As an author, you’ve probably been told that being active on social media will help you sell your books.
And maybe you’ve been doing all you can to promote your book and engage with your followers on various social media platforms.
But it’s not working.
We’ve worked with a lot of authors at TCK Publishing, and we’ve come to an unexpected conclusion. If you’re an author trying to sell more books, you probably should NOT use social media.
There are plenty of people out there who will tell you why authors should use social media, but here are three essential reasons why you really shouldn’t:
1. Organic Reach is Falling
Organic reach is the number of people who see your post without you paying for it. If you’ve noticed that you are not getting much engagement on your social media posts, that’s because every business page is getting less engagement due to less organic reach.
The average number of engagements with Facebook posts by brands and authors has fallen by more than 20% since the beginning of 2017, after falling by more than 50% in 2016. Back in 2012, the average Facebook post used to get 16% organic reach—that meant if you had 100 fans, 16 of them, on average, would see one of your posts. Today, the average organic reach is closer to 1%. That means posting on your Facebook fan page is (at least) 16 times less effective today than it was just six years ago.
The numbers are similar for other social media sites. Recently Instagram has had high organic reach for businesses, but even that is starting to fall after introducing ads and other changes to the platform.
One reason for this is that your social content has to compete against an ever-increasing sea of social posts in the news feed.
In the case of Facebook, you could be competing against 15,000 stories at any given moment.
If you want more than 1 or 2 people to even see what you post, you need to create social media content that gets people to notice it and engage with it—by liking, commenting and sharing it.
It takes a lot of time and effort to understand and implement the nuances of social media marketing, and even then you’d be betting on organic reach not dropping even further (which it most likely will).
So if you’re not a seasoned marketer, it’s best for you NOT to use social media to promote your books.
And even if you are a seasoned marketer, you’ll be able to find much more profitable ways to spend your marketing time and money.
2. Your Time is Better Spent Writing
The average person spends 2 hours and 25 minutes every day on social media. That’s an enormous waste of time. That’s equivalent to nearly 20 full work weeks of time each year!
To give those numbers some perspective, if you spent that time writing every day instead of on social media, you could probably produce about three full-length novels each year (if you follow a good writing process).
Like most self-published authors you probably hold a day job and try to write between that and other activities in your personal life.
If you’re spending all that time trying to engage with your audience on social media, you’re hardly left with any time to write.
And writing is what you need to do to become a successful writer. Getting 1% of your fans to read what you have to say is never going to return to you the kind of value that writing a great book (or several great books) will.
Lack of time also results in poor quality writing which will ruin your chances for success if you try to rush through the writing process so that you can spend more time posting on social media.
So perhaps you should leave social media marketing to professionals who can handle it for you once you’re swimming in cash from all those books you’re able to produce now that you’re not wasting years of your life on Facebook.
3. Avoid Social Media Anxiety
Social media use can increase your anxiety, and too much anxiety is can destroy your creativity and productivity.
Social media is a place where your personal and professional life merges. Everything that you post on social media creates an impression of who you are as a person and as an author.
And this creates a dilemma about what you should share and what you shouldn’t.
The very nature of social media makes it a place where anyone and everyone can give their opinions—some of which will be good, but some not so much.
If you are vested in these opinions, it can affect you mentally and emotionally, leaving you depressed.
This can impact your creative process and stop you from producing your best work.
If you obsess over what people think about what you write, you’ll never be able to write something truly great and unique.
Social media is not only an ineffective marketing tool, but it can also end up costing you more in time and stress than the benefits it provides.
If you’re worried that you will not be able to sell your books if you don’t use social media, think again.
There are lots of great ways you can market and promote your books effectively.
How to Market Your Books
- Use Amazon Book Promotion Programs
- Cross promoting with similar authors
- Write an outreach email to influencers
- Use book promotion sites
- Host book signing events
- Build an author’s press kit
- Use AMS Ads
- And much more!
Social media is not mandatory for authors.
But good writing is.
If you want to be a great writer, you have to make a choice about how you divide your time between writing and marketing.
I recommend you follow the 80/20 rule—spend 80% of your time writing and 20% of your time marketing. And try to make sure that the time you spend on marketing is going to make a difference for you.
If that makes sense to you, I recommend you skip social media marketing and focus on the other strategies mentioned above and in our other book marketing articles.
Tom Corson-Knowles is the founder of TCK Publishing, and the bestselling author of 27 books including Secrets of the Six-Figure author. He is also the host of the Publishing Profits Podcast show where we interview successful authors and publishing industry experts to share their tips for creating a successful writing career.
I really appreciated this. Before coming here, I had just gotten frustrated watching a video where a “media specialist” said authors who don’t like to do podcasts, interviews, etc., probably shouldn’t even seek to become published authors–they should just journal instead. But a lot of people who love to write aren’t as good at doing videos and chasing interview opportunities. It seems like a successful writer these days is supposed to master and juggle all kinds of skills other than writing. So I searched for ways an author can be successful without social media (or at least not much of it) and found this post. Thanks for this!
