This assembly of letters is about Facebook, which has very little to do with romance novels. In fact, my feelings about Facebook are kind of the opposite of a romance novel. My feelings about Facebook would probably be best summed up in a completely different book: Jodyne Speyer's Dump 'Em. (I did a book event years ago with Jodyne, and the two of us, with me talking about happy ever after and her talking about dumping people, made a very funny pair).
Anyway.
There have been a few rants and videos floating through my Twitter feed about how Facebook has changed this week… or yesterday… or in the last hour… or since I typed the word “hour.” Blanket statements up front: Facebook for me, both personally and professionally, is a free service. I am not charged to sign up, and I don't have a contract with them that enables me to demand anything. I can whine and gripe all I want but I have no expectations that Facebook would change or give a crap.
To misquote Kesha, I can indeed imagine the immensity of the fuck they're not giving.
So, Facebook.
There is a Smart Bitches Facebook page. I post links to what's here, talk to the people who have liked the page, and visit with them. Everyone who is connected to the SBTB Facebook page and interacts there is a lovely, most excellent person. And I know from my personal and professional FB usage, there are a good number of people who hang out on Facebook. That's their place, the location online that they most like to be. And even though it's different every time I go there – it's like a highway repeatedly under construction, and every time is a different route – I head over to Facbeook to say hi, talk about what's on the site right now, what silly things are going on, or maybe post a graphic or a copy of the workout. But I'm visiting folks. And despite all the stats about Facebook driving traffic, I don't expect any of the FB folks to immediately leave and go anywhere else. That's their hangout; that's where they like to be, so I go visit there. So I have no expectations that Facebook is going to grow me anything — neither social connections nor hydroponic tomatoes.
I used to advertise the SBTB page on Facebook. I set a budget of about $50 per quarter, and I'd run ads inviting people to join the discussion, recommend romances, or whatever else was going on at that moment. The cost per new “like” at that point was about $1.25 per, and after a few conversations with very cool people in publishing, I learned that, for a while, that was pretty much standard.
Then Facebook started changing. I have a presentation I give pretty regularly about social media and reader interaction, and every time I give it, I have to update every single slide about Facebook because it changes so regularly. Remember when there was the percentage of reach shown at the bottom of each post – and the math was really sketchy? The percentage of reach never made sense given the number of likes. Then the percentage disappeared. Then the organic reach and the paid reach appeared, and as always I was given the opportunity to pay Facebook to reach people who should have been seeing what I wrote. I was offered the chance to pay to reach people who already wanted to hear from me – because they'd liked the page.
Ok, Facebook. Whatever. I'm not required to spend money, so it's cool, but that's really not useful, is it?
Then I noticed that running an ad got me a pile of new likes on the page once the organic and paid reach statistics started showing up. And the return on investment for an ad was far, far better than $1.25 per like.
That made sense: if Facebook wanted me to pay to reach the people who already liked me, then they'd make it easy for my likes to increase, so I'd pay again to reach them on a post-by-post basis.
I'm also part of an entrepreneur's group online, and in one of our discussions, other business owners (all of whom are far, far outside the publishing realm) noticed similar results. Moreover, if they did elect to promote a post, the organic reach of their subsequent posts would drop dramatically after they'd paid to promote – the idea being, they suspected, that if you were willing to pay once, you'd be willing to pay again, especially if your organic unpaid reached was less after having paid to expose one post to a wider group. Sure enough, I did the same thing, and my results were the same. The paid-to-promote post went much, much farther than the ones I didn't pay to promote. The posts that came after the promoted one reached fewer people than the ones prior.
A few folks have tweeted this video about Facebook's advertising, and how the results are less than optimal and frankly useless. It's worth watching the whole thing – especially if you advertise on Facebook.
So whether you pay Facebook for advertisements and promotions or you pay a click farm, the results appear to be the same – and are equally useless in terms of extending one's social reach on Facebook. And to be clear, I don't really care what Facebook does. It's free for me, so long as I don't elect to pay for things. If they want to change it, it's their business, and their platform, and I'm electing to use it. I can choose not to use it, or not focus on it as much as other methods to connect with people. And I can use my personal Facebook feed or not – and really, at this point, my personal feed is like a celebrity gossip magazine replacing all the celebrities with people I went to high school and college with. Heh.
