated and now has only 1 site. I gave up doing the affiliates and now have only 1 site.  My cpanel contract ends in 2025. So I'm experimenting a little. I set up a duplicate author site for myself on ipage because it is cheap -- $1.99 per month for 36 months then the price goes up. They gave me a free domain name.  They run a slightly old version of sql and wordpress but not alarming. Their customer service sucks but at that price... They include site_lock, which is necessary. They also have a canned site option, which most people should do since it's much easier to use. I should experiment in a few more places. I definitely will leave godaddy, which is overpriced. In 2025 either I have to rent space elsewhere or switch to a cheapo place when I'm a client. PS: When facebook locked me out of my author facebook site it was after they did a big upgrade. They deleted the owner (me) without so much as a message. I was just on it doing stuff, so it wasn't abandoned. It still is out there and looks silly, but too much work to go through their process to reclaim it. I did find out how by contacting their marketing department. They have no customer service unless it involves $ and marketing. Good lesson though.  I will never again develop a site on a platform where someone else can randomly kick me off. I had only a few dozen followers. If someone has a huge following and loses their site it would be a disaster. Then they can't contact their fans and the fans don't know where to go. This is all part of my master plan to cut down on time sucking distractions.

Anyone here on bluesky? I'm annalieselemmon.bsky.social there. And if anybody wants to make the jump, I have 4 invites available. 

@reigheena I am. And I have two invites as well. I'm not really active at all though. I mostly use Insta and Facebook.

https://bsky.app/profile/undreamedages.bsky.social

I've got a website that includes a blog I titled 'Tymely News', Mastodon profile and Facebook page for my pen name (Owen Tyme, obviously).  So far, I've published three books (both Ebook and print) and a free short story Ebook that's a re-worked version of one that got me a Silver Honorable Mention.  I'd be happy to have a few more followers, if any of you are interested.

I wish I didn't have to use Facebook, especially after the awful way they treated me (you can learn more on my blog here, here and here), but Facebook has a lot of users and every once n a while, they supposedly show my posts to thousands (though I actually doubt this figure, because it sounds and smells like BS).  So far, my few followers are my totally tech-ignorant family, who wouldn't use Mastodon even if they knew what it was, so meh.

Special Note to Users of Facebook: The moral of the story from my blog posts is something I think everyone should know: don't start a Facebook page (a page is different from a profile and more business-oriented) with your photo attached.  It WILL get your account shut down without explanation, even though there's nothing in their stupid rules that says not to (yes, I checked).  They've stopped shutting me down since I changed my page's image to my publishing mark.  I will NEVER post another photo of myself to my author page again.

Website: https://owentyme.us

Blog: https://owentyme.us/blog/index.html

Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/ @OwenTyme - The forum is butchering this link, because the @ is interpreted as a link to a local profile, rather than being left alone, but hopefully you can see where I'm trying to lead you.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorOwenTyme/

Novels (books2read multi-store links):

https://books2read.com/TrollSong

https://books2read.com/ForgottenLegends

https://books2read.com/SheHuntsDemons

Short Story: https://books2read.com/EmergentConsequences

Here's the three novel ad I put together last week and the cover for Emergent Consequences, which will hopefully cute you into reading it if you can't afford my books.

People seem to really like the cover of She hunts Demons, so far.  I love how the blue elements make it pop.  My friend Ryan is an awesome artist that you can find on Mastodon, though he doesn't post much.  There are more novels on the way and I aim to keep Ryan busy painting most of the year, because so many of them are already written and just itching to be released.

The conversation on here accomplished what no one before ever could—persuaded me to build an author site: authorkrqueen.com

Anyone ever do collabs on their blogs/sites? I read while building mine that collabs can be great for everyone involved. 

P.S. It’s way too early for this, but I’m already impressively twitchy about V41, Q1 😅  

Site looks good, Kory!

Posted by: @tj_knight

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Site looks good, Kory!

I read The Flowers and the Tree Kory. I like it.

Posted by: @storysinger

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Posted by: @tj_knight

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Site looks good, Kory!

I read The Flowers and the Tree Kory. I like it.

 

Thank you!

And thank you for reading “The Flower and the Tree”! That one was for my wife—she kept underestimating herself and telling me, “You’re a tree, and I’m just a flower”; and that poem was part of my campaign to help her see herself as both strong and beautiful. 

Do authors in this writerly world use LinkedIn much for connecting with peer authors? Or is that too business-focused? What's the best way to connect with others virtually in a passive way like that (getting updates, etc.), besides actively interacting in forums like this? (or IRL, at conventions, etc.)

I've deleted most other social media (FB, Insta, Twitter, etc.), but use LinkedIn quite a bit for networking within the world of my "day job." I created a separate LinkedIn account for my author persona, in case anyone wants to connect that way: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-strickland-author/

@stricklandia I think the prior wisdom was something along the lines of twitter is for making connections with other authors and agents, editors, alerts about submission windows, and facebook is better for building fanbase/connecting with readers. Though I've also heard it said the other way round. That facebook with its groups and longer text led to more meaningful engagement for either group. And then some people make the case you should look at demographics of users and who is your audience, as facebook skews older.

But...social media is so fragmented these days. I am still on twitter but use it mainly to remain connected to people I connected with before but my posting there has gone way way down since it became X and half the userbase defected. 

There were so many alternatives (bluesky, mastodon, etc, etc) I couldn';t be bothered making an account on all and investing time and decided to wait to see which came out as a clear leader/winner..... I'm still waiting.

I mainly focus on my own page and blog and sharing it periodically elsewhere as appropriate. I don't have time to run around all the platforms as an unknown author with nothing to sell.

Booktok is obvious big still, but I'm not really a video person, and i certainly don't have time to become one right now 

Just do whatever you find entertaining. It'll be more authentic and more sustainable. 

@stricklandia 

Cal Newport recently posted about something in this vein: How the Acquired Podcast Became a Sensation - Cal Newport

In short, his philosophy is what @gideonpsmith just stated very nicely, i.e., focus on making high-quality work, and connect in a deep, authentic way with your audience rather than worrying about all the ever-changing media hacks. I tend to agree. 

BUT to answer the question more directly: email lists are apparently a nice clean way to do it. That and a solid website to serve as a hub for your work. I'm not sure more is needed, but I'm also not a pro, so ...

I just followed @reigheena - is anyone else using Bluesky now it's open to all? I've got so many interests it feels awkward going off topic on social media if I've mainly posted about one thing. So I've got a Twitter/X where I mostly post travel/outdoors photos and don't post much writing stuff.

I signed up to Bluesky thinking I'll make it my writing place but haven't posted there much yet: https://bsky.app/profile/alexharford.bsky.social

I've also got a little writing page here: https://alexharford.uk/writer

Hey all! I've gone and put on my authorial hat via a website where I also manage a newsletter/blog titled: Dopamine's Delight. Besides news & updates about my writing, I share my many delights on there. I'd be incredibly grateful for you to subscribe: jeschleicher.com.

Posted by: @krqueen_writes

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The conversation on here accomplished what no one before ever could—persuaded me to build an author site: authorkrqueen.com

Very nice looking website! I subscribed.

My author website went live on February 29, 2024. You can check it out here: https://www.amyrwethingtonwriterofspeculativeworlds.com/  

You can also find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amy.wethington.5

@physa   Very nice website!