We’re glad you enjoyed the post, Barbara! While it’s true that TikTok and other platforms are helping push a lot of writers into the spotlight, it’s not your only option. Consider your own strengths and focus on utilizing those in your marketing plan, and with consistent effort you’ll see results :)
Really enjoyed the post. Thought-provoking and concise.
Thanks Simba, we’re glad you enjoyed the post! :)
This is a well-thought-out and most practical article. Fortunately, I write 80% and leave the 20 to check on my Instagram feedback and my hobby. But, unfortunately, my posted work on Instagram (I’m working on a graphic novel) is not being engaged with. But I’m not depressed. I concluded just this week that I’ll just post when I can, have no expectations, but just write/draw.
Hi Harold, thanks for your comment! I think it sounds like you’re doing the right thing :) post when you feel like it, but stay focused on your work :)
I found this article at the perfect moment. As someone who has been writing since 10 years old and has never been fond of social media, it brings comfort knowing that I don’t “have to” use social media if I don’t want to. Thank you!
Hey Cynthia! We’re glad you found this post helpful!
This was a good article, I’m glad I found it. I’ve long believed that if you aren’t an expert when it comes to social media then it takes far too much time to get anything approaching a decent number of sales through it, time that can be better spent in other ways, like writing.
Unfortunately, despite believing this, and knowing that the majority of the sales, downloads and reviews I have got came about through other marketing avenues than social media, I’ve struggled to break the habit of trying.
Recently I have recruited a social media manager on a very part time basis to help me with Twitter, while I focus more on projects I have been neglecting and it feels like I am doing what I should be.
I intend bookmarking this article to remind mind myself not to waste time when I find myself spending too long on social media.
Hi Alex, thanks for your comment! Yes, it’s definitely important to have a balance. I think it’s great that you recruited someone to help you out with social media
Although I’m on Facebook I’m resistant to most social media. I’ve been writing poetry for most of my life and have performed it over the years, though not on a regular basis. Most of the time when I have performed my work, it’s gone down well and three times I’ve had people ask me for a copy of a poem after I’ve read it because they’re impressed.
I’d really like to publish a poetry anthology before I die ! Instead of going the Emily Dickinson route and leaving my sister to discover a stack of poems under my bed after I’ve expired and then having them anthologised !
But I don’t want to spend my time on Instagram “building up a following”. I have posted a few poems on Facebook and many of my friends loved them, but it’s quite obvious that the Internet is so vast that nothing really registers for long in the public’s mind on the web- I should think poems are very low down the food chain before readers move onto looking at the next cat video or focus on shaming someone by going on an Internet rant
I’ll look at your other pointers but any advice for me on how to publish poetry without social media? Initially I just want to publish a book of 30 of my best Love poems. Then if that went well I would probably try to do another poetry book. So I’m not talking about releasing all of my output at once
Hi William, thanks for your comment! I definitely understand where you’re coming from, but I wouldn’t be so quick to discount social media. Lots of poetry readers and poets use Instagram and other platforms to share their work and follow the works of others, which is a great way to start building a following for when you publish a book. But if you want to learn more about publishing poetry, we have several posts on poetry publishers and how to publish your poems. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions :)
I’ve a nightmare story with publishing. I was signed to a small publisher that tried to market exclusively through social media. Instead of hiring good editors or artists, they tried to do everything “in-house”. Boy, was that a learning experience. The publisher went belly-up of course, and I got my rights back, re-published, but… I’m an extreme introvert. I don’t like socializing much. But I’m also not (at all) wealthy and can’t afford to toss money left and right for marketing.
So eventually, because I just can’t bring myself to be a salesperson and market myself, I yanked my books, which did get decent reviews from the maybe 100 people who actually read them, but had enough flaws due to said small indie publisher not having a decent editor that I wasn’t happy with them anyway and wanted to do a “re-boot” of the entire series.
But I have such a crippling anxiety of having to go through the nightmare of marketing again I haven’t actually done any writing. 1.2k of my money, which is a good chunk for a poor slob like me, is gone because of bad editing, having to hire my own cover artist because the publisher’s cover artist was junk, and a feeble attempt at marketing.
I want to write, but I don’t want to go through any of that again. I’ve got an entire series laid out and ready to go, but I hesitate starting because I know I’ll hit that wall again. It’s really disheartening.
Hi theamir, thanks for your comment! I’m very sorry to hear about your bad experience. We have a list of over 100 reputable publishers that you may wish to check out. Of course, it’s always important to do your own due diligence, but I wouldn’t let your negative experience stop you from moving forward with a different publisher or marketing your book.
What about those of us who haven’t published yet?
Hi Patti, thanks for your comment! It’s really up to you — social media can be a great tool for growing and engaging with your audience. This post just examines some of the potential cons/drawbacks to consider. I think rather than focusing on eliminating social media completely, you should try to find the right balance that works for you.
This is very timely, as I and a few author friends have discovered little help from social media and recently less and less. I’m in the process of rethinking a number of things and doing differently in 2021.
Thanks for this article.
Thanks Nancy, we’re glad you found the article helpful! Social media works very well for some people, but sometimes it costs more in time and effort than it’s worth.
Thank you! Well said! This is exactly what I needed to read at this point in my writing journey.
Thanks Iris, we’re so glad you enjoyed the post! :)
I agree with you