Then, on Thursday, Sam Biddle posted on Valleywag about more developments in the ever-changing Facebook in which we live in:
A source professionally familiar with Facebook's marketing strategy, who requested to remain anonymous, tells Valleywag that the social network is “in the process of” slashing “organic page reach” down to 1 or 2 percent. This would affect “all brands”—meaning an advertising giant likeNike, which has spent a great deal of internet effort collecting over 16 million Facebook likes, would only be able to affect of around a 160,000 of them when it pushes out a post. Companies like Gawker, too, rely on gratis Facebook propagation for a huge amount of their audience. Companies on Facebook will have to pay or be pointless.
That 160,000 still sounds like a lot of people, sure. But how about my favorite restaurant here in New York, Pies 'n' Thighs, which has only 3,281 likes—most likely locals who actually care about updates from a nearby restaurant? They would reach only a few dozen customers. A smaller business might only reach one. This also assumes the people “reached” bother to even look at the post.
The alternative is of course to pay for more attention. If you want an audience beyond a measly one or two percent, you'll have to pay money—perhaps a lot of money, if you're a big business.
As Biddle clarified in the comments, Facebook's limitations of organic reach apply to what shows up in people's news feeds. If they go to your page, they see everything (obviously). But the organic reach limits the distribution of posts across news feeds, so people who only look at their own news feed would be less likely to see a post.
(NB: organic reach makes me think of organic vegetables trying to grab onto me with vines and stuff. I bet Bunnicula had organic reach.)
This is not surprising, but it's a bummer, as Biddle pointed out, for smaller businesses – and authors count as small businesses, too. For some authors who have built a sizable audience over the past few years on Facebook, and who interact multiple times a day with readers, the alleged suppression of organic reach could undermine the audience connection they've worked so hard to create.
That said, creating a community on Facebook means that Facebook stands between you and your community, and they can change the access any time they want. And of course the same is true of Twitter, and any other social network. (This is, by the way, why having a website and a mailing list are so essential – that's virtual real estate and communications access that's under the owner's control, with no social media located in between.)
Even if an author goes out of her way to interact with as many people as possible on Facebook, Facebook is in control of any and every page's reach, and there's little anyone can really do about that, especially if Facebook is intent on “throttling down” organic reach. Facebook controls Facebook.
It's not like social media platforms are immortal (though comparisons to vampires may be increasingly apt). I found my Friendster login a month or so ago – remember Friendster?
I don't think I've said anything earth shattering here, and it's not like I have exclusive access or news about Facebook. But I do know that many of you use it professionally, and I wanted to share what I'd learned from varying sources, especially because one of the things we all do here and elsewhere is connect with other people who love what we love. There are more options each day for readers who want to connect with books, other readers, and authors, and Facebook's decisions may mean that entrepreneurs and others will find other methods to connect. In my opinion, all of Facebook's decisions lately have made Facebook less useful for anyone who isn't looking to share pictures of their lunch, pictures of their kids, or pictures of their kids eating lunch.
But I'm curious how you see Facebook. If you're an author or business owner (same thing), do you use Facebook? Has the manner in which you've used Facebook changed recently? Have you noticed these changes, too?
If you're on Facebook as a reader, do you interact with authors there? What or how do you use Facebook? Have you noticed it changing?
I’m an author and I have used Facebook before for ads. After watching the clip I realized why some of the people who “liked” me were so odd. After this, I doubt I’ll ever advertise on Facebook again. Appreciate the info.
