The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 49 – The Social Media Networks We Love the Most

Which social media platforms should you be using as a writer?

Are some better than others?

How many social media platforms should an author be on?

In this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper share the social media networks they love the most and insights as to why.

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper and I'm autumn. This is episode 49 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to discuss which social media networks or writers that we love the most. And this is pretty important because we all live in a digital world and especially as self published authors, social media place.

Autumn (54s): Well I guess for better or for worse, but it does play a role in expanding your reach. It does. I mean come on, you know, you and I actually have a confession to make. We've never gotten one person, so the digital core L it is incredibly powerful. Here we are partnering and teaming up across an entire ocean from each other and we're building a business and we're hope helping other writers that some of them will.

Jesper (1m 20s): Hopefully we do get to meet in person, but then we have to really on the line. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I, I mean, exposure something every author struggles with. I mean, okay, maybe unless you're like J K Rowling and George Lucas or some crazy stuff like that. But otherwise social media is pretty important. It is. By the way, mentioning George Lucas, did you see over the past month how he had been complaining about the direction district took with the star Wars movies?

No, I've actually stayed out of that because remember I was moving, so I really tried. You're not paying attention, so, no, it's been going on. Nobody's, I don't, I don't know how I really feel about this because I think I might be a bit off on the number here, but I think George Lucas was paid something like $4 billion or something for the rights to star Wars, like an insane amount of money. And I just, I dunno, I just feel like a bit, do you even have a right to complain and all the rights for that much money?

Autumn (2m 25s): I mean, shouldn't you just be off on your private Island and keep quiet? I mean, honestly, probably, but if you still feel in charge of the create, I mean, it's his baby shit. No, I agree with you. If you're going to be, yeah, if you're going to take something and you got to let it go and just let it go. Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent there, but, so how have you been autumn Oh, it's been good. I've been, like I said, so today makes it a week since am I moved into this new apartment in Brattleboro, Vermont, and it's been Yuto settling.

So it's been really fun to be stationary and not be moving every day. It's been a huge change. I won't say that. There's not times I miss it because I haven't lived in town. Um, when I lived in England, I lived in Manchester U K for nine months, once, and then I lived in Virginia and I lived in Blacksburg, Virginia, like right in town. My apartment. Um, it had a huge field out back and on the other side was literally the main street, um, with all the bars and everything else.

So it was like really right in the middle of everything. It's fantastic place. And so this is sort of, I don't even really have a big yard here, so I watch, you know, the one of the main roads is one of the quarters of the building. So I can see the main traffic going downtown. And it's hard because I miss the woods. I miss seeing water. I miss seeing the sunset over the lakes and in the woods. That's just, it is definitely where my heart is. But you have some water nearby that you can, I do, yes. I, that's one of the neat things I've discovered.

There's am Brattleboro is really kinda cool. There is within five minutes I can be walking in a forest and there's about 20 miles of trails including this huge ski jump that I cannot wait to see people going down this in winter. I've, you know, I do know how skiing, I'm not the world's best. I still snow plow a ton. Um, I'm not the best of paralleling, but I do ski and then to see this ski jump that's like, I mean I like roller coasters, but whole this day's going to be, I can't imagine going off this thing.

So, but behind it there's all these trails so I can be walking in the woods with the dog in five minutes or I can go the other way and I can be walking into town where there's cafes, I'm walking distance, the library and I'm so excited. I've already stuck my head in there trying to find out if there was any fiction writers groups and they're sort of is a creative writing workshop, but they're on break right now till maybe in the new year. And there is another one called right action and they're a little bit older and not that active, but talking to the director star, which I thought her name was so much fun.

Star and autumn were having a Tecton Tet and she thinks we should start one because there's a little bit of interest and there's other folks. So Hey, if anyone out there listening is in the Vermont Prato borough area, get in touch with Brooks library because I think you might be able to meet me in person. We might be doing a writer's group here. So it's exciting. This is am. I was talking to you before the show. There's something called your first hundred days. It's an old, it was actually a president of the U S came up with this idea I think.

And when I first started with my old job and was a new manager, I was given this by my supervisor at this idea that your first hundred days everything's in flux. You know, nothing has become a habit. Everything's still new and this is the time to reach out and network and find new things. And you know, those new habits started before everything becomes, you know, routine. So that's what I've been trying to do. I've gone to a meditation class, I found a pottery studio.

All this stuff is within walking distance. Are the co-op, which is this awesome food co-op is also within walking distance. I could probably drive faster to a grocery store, but there's something so cool about saying, Oh, I'm out a capers and being able to walk downtown and just go pick them up and walk back. Last night we did a beer run, um, because I just wanted to go get something and there's three breweries in town, so it's really kind of exciting. And I like your written settling in. I think so.

