There are so many fun things about social media, so I get it! But you're right that a significant number of social media followers might not actually be interested in your books so much as whatever photos or videos you post. Or, because of the algorithm, they may even forget that they follow you, if you never show up in their feeds. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.
Fantastic advice here about focusing on newsletter growth. The farther I get into my career, the more I value my subscriber list. Why? Because it’s MINE. I “own” it. But if a social media site crumbles or just changes into something I don’t like (ahem, Twitter), I don’t lose all those followers when I move elsewhere.
I’ve been trying to treat my SS as my own mini platform these days... and I cross post stuff to Instagram. But I’d love to build my subscriber list so I always have a nice “following” to fall back on when needed.
Agreed. I often wish I'd focused on my newsletter earlier. But now I know. And now I have a smidge more brain space to actually focus on writing good newsletters for those who've entrusted me with a space in their inbox.
Yes! Think about what you can offer -- maybe that’s your writing or publishing journey, or related to your hobbies, or what you’re reading and learning from the books you’ve studied.
Basically, think about what you’re already giving people on your socials. How can you go deeper with that in a newsletter? There’s space for it here!
great post Jodi! Haha the subtitle made me laugh. I'm super happy to adapt - its the content that's stressing me out. I find there's just not enough hours in the day to keep up!
Yeah, it can be really hard to keep up. Sometimes (when I have a good free weekend), I write extra posts that I can send out if it’s been a while. That helps a lot. And like I said, I reuse a lot of content on social media, since the algorithms will take it out to new people every time.
Heck yeah. I have them downloaded onto my phone (snaptik does it without the watermark, but it can mess up the audio/visual timing...) and every now and then I just add a bunch of them back into my drafts, with the pre-written captions pasted back in. I have a very extensive notes app folder for the text for various videos, plus the captions and hashtags and whatnot. ALL copy and paste here. :)
If you have a creator account, you can schedule them, but I've heard rumors that scheduled content doesn't do as well? I don't know if that's true or not. But either way, drafts is a huge time saver.
Great post! Honestly the shift to newsletters when Twitter started falling apart was a bit of a blessing. As a book blogger, I learned the value of a newsletter over the other platforms (see: the implosion of book tumblr years ago, and now the shifts with twitter 🙃) but feel like there's always been that pressure of being on at least one (ideally more) of the other platforms and, as you put it, we can't trust their stability. I still use instagram and like the small community I've built there, but hoping to direct some of those people to my own newsletter over time.
Yeah, there’s a lot I really enjoy about different social media platforms and I’ll be genuinely sorry when some of them fade away. But I’ll move on when I need to!
THIS. I say this as a reader: I have social media accounts, but I really only use them for posting, not reading. (Unless I'm tagged.) Minus the handful of accounts I go to directly (rather than my general Following page) for cat pics.
Well done to the cat for posing nicely with your books, by the way :-)
Newsletters go straight to my email, so I'm likely to actually READ them.
My only issue is when authors make their newsletters Patreon or Substack, and they rarely post to the free tier - and when they do, it's to pimp their paid tiers. Yes, I understand the importance of monetising. I just feel less connected as a reader, when I know I'm left out of the loop because I can't afford to buy a subscription.
I do pay attention to other authors' accounts while I'm looking around on social media, because many are my friends, or I'm just fans of their books, but I don't expect to keep up there -- even if I interact with their content a lot, the algorithm doesn't always tell me about everything they post. It's just not reliable for that!
People not posting to the free tier -- hmm, I haven't seen that, but I only follow a few other newsletters, and while they do have paid tiers, they do a lot of work on the free ones. So it's no surprise that I've just missed the primarily-paid ones. (I have seen free newsletters with only paid subscribers getting to comment, which makes a lot of sense with huge audiences that might otherwise attract some fighting. But the content is free!)
I can't blame anyone for monetizing, though. Writing newsletters takes time and effort, and it's fair to try to get compensated for that. Personally, I can see doing something like that if my newsletter were basically a class or workshop? But then I'd need another way to communicate with my wider audience.
For me, having a big free audience on my newsletter is important. I'd rather readers buy my books than pay for my newsletter.
A paid tier is still a possibility for me one day, though! I have the pledges already set up and everything, just in case. (As discussed a lot recently, writing money is neither reliable nor vast, at least for most of us.) But I think I'd want to bring something new to it, rather than move one of my segments over to paid; it's important to me to have easily accessible information about the industry for writers to find. :)
Very true about the comings and goings of social media platforms. Have to see them as temporary given enough time (including Substack), so you best have your own (permanent) site (as you do).
There are so many fun things about social media, so I get it! But you're right that a significant number of social media followers might not actually be interested in your books so much as whatever photos or videos you post. Or, because of the algorithm, they may even forget that they follow you, if you never show up in their feeds. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.
Well hi! Someone actually directed me to your post about social media just this morning; I thought it was really good and practical.