I’m in the process of trying to actively shift from facebook. I’m a user only. But, I’m a pretty active user. I tend to be pretty solid on social media in general (except instagram for whatever reason it never appealed). I find that on-line social media is perfect for introverts. But, facebook is rapidly becoming unsuitable. With the many byzantine steps to actually see what my friends are posting (completely ignoring authors, business, etc that would fall on the business side), it’s stopped facilitating relationships and is now an exercise in who loves you best because if they haven’t “liked” or responded to something of yours in the last 24 hours, you obviously are totes done. I’m lucky in that I’m pretty tech savvy and my husband is even more so, so I can keep up with the hoops you need to jump through to actually see the posts you want but most of my “friends” (who really run the spectrum from besties to aquaintances) aren’t. The problem is finding another place that is as user friendly to so many. I’m twitter comfortable but a lot of people I like to keep up with, aren’t. Although, my most surprising experience was with NPR. I don’t tend to actually listen all that much but I enjoy their facebook feed. I checked to see if they did something similar on google plus, because wouldn’t you expect NPR to be an early adopter?, and, they are posting infrequent youtube videos of various reporters doing really odd reports. So, yes, I totally agree that facebook is killing itself but I also can’t figure out what’s better.
I’m an author, and as far as I can tell, Facebook “author” pages are pretty useless at this point, for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. I’m much more likely to have my posts viewed if I post them on my personal profile page, to people who are officially Facebook friends – so I’ve just opted to make my “personal” page a professional space. I happily friend back anyone who wants to friend me, and I don’t post anything too personal on it. I really enjoy the community there – right now I’m hosting a monthly productivity party/support group on my Facebook page (which had been hosted on different authors’ pages over the last few months), and it’s been really fun and good for my work. But I don’t know that any of it sells copies of my books. *shrugs*
FB seems to get worse and worse. I would love to see new posts, all new posts. Instead I see old posts with new comments and miss 60% that is hidden from me. If I like something I get a adds and then I give up reading and just go to twitter
@Becky:
YES. A thousand times yes. *holds up lighter* This is how I feel, too. Facebook isn’t about making connections anymore so much as it is what you have described: who loves you best.
@Stephanie:
That is really interesting! Got a link? What kinds of things do you talk about?
I dislike facebook intensely. I don’t find it useful, I don’t find it compelling. Additionally, they really ticked me off when they tried to assert rights on the word BOOK, for pity’s sake.
I’m a twitter girl at heart, and most other social media is not easy for me.
That said, I’m going to start putting more effort into g+. Not because I love it, but because I need a reasonable alternative to facebook and it’s the best I can see right now.
The productivity party/support group (we’re calling it “March Magic”, by popular vote) is a space where anyone and everyone can pop in to get support and (friendly) accountability on their own small, do-able daily goals, whether their goals happen to be in the realm of writing, housework, parenting, painting…whatever! My goal this month has been to write at least 1 line of fiction a day – which sounds so pathetically tiny and pointless…but actually, that goal means that every day this month, I’ve checked in and kept in the headspace of my WIP, and I’ve also ended up writing thousands of extra words I wouldn’t have written otherwise on days without childcare. Other people in the group have had “10 minutes of meditation” as a daily goal, or “5 minutes of admin”. Whatever works!
I described it in more detail back at the beginning of the month on my blog, and it’s carrying on every day this month on my facebook page. (Today’s relevant status update is here.) My facebook updates can only be viewed by Facebook friends, but I’m happy to friend back anyone and everyone there, pretty much – it’s an open space for me.
And this is the good part of Facebook for me – that sense of community and connection that can take place there.
In the beginning, I was on Facebook to keep in touch with far flung family and friends. When favorite celebrities, authors, and other businesses started setting up pages and I started to use Facebook to keep up with them all.
So, here on the flipside, I am a reader who keeps up with my favorite authors who happen to have Facebook pages and interact with likes and comments and entering contests. When Kristan Higgins and Jill Shalvis have their Man Wars, I’m all over Facebook that morning. Luckily, I mostly work from home.:) I would say Facebook has enhanced my appreciation of my favorite writers. I also find as soon as a writer mentions a new book is available for pre-ordering on Facebook, I’m hitting the link adding it to my Amazon wishlist.
Julia Quinn was the first favorite author I “liked” on Facebook and she is great at interacting with her fans. She recently did a signing at a local indy bookstore. I made the effort to be there, mostly based on “meeting” Julia on Facebook. Had a great afternoon!
I’m a reader, but I’m not on Facebook and have no interest in being on Facebook. The problem for me is when an author (or anyone really) ties everything to their Facebook page. I miss out on fun posts, upcoming release information, promotions, etc. Somehow, the non-FB person seems less important than someone who is on FB. It has definitely changed how I think of some authors/companies.
