I Don't Know What I'm Doing

It turns out, as an author in the digital age, I'm supposed to become an expert in marketing. Not just any marketing either. Visual marketing. As in: put yourself on camera for the whole world to see.

Back in the day (you know, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), the whole process seemed pretty simple. Write a book, publish the book, readers somehow find the book... Easy peasy lemon squeezy. (Yes, I know it was more complicated than that, but just humor me for a minute.)

Now? Now, not only are authors expected to write and publish a book, but post themselves all over the internet. On camera. With enthusiasm. Multiple times a day. This is mildly (extremely) alarming for several reasons, the first being that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. None. Nada. Zilch.

Ok, I admit, it might be slightly less awkward if I were still twenty-two and mildly photogenic. Instead I am forty-two, overweight, frazzled, exhausted, and blessed with a double gap tooth that makes me refuse to smile and reluctant to even open my mouth if any sort of recording device is pointed in my direction.

Influencer pretty, I am not, which is ever-so-slightly inconvenient when I'm supposed to record and post multiple videos a day across multiple social media platforms.

I am a debut author. My first book is due out at the end of September with an amazing publishing team who, I fear, have put far too much faith in my marketing abilities. I suspect they assume I have at least a vague understanding of how to exist online as an author. I do not. At all. (Sorry!)

Anyway, a little background. I’ve wanted to be a published author for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I’d eagerly dive into a new idea, full steam ahead, get halfway to the finish line, and then just… stop. I had notebooks and word docs full of half-finished stories and characters who never quite made it to the end of their journeys. I was writer’s block personified.

Then, suddenly, forty was knocking at the door and I realized I was running out of time to fulfill my dreams.

So I finally did it. I buckled down and finished a book, and now, at forty-two, that book is heading toward publication. Which is wonderful, and completely amazing… and slightly terrifying.

Social media, it turns out, would like to see you, your workspace, your face, your personality, your behind-the-scenes thoughts, and your daily life as an author. It wants sneak-peeks and character art and snippets of prose posted artfully against some kind of aesthetic backdrop, with whatever moody audio is currently trending.

This raises an immediate logistical issue for me. There is no aesthetic in a house where five humans and three animals live. There is life, there is chaos, and there is mess. Soooo much mess. Tablets are blaring. Kids are shouting. A cat is sitting somewhere it shouldn’t. The dog is barking. The bookshelves are full of abandoned toys.

If you’ve ever seen those author videos filmed in beautiful, softly lit reading corners with overflowing shelves of books and trailing plants, I envy those spaces. They look calm and cozy, like everything I could possibly want in a reading space.

My house looks like a tornado hit it. Other authors have dramatic towers of gorgeous hardcovers behind them. I have… the Kindle app on my phone.

Despite all this, I have been trying to show up online. Shockingly, I’ve actually managed to post a few videos now. I cannot say they’ve been wildly successful, but they do exist. My pets are far better at social media than I am. They wander through the frame, step on the keyboard, look cute and fluffy and not at all like the menaces they are (and I have the scratches to prove it!). They’ve gotten me more views than my own ugly mug has managed on its own, if I’m being completely honest.

I digress. Readers are curious about the person behind the stories they read. They want proof that the world and characters they’ve fallen in love with came from an actual human being, and not a water-guzzling data center. But it also means the writers who chose this creative outlet because it usually involves very little public scrutiny, suddenly find themselves standing in front of a camera trying to be interesting and captivating in thirty seconds or less.

Some people thrive on camera. Others, like me, do not. A large part of that is because I fear being judged for my appearance, rather than my work, but I think an even bigger part of that is fear of failure. That no matter what I try, how much I post, my beautiful little book is going to be ignored. Or worse, hated. No one is going to discover the world I dreamt up or meet the characters that have lived in my head for the better part of a decade, or they're going to hate every last word I wrote. And that's just a little bit heart breaking to think about.

Never-the-less, I’m still trying my hand at social media, because the truth is that social media is where readers gather now. It’s where new authors introduce themselves and where the worlds we build come alive. I will probably post the occasional terrible video. My background will almost always contain a hyperactive pet, and my lighting will be whatever the living room happens to provide.

But the stories are real, and they’ve been with me since I was a kid dreaming up imaginary worlds. They waited patiently through two decades of busy life until I finally sat down and finished one. Now they’re entering the world. If that means their author occasionally appears online looking frizzy and unkempt while a kitten walks across the keyboard, well…

That’s probably the most honest marketing I can manage.