I’m watching writers everywhere making elementary mistakes in their social media handling. Indeed, it’s so common that I don’t think people are aware they’re doing it!
Today’s social media is sharply divided. There’s divisions over age, religion, religious expressions, and most importantly, politics.
Stop
One of the most crucial mistakes a writer MUST NOT MAKE is to forget that their success as a writer is not how well you write, how good your social media platform is, how well you network, who you know or even who your agent or publisher is.
Your success depends on the fickle whims of the reading public.
If you alienate your target audience, very simply you eliminate a group of buyers.
Some People Just Don’t Get It
I’ve actually read comments from people who don’t understand this fact: “What if I don’t want people on the other side of the controversy I’ve taken sides on to buy my book?”
In this case, it’s “What if they’re this other political party?”
The world of book sales has dwindled from what it was when I was a boy, and I owned over 300 books, crammed onto three book cases with sagging shelves.
People don’t buy as many books today. It makes the reading public kind of elite. Literally, there’s a rock group who elected the newest member of the band to write all their song lyrics just because the drummer preferred to read than watch TV.
This means one elementary fact that every publisher who happens across this article will immediately agree with – you CANNOT risk alienating your reading public. Every person you offend is one less person to read. I know Harlan Ellison offended almost everybody he met, but he did it at a time when so many people read he could afford to make those mistakes without hurting his career.
You’re not Harlan Ellison, and this isn’t the 1960’s.
Every potential book buyer you offend is one less who will buy your book. Share on XEcho Chambers
We get SO used to being within our own groups who agree with us, we forget we say things that offend.
We cast aspersions on political opponents. We assume that anyone who disagrees with us is a monster, uncaring, unthinking, a brute.
If this is how you wish to think, that’s fine. You are responsible for the choices you make, as am I.
The drawback is that we get so used to hearing the more extreme of our echo chamber that we become desensitized. We assume EVERYONE thinks like us, and thus, everyone except the monsters are right.
Remember the monsters buy your books too.
In fact, here’s a question you may not have considered: “What if 85% of my buying public is the other political party?”
Answer: Your books go unsold, you lose your publishing contract, and you’re stuck self publishing now.
The Other Question Nobody is Asking
“What if I’m wrong?”
I bring this question up because I’ve undergone religious conversion in my life.
It is very conceivable that we can be wrong, dead wrong on a given topic or persuasion.
What if I stake my public social media identity on being a “no mustard on egg salad sandwiches” controversy, and two years from now I find I am wrong?
That I love mustard on Egg Salad Sandwiches?
(try it sometime, you might be converted!)
Now I have a readership based entirely upon “Mayonnaise only Egg Salad”, and all of them are rebuffed by my move to Mustard.
I can lose my publishing contract, because again, the fickle buying public decides they don’t want my books!
And now I have to make my new dietary allegiance plain on social media, where I have to explain with egg on my face (I really went a long way to work this pun in, I promise you!).
It may turn out that if you get out of your echo chamber and examine facts, you might discover that your political beliefs were VASTLY mistaken – and you’ve irrevocably tied your social media platform to it. Alienated half of the buying public. And now you alienate the other half.
Now you’re hoping the first group will forgive.
Don’t Put Yourself in This Situation
What do you know about me from my social media posts?
I’m a writer.
I’m religious.
I’m ethnically Jewish.
I’m a musician who loves both Heavy Metal and Classical music, and can play MULTIPLE instruments, writes and records music, etc.
I love Godzilla movies.
And I’ve done Martial Arts for 42 years.
I’ve made it a point to not debate any issue publicly, including gun control issues.
My job as a writer is to write, not be a politician.
Learn from that.
Burned bridges sometimes can never be rebuilt.