I have watched all of the changes from afar and I am definitely glad I have not chosen to jump in the pool. My life is definitely not interesting enough to have a page and post my goings on. It would probably bore everyone to tears if they saw my daily life.
Here’s what I really don’t get: if they are so hellbent on shuttering down ‘organic reach’ in order to get people to pay to have a wider reach, why are they still using the click farms? I would pay, maybe, if I thought that meant I would get to reach the people who are interested in my page. But there’s no way I’m paying just to get a ton of irrelevant likes from a click farm. Provide a service that has actual benefit and then it’s worth something to me. At the moment, none of the paid services are worth anything to me because I don’t trust them at all.
Ros: I don’t think FACEBOOK is using clickfarms. I think the clickfarms are independent entrepreneurs. There are people who sell certain numbers of “likes.” Those people create profiles, and randomly click on things to like as well as the targeted purchases to make themselves seem more like…people.
For me on Facebook: At this point, Facebook is a mild net plus on ROI for me—and I do track these things pretty heavily, so I feel fairly confident about that. I occasionally boost posts about new releases, but no more.
If the organic reach falls off significantly, and Facebook stops being a mild net plus, I will stop giving Facebook any money at all.
I’m like Lisa J in that I don’t feel like need to share my everyday life with the world. In fact, I’ve told my nieces and nephews that if they want me to know something, they need to call or email or mail me. I joined FB only because some authors run contests there & you have to Like their pages to enter. I’m afraid, however, that I probably wouldn’t know if I won because I don’t go back to the page. I go to FB most days to see if Jon Paul has posted any of his gorgeous artwork and now that thegoddessblogs is closed, to see what Karen Hawkins has to say. I did just find out about the man wars last week so now I check out Kristan Higgins’ page just in case.
None of this avoidance of FB is because I’m a technophobe but simply because it just doesn’t add much value to my life (unlike your blog that I visit every day). But these sorts of articles make me even less interested. I’m happy with author emails & websites & blogs.
I’m a reader and a casual Facebook user. I don’t follow author pages because FB never puts them in my feed. Instead I rely on twitter, email lists, and RSS feed from blogs to find new books and authors. If I find something that catches my eye and click on it only to be sent to FB, I take a second to decide if the book really sounded that good or if I could just skip it. 80% of the time I close the window and forget about it. The rest of the time I surf over to kindle/kobo/etc to pick up a preview, or I add it to my TBR spreadsheet. I know I’m missing out on some good books this way, but fighting my way through FB just to get a teaser of a new book or a chance to win something wastes time that I could otherwise spend reading. The same goes for blogs/websites. I’ve had far more interaction on twitter than I have with any page on FB where comments can be missed and responses lost in all the pages of previous comments.
I’ve been on Facebook since back in the day when you had to have a college email in order to use it. It used to be about keeping up with people, which I liked, since at the time my friends had scattered all over the world for college. Then they let high schoolers join. Okay, fine. Then it was open to everyone. Great, I could keep up with family too! Now, as someone already said, it’s about who loves you most, or, in the case of my personal news feed, it’s very much a “Look at me! Isn’t my life fantastic?!” thing, especially as my friends start getting married and having children (if I have to see one more engagement photo album that’s just five dozen closeups of the girl’s ring…). I’m of the personal opinion that most of the people on my news feed are actually completely miserable and use Facebook as a way to try and convince themselves that they aren’t. The people who barely post are the ones who seem most content with their lives.
I still have my Facebook account, but I rarely post anymore (though I do have my Instagram linked to it, so it looks like I post more than I actually do). It annoys me that I’ve liked some artist/author/organization pages, but their updates hardly ever show up, which forces me to go to their pages to see what’s been going on. These days I spend most of my time on Twitter, which feels much less show-off-y to me. I find it a lot more fun to find people with common interests on Twitter, even if I don’t actually know these people in real life. My Twitter friends feel a lot more like friends than my Facebook friends, who are all actual people I know.
