I am not an influencer

I recently took a pole with my social media followers on Threads.  I asked, which is harder: Editing your novel or marketing your novel?  Everyone that responded said, “Hands down”, it is MARKETING.  Since I am still in editing mode, I thought for sure it was editing.  So, this tells me that I have only touched the tip of the iceberg of my challenges with being an Indie author. 

 

I have dabbled in creating posts, stories, and reals.  I am certain they need some polishing.  My skills with social media are minimal at best.  However, this past three weeks, I have truly stepped up my game in this area.  For starters, I am taking videos of myself and posting them.  At first I cringed, but I am getting used to it now. 

 

The biggest feat I have accomplished is learning to go live on both Facebook and Instagram.  My sister, Katie Lyn Easter, is a debut novelist like me and we decided to create a broadcast and go live on social media.  Our main reason for doing this was to help us get comfortable with talking about our book and sharing with others.

 

It has been fun so far and I actually don’t cringe when I watch myself anymore.  But, it hasn’t been without its challenges.

 

Episode 1 was on Facebook and my phone battery died right in the middle of the broadcast, Katie’s internet went out, and when I posted the live broadcast, it zoomed in on our faces, making us look funny. Honestly, I feel it added realness to who we are as authors and the real struggles indie authors face. 

 

Episode 2 was on Instagram.  Again, we ran into technical difficulties.  On this episode, we have about 20 seconds of dead space at the beginning. Then my icons to invite people, add comments and see comments shifted to the top of my screen in an area on my iPhone that is unusable.  We were unable to see the questions that other people posted, and lastly I was unable to stop the video. 

 

But for those of you willing to look past these glitches, I believe you will find a broadcast that you will enjoy….two debut novelists being real.

 

Katie said it best:  I set out to be an author, not a social media influencer.  But what we have learned is that as indie authors with limited budgets, we are our own marketing department, too. 

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“The only way you improve is to try new things” ―Charles Kock

“Don’t limit your challenges, challenge your limits” ―Unknown

“To succeed in life, you need two things:  ignorance and confidence..” ―Mark Twain

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