Fantastic advice here about focusing on newsletter growth. The farther I get into my career, the more I value my subscriber list. Why? Because it’s MINE. I “own” it. But if a social media site crumbles or just changes into something I don’t like (ahem, Twitter), I don’t lose all those followers when I move elsewhere.
I’ve been trying to treat my SS as my own mini platform these days... and I cross post stuff to Instagram. But I’d love to build my subscriber list so I always have a nice “following” to fall back on when needed.
Agreed. I often wish I'd focused on my newsletter earlier. But now I know. And now I have a smidge more brain space to actually focus on writing good newsletters for those who've entrusted me with a space in their inbox.
Do you have any advice for unpublished authors when it comes to building a newsletter/subscriber list?
Yes! Think about what you can offer -- maybe that’s your writing or publishing journey, or related to your hobbies, or what you’re reading and learning from the books you’ve studied.
Basically, think about what you’re already giving people on your socials. How can you go deeper with that in a newsletter? There’s space for it here!
great post Jodi! Haha the subtitle made me laugh. I'm super happy to adapt - its the content that's stressing me out. I find there's just not enough hours in the day to keep up!
Yeah, it can be really hard to keep up. Sometimes (when I have a good free weekend), I write extra posts that I can send out if it’s been a while. That helps a lot. And like I said, I reuse a lot of content on social media, since the algorithms will take it out to new people every time.
Do you repost reels? I dont have the strength to edit them a second time haha
Heck yeah. I have them downloaded onto my phone (snaptik does it without the watermark, but it can mess up the audio/visual timing...) and every now and then I just add a bunch of them back into my drafts, with the pre-written captions pasted back in. I have a very extensive notes app folder for the text for various videos, plus the captions and hashtags and whatnot. ALL copy and paste here. :)
Oh making use of drafts is really smart. I'm gonna do it - u may have changed my life ! 🥰
If you have a creator account, you can schedule them, but I've heard rumors that scheduled content doesn't do as well? I don't know if that's true or not. But either way, drafts is a huge time saver.
Great post! Honestly the shift to newsletters when Twitter started falling apart was a bit of a blessing. As a book blogger, I learned the value of a newsletter over the other platforms (see: the implosion of book tumblr years ago, and now the shifts with twitter 🙃) but feel like there's always been that pressure of being on at least one (ideally more) of the other platforms and, as you put it, we can't trust their stability. I still use instagram and like the small community I've built there, but hoping to direct some of those people to my own newsletter over time.
Yeah, there’s a lot I really enjoy about different social media platforms and I’ll be genuinely sorry when some of them fade away. But I’ll move on when I need to!
THIS. I say this as a reader: I have social media accounts, but I really only use them for posting, not reading. (Unless I'm tagged.) Minus the handful of accounts I go to directly (rather than my general Following page) for cat pics.
Well done to the cat for posing nicely with your books, by the way :-)
Newsletters go straight to my email, so I'm likely to actually READ them.
My only issue is when authors make their newsletters Patreon or Substack, and they rarely post to the free tier - and when they do, it's to pimp their paid tiers. Yes, I understand the importance of monetising. I just feel less connected as a reader, when I know I'm left out of the loop because I can't afford to buy a subscription.
Yours is fine, though. I feel welcome :-)
I also like social media for cat pictures, haha.
I do pay attention to other authors' accounts while I'm looking around on social media, because many are my friends, or I'm just fans of their books, but I don't expect to keep up there -- even if I interact with their content a lot, the algorithm doesn't always tell me about everything they post. It's just not reliable for that!
People not posting to the free tier -- hmm, I haven't seen that, but I only follow a few other newsletters, and while they do have paid tiers, they do a lot of work on the free ones. So it's no surprise that I've just missed the primarily-paid ones. (I have seen free newsletters with only paid subscribers getting to comment, which makes a lot of sense with huge audiences that might otherwise attract some fighting. But the content is free!)
I can't blame anyone for monetizing, though. Writing newsletters takes time and effort, and it's fair to try to get compensated for that. Personally, I can see doing something like that if my newsletter were basically a class or workshop? But then I'd need another way to communicate with my wider audience.
For me, having a big free audience on my newsletter is important. I'd rather readers buy my books than pay for my newsletter.
A paid tier is still a possibility for me one day, though! I have the pledges already set up and everything, just in case. (As discussed a lot recently, writing money is neither reliable nor vast, at least for most of us.) But I think I'd want to bring something new to it, rather than move one of my segments over to paid; it's important to me to have easily accessible information about the industry for writers to find. :)
Also, Hush sat there on purpose. She saw me getting ready to take a photo and just assumed I was aiming for her, so she decided to help me out.
Very true about the comings and goings of social media platforms. Have to see them as temporary given enough time (including Substack), so you best have your own (permanent) site (as you do).
Yep. And I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I regularly download my email list from here, just in case.
Your cat's socks are so cute!! Totally unrelated to the post, but so cute!
We love cozy socks in this house, and the cats' precious little beans must be kept warm. ;)