I loathe social media. Never did Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Instagram, Googleplus, none of it no thank you never gonna. If I’m actually friends with someone, I’ll be in contact with them. If I can’t be bothered to be in actual touch with someone, that means I can’t be bothered, and I’m not going to waste time pretending I care about the lunches or the children or the children’s lunches of people I don’t really know. (I do hope everyone gets a lovely lunch.)
As far as authors go, I will never understand why people want to be friends with their favorite authors. The more I like an author, the less I desire them to have a life. They need to crawl back into their cellars and get to writing. Ok, fine, they should have lovely and fulfilling personal lives (if that helps with their writing) but I would rather have a manuscript than a tweet.
In the early days of the Interweb, after Al Gore and I started the Internet (a family joke), I was in the marketing business and helped a number of small businesses get started with an online presence. The key then, and still is, to have content that changes and brings people back. Websites and social media which aren’t updated regularly are just placeholders in cyberspace. So, I am not impressed when an author only posts on FB when there is a new book out. Implication to me: buy my damn book. I personally like to know a little bit more about an author and what drives her to write the books I enjoy reading and where she is doing signings or talks. Although, I have to agree with KKW, there are some authors I wish would spend more time writing.
Also, wanted to add, I found this blog through a Facebook post by one of the authors I follow. And am glad I found you all as it has changed my way of thinking about authors and writing, and especially, about the books I am reading.
I’m mostly with kkw. I wouldn’t say loathe, just ignore. I find all this “please like me” more in common with insecurity and begging than adult professional life. I notice that businesses want me to go to their Facebook page to see their menu, or items for sale and I won’t do so. It costs $75.00 or less annually for a web domain; if you are serious about your business, why entrust it to social media with arbitrary rules and require customers to jump through hoops to view?
Perhaps because I’ve never used them, but it seems to me that it would be exceedingly time consuming to update multiple media sites on a regular basis. There are author and other websites (hello SBTB) I greatly enjoy. I visit when I wish, subscribe if I wish, and trust that the content is just what the author or other owner selects to present.
I maintain the Facebook page for a local club in which I’m a member. It’s frustrating that people who have “liked” the page (fewer than 300—appropriate for our membership) think that means they see every update from the club in their news feed. Of course, they do NOT. And I have noticed that when I’ve paid to boost a post on the club page, the organic reach of subsequent posts drops.
For me Lisa J. and kkw have said it all when it comes to my feelings about social media sites like twit/face.
Never gonna do it!
I only joined FB so I could keep up with authors – learning about book releases, upcoming books so I could be one of the first to add to my Want List on PaperBackSwap.com, and learn about contests. Facebook is making themselves pretty useless to me, which is incredibly annoying.
I like and use facebook as a private party – my profile is as private as I can make it, and I use the service to interact with actually close friends and family. I find it to be useful and drama-free, generally, but I do find it periodically annoying that it keeps changing the algorithm that determines what shows up in my feed. I am always surprised, when I see the “raw-er” feed on my phone, how much stuff FB decides I don’t want to see on my laptop. I notice that on a laptop or iPad, it tends to show me a lot of news stories and relatively low numbers of personal status updates, let alone updates from Pages. (Which I wish were different, because I follow a Page because I genuinely want the updates.)
I wish there were some kind of centralized way for me to follow authors and reading-related people I’m interested in. I do sign up for authors’ new-release mailing lists pretty freely.
Anyway, this post was really interesting. Thanks!
@kkw: you’ve said it all. I’m an author and social media is not my thing. My website and blog are enough to maintain and readers can find what they need there and not check 7 others sites. I do not have the luxury or energy to fritter away precious writing time updating numerous sites. I do have both a Twitter and Facebook account but I rarely use them. Twitter reminds me of being in grade school, in the gym and everyone is just shouting out stuff. I fully expect a virtual food fight to break out someday. And the one who shouts loudest and longest gets noticed. Nothing to do with intelligence or importance of the message. Just aggression. But hey, I still have a landline, write my manuscripts out in long-hand cursive and watch television shows on the tv. I am still mostly Old Skool.
@P. J. Dean – You are my type of author. If your blog or website contains all the relevant and up to date information on upcoming or previous books, then I am a happy camper.
