Long gone are the days when authors could life their lives in the shadows, writing successful books from the comfort of home and knowing most of their avid readers couldn't pick them out of a lineup. Due to the rise of social media and the increasing reliance on those spaces for book marketing, more and more of us are forced to put a face with our names, giving the public access to not just our work, but ourselves.
For many of us, especially the indies who self publish or work with small presses that have limited marketing budgets, you have to be social to be successful. This can be especially hard for the socially anxious and introverted among us. I fall into that category, and performing socially has been one of the hardest parts of being an author for me.
Since it's been well over a year now since I started my professional author career, I thought I would share some of the strategies that have helped me survive the world of social media as a highly anxious person.
Here's five tips to make having a presence on social media more manageable:
Make friends. It's hard work, especially when you're anxious, but it pays off in the end because you are spending less time interacting strangers and more time interacting with people that you're at least somewhat comfortable with. Consider it an investment, and do the work now, because social media is so much easier when you're not just throwing ads out into the void. having conversations and interacting with others helps you find organic, relatable things to say, which in turn helps you gain followers and make new friends. It's a positive cycle that benefits you in multiple ways. Not sure how to go about it? I've got a blog post for that!
Decide what you're okay sharing and what you aren't. Just because you need a social media presence, doesn't mean you have to be an open book in all aspects of your life. You don't have to share your face to make videos. You can use a logo instead of a picture for your profile pictures. There are many ways to protect your privacy and what you share is up to you. I write under a pen name and while I've become comfortable sharing my own face, I never share the names or faces of my husband and children.
Guard your boundaries. Certainly this applies to all the things discussed in number three, but it goes beyond that as well. You are not required to engage in any trend or conversation that makes you uncomfortable. Being an author of romance or horror, for example, does not entitle people to ask you about your own sexual experiences or to send you images of violence. State your boundaries, guard them well by liberally muting and blocking people and topics you don't want to see, and never feel guilty for protecting your peace.
Stay out of things that aren't your business. If your version of social anxiety is anything like mine, it involves a stronger than average dislike of conflict. One could accurately describe it as fear in my case. The internet is full of conflict and people that like to be involved in it as often as possible. Despite my personal feelings, it's easy for me to see why others engage. Conflict gets you on the right side of the algorithm almost every time. It can be tempting to put your two cents in on those volatile subjects when it seems like nothing else you do is getting any clicks or views, but if you're conflict avoidant by nature, really consider the price before wading into those waters.
Set time limits. It simply isn't good for my anxiety to spend all my time online, endlessly scrolling, comparing myself to others, taking in all that conflict, worrying about what to post next. It tanks my mental health, and it does it very quickly. Since I have to be online anyway if I want to sell books, I've had to put some rules around the amount of time I spend on social media. I have a certain number of posts per day that I aim for on each platform and a maximum about of time I'm allowed to scroll those platforms otherwise. I also don't allow myself to spend much time on those platforms late at night, because for some reason it tends to make me sad. Experiment with what works for you, and keep your time within the boundaries you set.
Those are my five tips for surviving social media as an author with social anxiety and while it is admittedly not perfect, it has helped me a lot. By following these tips, I find myself able to do the marketing I need to do without letting social media anxiety overrun my life. I hope if you try this, that some these work for you!
Comentarios