And it's only been seven days. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. So how's your week been besides you? I didn't have to go and move like I did.

Jesper (6m 46s): No, well, uh, yeah, I have my birthday over the weekend. That's right. So, uh, I hear it was a little quiet. Yeah. Well, yeah, no we didn't. No, we didn't do anything crazy at all actually. I went out, I went out refereeing a match and then, uh, when I came home I did a bit of chores and whatnot, but then, um, I, uh, uh, my wife cooked a nice dinner for us. We had a nice evening time. Uh, so, so that was, that was nice.

Um, but I also got stuff thrown at me on my birthday. That was a, yeah, because, because I was out, uh, I was up refereeing and I got both a captain's armband thrown at me and afterwards a soccer boot boot thrown at you. How did that, then there was this, uh, so the, the captain on the home team, he was a bit like a, he had a lot of temper. Um, so early on in the match she got a yellow card for being a bit aggressive.

Um, and then, right, right. Like one minute before the end of the match, F fourth was actually made against him. So, Oh, I awarded him a free kick, but then I, and I don't know what, I don't know if if somebody said something to him or if he was just angry because he was tackled so hard that he got the free kick or something, but he got up and he pushed the opponent really hard in the chest. Um, and they started shouting at each other and there was a lot of like stuff going on there.

So I ran over there and then because he shoved the other guy, I gave him a yellow card for that. Right. It means that when you get your second, it becomes red and which means that you're off. And then he, he just, I dunno, he went completely ballistic. So he's teammates has to hold him off because you wanted to go and attack me. But then he used his teammates, hell, hold, held him off. So instead he just pulled off his arm band and then he's spooked and threw them at me for this. Like, wow, it's

Autumn (8m 52s): not a good sign if he want it to attack you. I think he did need time out.

Jesper (8m 57s): Yeah. Maybe he went completely ballistic. Uh, but, and the, and the stupid thing was that he was the one who got the free kick. No, this is like, okay. Yeah. There's no explaining. I wouldn't put that one into a book because I think the cause and effect would be hard to figure out. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a real shame, but sometimes it's just like adults behaving like children, you know? And it's, uh, yeah. What can you do?

Right, exactly. I mean, there's sometimes in this, no, no reasoning with it. Adults, Oh, we go on the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast. Um, so I actually was quite a, what should I call it? Please or whatever. I should come. I posted one of our teaser post in the am writing fantasy Facebook group. Uh, and, and it just got a lot of cool comments. So I thought I would read a few of them out loud here because I thought it was quite cool.

That'd be good. It's a which post, is it? You have to read the post too. Yeah. So the post was a habit character catch a cold or possibly in the next chapter. Oh, right. I remember that one. Yeah. And then after that I basically asked people if they could come up with something funnier that could happen to the character. And then I didn't really expect that many wonderful suggestions and funny replies. But uh, I think people really, they took it really seriously and just started typing away.

So that was really awesome. So I thought I could just read some of them up here. Uh, so Curt was the first one in there and he basically put like three different suggestions. And the first one was having have the character cats are called are, possibly a fish. That's all you, there's just like this really dry humor. I thought that was funny. Yeah. And of course we also have had Jason in there. I was always saying that he was going to pass on commenting on this one because he's next chapter is when the character is giving his quest by the emperor and to sneeze upon the Imperial person is death.

I mean that was a good idea not to give the character called, yeah, I might want to skip on that. Of course he could be. So trained to suppress a sneeze and Oh, the tension. Cool. Yeah, that's true. Uh, and David also said that, uh, my main character was posted by a salt made from gobbling touch steel and he is suffering from the effects. So his body is weeping. A deputy pasta turns the skin into a hard cross. The scap that spreads when it onto foreskin will transform into an Auckland creature unrecognizable from his original self.

You know, it's fantastic. Yeah. So that there was a lot more comments than the store. Thank you everybody for contributing. I really liked that.

Autumn (11m 54s): The uh, there's definitely been a few more. Like I said, I was moving and settling in so I haven't read all of those, but now I have to go in and check. So that's all in the uh, amwritingfantasy a group on Facebook. So I'm going to go look. It's funny cause I wasn't there earlier. Um, because now when we're recording this, it is still November and then no, right. Moe is in full swing and I've been just loving, you know, some of the updates like day seven, how you doing? And that's already got 22 comments on it and people chiming in about, you know, how their word count, someone who got their seven day streak badge, Christiana Christiann and so, you know, congratulations.