All of the hash tags and stuff with Twitter and the friending people on Facebook stuff is like high school and God help me, I have no desire to relive that!
@Cordy: On a desktop or laptop, try clicking on the “Pages Feed” in the left sidebar. Here’s another alternative I just came across: http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-tells-you-you-missed-the-stories-it-chose-not-to-show-you-2014-03
This is disconcerting info – but I knew it. I’ve resisted paying for anything on FB because it seemed tantamount to telling a car salesman, “Ohmygosh I really want this car.” I appreciate the ability to reach and chat with my readers online – but I consider that interaction work. Anyone who observes an author interacting online and thinks he/she is having the same fun as spending time with her kids or meeting friends for lunch or happy hour isn’t thinking clearly. I’d MUCH rather spend my work time in my writing cave, and my personal time with people I love – especially if spending time on social media is going to (a) cost me more than my time in preparing posts and chatting with readers (i.e.: cash), or (b) not reach the majority of the people who follow my page anyway.
I wonder if FB understands that if celebrities, authors, sports figures etc stop bothering with FB, they’re going to eventually lose all those masses of people who are indeed tired of seeing what a “friend’s” engagement ring looks like from five angles, or hiding someone’s newest political rant. Those people – those FB users – click ads on their sidebars… unless they decide not to bother with FB at all. In which case, why should I – or any other entrepreneur? Waste of time and money – better spent with a website/ blog, IMO.
Great post and comments.
I have 2 facebook accounts. One is my ‘regular’ account per se, for friends and family and I use it regularly to keep in touch with overseas relatives, post family pictures, etc. And in the same way that authors have pen names, I have a ‘reader’ name and a FB account with it, linked to my Goodreads account. I use that one strictly for authors, blogs, and communicating with other like minded readers. I definitely interact with authors there and enjoy those interactions. I use twitter as well which is great, but sometimes the character limit is a hamstring for me (I’m wordy!) so with FB I can type longer messages 🙂
What Lisa J said about Facebook is more or less the same way I feel about Twitter. And Pinterest. And Instagram. I view Facebook as entertainment only. Therefore I don’t care what it does or doesn’t offer me personally. Also it is FREE. If you want something better than what Facebook currently offers/provides, maybe an
offer to pay for it could/would all you to customize it more to your liking.
In real life, I dumped Facebook a few years ago, then picked it back up when I entered grad school, to keep in touch with classmates between residencies. I enjoy using it more now than I used to.
As Mia (a pen name), I’ve Liked my favorite authors, and I comment on their posts occasionally (though I’m more likely to Like or Share a post than comment, so my email inbox doesn’t fill up with subsequent comments). I do sometimes hold off commenting if I’ve done so recently; feels stalkerish to comment a lot.
Mia’s author page has been a funny thing. Facebook gave me ad credit a couple months ago, which I used to draw Likes. Most of Mia’s author-page Likes came from that campaign. I post fairly regularly as Author Mia (though rarely more than once a day), sharing info about my books and process (mainly inspiring Pinterest images) and about offers/giveaways from my favorite authors. Basically, I aim to be friendly and generous. Not sure if I’m actually succeeding, though, because no one has responded to posts 🙂 More than half of my page Likes are anonymous—I suspect because I write erotica and erotic romance—and so I wonder if the lack of activity has something to do with folks not wanting their acquaintances to see them Liking or commenting on my page.
Frankly, I think that’s only a small part of it, because other erotica writers DO have engaged communities. It’s MUCH more likely I just don’t have the hang of using Facebook yet as an author. So I’ll keep trying. 🙂
I do NOT have a FaceBook account for one main reason. There are people I just don’t want to find me, look me up, etc.
Second… I have close friends who can spend HOURS on the thing and I just don’t have the time. I barely find the time to WRITE and READ, much less scroll through endless photos of people eating out, pets, babies and having a life.
I love Twitter and scarcely have time for that! It’s short, sweet (like me! Ha!) and to the point. If I see something that interests me I can look it up at my leisure.
