Marketing without Social Media. Is that even possible?

The frustrating thing, or rather, the thing that is inducing a panic that starts in the pit of my stomach and radiates up through my throat, is that I am a nobody.

I don't mean that in a woe-is-me kind of way. I mean it in the "how many followers" do you have, kind of way. I am of the opinion that social media, for the most part, is not good. I remember when I first joined Facebook, back in the 1940s, when it was probably in its third or fourth iteration. Still only for college students, requiring a college email to sign up, and only one or two generations from being a site that rated college girls and if they were "hot or not."

I was also a part of MySpace, which, in my opinion, was the best form of social media. You had friend lists, you could add music to your profile, you could attach a blog right there, AND you could do status updates. I don't even think there's a place that's similar to MySpace now, nothing has the same capabilities as MySpace and few places have the same general vibe.

I deleted my Facebook about two weeks ago, along with my Instagram. I just no longer had any interest in interacting with people that I barely knew who probably voted to remove my rights and my child's rights anyway. Instagram and FB have proven to be pits of despair, and while most of the internet is kind of a gross place to exist, I just didn't have the bandwidth to keep up with multiple apps anymore. Which is why when other authors recommend things like Goodreads or Tome or StoryGraph, my first thought is, I don't have the energy to start something ELSE. I barely have the energy to brush my teeth these days.

I have a TikTok page, and truth be told, I do love TikTok, but it's looking more and more like TikTok's days are numbered. While the ban didn't happen back in January, I think it's more than likely it's going to happen whenever those 75 days are up. The government doesn't want us interacting with one another, because the enemy of a far-right government takeover is community. TikTok gave us that community. They aren't going to do anything to keep it around.

I've joined BlueSky and I know Neptune is in beta testing, but now that I've been FB and Insta free for a few weeks, I'm wondering if I even want to continue with the social media stuff. While, yes, it is important to have social media to market my novel, there's a small voice in the back of my mind that is whispering, "Is this all really necessary?"

Sources point to YES with a resounding yell. When you query a novel, one of the first questions on most of the query forms is "What are your social media handles and how many followers do you have?" One of the reasons those creators with very large platforms often end up with books to peddle is because publishers and agents see that people will purchase those books. If someone with a 1.5 million follower count on TikTok has an even halfway decent idea for a book, fiction or non-fiction, the likelihood that they will be published by a big five publishing house is quite good. Because that book is a sure thing, financially. And coming from someone who just wants write and turn that into a meaningful career, the whole rigmarole is very, very frustrating.

All this to say, I'm not sure what to do about the social media aspects of all of this. I'm not a business person, so I'm not sure how to market myself off of social media and because my publisher is quite small, almost all the marketing falls onto my shoulders. Which is why I didn't go the self-publishing route in the first place, I didn't want to have to be in charge of my own marketing and promotion.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do, how to walk the line of helpful versus harmful social media use, and whether or not I'll migrate someplace new once TikTok goes the way of Vine and MySpace. In the meantime, you can find me here, trying not think about what happens if I'm not "successful." Whatever that means.