How NOT to use social media as a new author
This was supposed to be a short Edelweiss tutorial (or at least an overview of how I’ve navigated the site to find interesting book data), but a more urgent topic appeared.
A few days ago, I had lunch with my agent Molly, during which I lamented the pressures to perform well on social media as a debut author. My Instagram had been abandoned for years before and during my book deal finalisations, and although I knew social media couldn’t hurt an upcoming author’s future sales, I hadn’t given it much thought. I assumed that whenever the book promo would start from Del Rey’s end, I’d be able to ride along with it and complement their efforts.
But then I started talking to other debut authors.
From what I could see, everyone had over a thousand followers. They constantly went viral on twitter. Their books had tens (even hundreds) of adds on Goodreads, as well as ratings from ultra-early readers. They constantly posted about their books, had already commissioned art of their characters, and did ARC giveaways. I felt left behind.
Looking back on the past year, two books that really stand out to me are Blood at the Root and Immortal Dark. The authors of these books posted about them religiously, seemingly from the moment their Publisher’s Weekly announcements went live. The authors were admirably relentless in utilising viral book tweets to promote their work, and they did this months and months ahead of their release dates. In the end, both hit the bestseller lists, with Immortal Dark reaching #1 for multiple weeks. I don’t remember seeing much push from either of their publishers in terms of social media posts. The only reason both books came to my attention was because of the advocacy of the authors who wrote them. It makes sense why so many of my fellow debuts have been grinding so hard on social media – it is powerful, and the more you push your work out there, the higher likelihood of curious readers and reviewers adding it to their TBRs and checking it out.
There is obviously no guarantee of success. Publishers have their own campaign windows because they know the public has short attention spans, therefore, constantly promoting a book for several months or even a year up to publication might weary potential readers and lead them to forgetting about the book altogether. As I’m still eight months ahead of my July 2025 release, I still think I need to keep my sense of urgency within reason.
An epiphany came two weeks ago. I had started consistently uploading reels and photo collages to my Instagram, and then I made promos on TikTok. It became addictive as I saw which posts gained more traction than others. On both Instagram and TikTok, users like inspirational stories, ones that start with a moment from years prior: the distressed writer in the query trenches, wondering whether they would ever be a published author. The story will then fast forward to today, showcase scenes of the author unboxing proofs, holding their finished novel, attending a book fair to tens of fans. After I posted my own inspirational videos to moderate success, I experimented with others – collages, random book trailers, to see what else would work, and the views dropped immediately. How could I get them back up? I thought.
I scrolled through my phone gallery and saw a screenshot of a conversation I had had with my mum from 2022, almost exactly a year before she died. I was telling her I had signed the book deal, and she responded with pride and excitement. Suddenly, the echo of some sad, sentimental song rang in the back of my head – something along the lines of ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol or X-Factor's favourite, ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay. Before me a reel played: the text messages fading to a montage of me sitting by a window fake crying, streaks of rain on a windowpane before the final image: Jackson P. Brown at the Del Rey Summer Party, talking about THE REAPER.
I picked up my phone, inspired, and then immediately threw it across the room. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I thought. Was I so desperate for readers that I would whore out the cherished memories of my dead mother, with no guarantee that it would lead to an add on Goodreads, let alone a pre-order? I don’t know how these family vloggers do it: every moment with their spouses and children must play before them as flickering film; wonderful, sentimental events cynically curated and staged for content. It only took me two weeks of consistent posting before my mind broke, but I’m glad I spotted it before it was too late.
One of the hardest things about being a debut author is the lack of knowledge. You can only see what’s in front of you so it’s easy to make comparisons and measure your efforts against your fellow newbies. And if you spend enough time talking to each other, it’s impossible to not become paranoid and worry you aren’t doing enough, that you won’t sell well, and that it will be your own fault for not doing the legwork of mastering social media. What should have been an exciting time to perhaps share my publication journey with the loved ones who follow me on Instagram, became something arduous and obsessive. It was time to pull back.
No longer hindered by desperation, I opened TikTok and made a long video, an educational one. I considered the number of aspiring authors on the app and the little information many of them would have about the publishing experience, and decided the talk about my query letter. At eight minutes long, it was not the TikTok way, but I wasn’t bothered about it. I can’t take full credit for the idea, as Molly first suggested it to me at lunch. Educational videos might not be exciting, but they fill a niche space of their own.
As I expected, the video got less than 300 views, but I was satisfied with the content. I closed the app and forgot about TikTok completely, didn’t check again until I was about to go to bed – and there was a message: Thank you. This is so helpful! I hope more people see this. I think it was worth it in the end.
Social media is a great tool for building hype around your novel - and you should be proud and excited to share milestones of your debut year with others. Just don’t let it turn you mad.