Dear algorithm . . .
Don’t trust the algorithm with your hopes and dreams
Right now, on Threads, there’s a fun “Dear Algorithm” game going on, where the bookish community is asking the almighty algorithm to send them people who like fantasy books, authors, signed books, romance books, and so on. Any number of other book-related keywords, some very specific, many quite broad. The posts are flooding my feed, and considering they’re mostly asking for things I, too, enjoy, it seems like it’s working.
It’s a fun game. And hey, I think it is connecting readers — which is amazing, obviously. But a word of caution to folks who’re hoping this bump will help with something long-term:
Don’t trust the algorithm with your hopes and dreams.
If you’re a writer hoping to sell a book through your socials — I really hope you do. I hope you see a nice vertical line UP in the chart of your book sales. I’d really like it to do something for my book sales, too!
But we can’t count on it.
Because the algorithm (for any social media platform that is dominated by a “for you” page) isn’t designed to help you. It’s designed to keep people on the platform. And show them ads.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed the engagement on different sites jump up and down — mostly down. In the last few days, I’ve seen a lot of Threads folks talk about Instagram engagement dropping. I also saw someone compare the same post from the same company (posted at the same time) on IG reels vs. TikTok. The engagement numbers were super different, because one algorithm picked it up while the other . . . didn’t. (Also, no, I did not think to save a link to share it with you. I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning to write this post.)
In the last several months, I’ve certainly seen my engagement on all those platforms go down, even when I’m regularly feeding them photos, videos, and text posts. Anecdotally, I know that authors with muuuuch bigger followings than I have are experiencing the same drop.
It’s not that people are suddenly not interested in one particular topic, either, because all these authors are focusing on different things, like author life, book promo, or writing/publishing advice. All of it is going down.
I’m not an expert. I won’t pretend to understand the technology or what any of us could be doing differently. Honestly, I don’t think we can do anything differently.
So here’s my advice to you:
Don’t worry about it.
Storytime:
Earlier this year, I had a little NIGHTRENDER video go viral. (Viral for me, anyway.) There was nothing special about it. It was actually a repost of a video from months before — which did fine (for me) but not amazing. But for whatever reason, The Algorithm picked the repost and sent it out to people.
It reached over 500,000 accounts on Instagram, with well over 60,000 likes and hundreds of comments. For me, that’s HUGE.
Did it sell books ?
A few.
Definitely not 60,000. Or even 6,000. Honestly, probably not 600 either. Maybe 60? Maybe.
And I’ll take it. I’m grateful for each and every book sale.
It’s possible that some of those folks will see the book again some other time and remember they watched a little video about it — then decide to pick it up while it’s on their mind. Or maybe that won’t happen. It’s very difficult to trace those things.
But I can tell you that (so far) having a video go a bit viral hasn’t been career changing for me. And even though I’ve had a few others (somehow!) reach hundreds of thousands of accounts and gather tens of thousands of likes, those haven’t done it, either. They’ve provided a spike (which I am grateful for!) on my sales rank graphs, but not a long-term baseline change.
Because Instagram doesn’t want anyone to leave the platform. If they liked that kind of thing, I could have added a buy link to the caption of my post. Or added one to the comments when it started taking off. But they don’t want people to leave, even for a minute. Neither does TikTok or any other social media platform that happens to be doing well.
No, they all want you to scroll to the next post . . . and see an ad from a paying advertiser.
Obviously, social media can sell books. Otherwise Barnes and Noble wouldn’t have whole BookTok tables. But it takes a lot of people talking about something. It takes shares. New posts from other people. (Even with the Bigolas Dickolas event, the post went viral after a bunch of folks who’d already read THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR agreed that it is an excellent book.) It has to take on a life of its own, beyond anything you, an author, can guide or control.
So don’t try. You don’t have to.
Social media is not reliable, so we shouldn’t focus on it so much. Instead, do what’s fun. Share the updates. Post cat pictures and DM the funny videos to your friends. But don’t stress about whether your own video or photo or text post is getting seen. Because you can’t control that. And if you rely on it . . . it will disappoint you.
If you’re a writer, just go . . . write your book. (Calling out myself here.) And if you’re a reader, I’m pretty sure your TBR misses you. (Also calling out myself. BRB sobbing.) And make sure you can get your wishlist of topics in other, more reliable ways.
(But also have fun with Dear Algorithm because you deserve fun.)
Great post, I have a sneaking suspicion we've reached the peak of social media popularity, and it will gradually start to fade away. I'd rather be reading/writing anyway!
Thank you for this reminder! So much truth in this post!!