My $0.02
Mia, this is why I have a separate FB page, so I can like erotica and contemp romance authors without freaking out my conservative religious family! Now I will have to look you up 🙂
I use FB personally, and I keep it locked down. It’s for people I know personally. I have an author page mostly because I don’t want to yammer about writing stuff to people who don’t care. I ran one ad campaign, got two weird guy followers and never ran another. I get more traffic by posting the link on my blog and twitter.
I can’t handle Facebook without using an addon to make the ridiculous parts if FB disappear. Social fixer or FBpurity remove ads, let me filter phrases, remove things I don’t care about like who changed their status and who commented in a picture.
I also use groups and lists a lot. Certain discussions only occurr among the “close friends” list not the “people that know my parents” list. I had weight loss surgery a few yrs ago… No one cares about how much protein I ate today but the people I talk to on my wls list.
I fully agree with arranging social media so that it works for you, and not expecting the entire world to rearrange itself for me. If I absolutely can’t make it work, in the case of Google plus, I just don’t use it.
Also I use author alerts website to keep up with authors and their release dates. It’ll send me an email when something comes out that’s on my list. If I start reading a new author and decide that I want to read everything they’re ever going to write, which happens very frequently, I add them to my list on author alerts. Goodreads will do the same but I like looking through the list to see what’s new. For example, I just found out that John Grisham is publishing another book this year. It just barely hit Goodreads.
Thanks, Christine! 😉
Well, this was a wonderfully enlightening and timely post. Disappointing, but enlightening.
I’m just starting to market my debut novella and have spent the last month working on ideas for a FB promo blitz. I started my author page and got a bunch of friends from my personal page to “like” it but… that’s where the glitz ends. Unless I pay to promote the page or my posts, I’m doomed to having 7-10 people see my posts. And now, from what you’ve said here, even when we pay, our exposure will be limited.
I agree that the folks at FB can do whatever they want. It’s their sandbox, after all. But this is like planning a party and putting “the party is here” signs around the neighborhood only to have some grumpy old bugger rip them all down.
It makes me think of other people and companies I’ve ‘liked’ and how little I get to see of their posts unless I purposely search for them. Sad. And frustrating.
Thanks for a great post. Lots to consider now.
Mia, I looked for you under “Mia West” on FB but didn’t find you! Do you go under a dift name?
(Christine, it’s facebook.com/authormiawest)
Sorry – totally don’t mean to promo myself here :/
I really appreciate reading everyone’s experiences with Facebook. I heard murmurs recently that authors are trying to migrate their reader communities from FB to Google+. Do you think there’s a shift in that direction?
I don’t FB either, for reasons very similar to what Autumn cited. It just seems like it makes you a sitting duck for people with bad intentions to find you. I use LinkedIn passively and I read my Twitter feed with glee, but I will only use FB if it becomes more problematic for me to keep avoiding it than to join.
Interesting post. Thanks, Sarah. I enjoyed your talk about Facebook at the Romance Writers of Australia conference last year and this is a depressing but realistic update.
Everyone’s comments here made sense to me (yes, even when they contradicted each other—FB and social media generally are contradictorily confusing). I laughed at KKW’s “The more I like an author, the less I desire them to have a life. They need to crawl back into their cellars and get to writing.” Absolutely!
Just want to say that I have chosen not to have a Facebook account. Friends have wanted me to but I didn’t because I didn’t know what it was. Then I didn’t because twitter was such a time suck that I didn’t have the time for both so I suggested twitter to my friends. Then Facebook anti-privacy stance came out and I avoided them even harder. I’m weakening a little but I really want to get through the FB phase without having an account.
Oh farcebook ( not a spelling error). I started disconnecting about two years ago, as a result of the garbage that would be at the top of my feed. So any author/group or event that insists on being solely reachable for things via farcebook, well I have to consider whether it’s worth it. I prefer author blogs ( however random or infrequent the posts) or twitter.
On a side note, my day job involves occasionally reviewing content for a finance institution to post on their farcebook page. The last thing I want to do is put my bank ( or similar) as a like on my account. It’s like handing hackers a blueprint of where to target. Plus I don’t like my bank, I tolerate them. I questioned who would possibly like a finance institution page. Apparently marketing professionals at rival finance institutions. Kind of reinforced my lack of interest.