And I just love the support. Even Melanie who said she's not doing well, but she had to finish a whole bunch of other stuff. So I just, yeah, it makes me feel good to see everyone chiming in and contributing and supporting each other as we go through NaNoWriMo and you share the experience and that's always, you know, what sort of what we're talking about today. So I don't want to jump ahead to social media networks but definitely I love whenever I need some encouragement or just to see good people helping each other out.

I love going into the amwritingfantasy group and yeah, it always cheers me on that.

Jesper (13m 13s): Yeah, I was just about to say also, uh, I think there, there is a really good tone in there. You know, people, there was no, nobody is nasty to each other, nobody's any, you know, they're just helpful, nice people. So I really like to see that. And of course if anybody's listening and have not joined the amwritingfantasy group, you just go to the group session and search by amwritingfantasy and you will, you'll be let in.

Autumn (13m 36s): Yeah. And we'd love to have more, more great writers there. So it's, it's definitely just a wonderful place to be.

Jesper (13m 48s): So in covering social media networks for writers that we love the most I don't know, maybe we should alternate a bit here. Autumn so that it's just like not one, one of us doing a long monologue. And then the other one, maybe we just go back and forth a bit on, on one at a time.

Autumn (14m 5s): That sounds perfect. So do you want to go ahead and get started? I can pay rent.

Jesper (14m 11s): Yeah. And I think maybe, um, maybe as, as we go through each one, maybe we try to give a bit of reasoning why, why we have those on the list. Uh, so, but, but maybe before I give my first one, I just haven't honorable mentioned and I want to share because it's, it's not really a social media platform, but, so it cannot go onto this office, your list here. But, but since it's just an awesome place to pick up new knowledge about writing and marketing and all that I wanted to mentioning and that is of course podcasts. You know, I guess you am now I'm talking to you at the are listener already know that since you're listening to this podcast.

Well, but if you do search your podcast app, you might be surprised to find a lot of great podcasts about writing and publishing. I listened to a lot of them myself and Andrew is really a lot of good stuff out there that, that you can listen to. So I just wanted to mention that upfront here. Now before we get started. It's always a good suggestion. All right. So I can start out here. Um, and I have three platforms in the total. Okay.

But then I also have two bonus ones that I can keep afterwards. We'll just see how far we get. But definitely you, you pick your first, your top one. Yeah. Okay. Um, so the first one on my list here is one that I, I do have some issues with it. You know, privacy on the internet is a topic that I'm quite concerned with ms.

Autumn (15m 42s): So perhaps you can almost guess what social media platform I'm about to mention here. Autumn Oh, I'm trying to decide if it's Facebook or Twitter knowing you, but with this, with the privacy concerns, I'm going to say Facebook. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean it's, it's Facebook. So I guess you could say it's the, it's the one that I love to hate.

Jesper (16m 5s): I think honestly, if we were not running a, an author business here, I would not be on Facebook. I don't trust Facebook. Sorry. That's, that's the truth. What I know. But that said, you know, from a social media platform point of view, Facebook has the largest audience of any of them out there. And not to mention the ability that you get to run Facebook ads with quite good targeting tools. I mean, probably the best targeting tools in the world at the moment. So there's no way around it that it's just an absolutely awesome social media tool for authors.

Uh, so, and, and of course we just talked about the amwritingfantasy Facebook group. I do love that one. So it's not all bad. That's true in our kids, of course, that's a group of fellow authors, but there's no reason why you cannot have a group for Rita's if that's what you want.

Autumn (16m 55s): So absolutely. That's my first one. Yeah. I mean, you know, I have a love mostly hate feeling towards Facebook. I don't know if, if I wasn't an author, I don't know if I'd be on it. And in fact I joined just because I became an author. And so I've always, I've only only ever thought of it, I don't think of it as, um, a place I'd go on to hang out as a person to stay up to date with friends and family. To me, it's like I've go on because I'm doing writing stuff and it's just, just another tool as a writer.

But I will say that the interaction and the amwritingfantasy group that is, it makes me realize that it is an awesome tool. When you find a really good group and you get involved and you pay attention, there definitely are some bonuses, I'll admit it, but it's grudgingly because there's many other things. And again, I don't, I don't feed it, I don't put in a lot of love and soul and time into Facebook cause I just have some now just makes me feel icky. But I do try to stop into the amwritingfantasy group.

So I kind of agree with you there. But I think my top and favorite social media platform for personal and as an author and meeting other authors and meeting readers is actually Instagram.

Jesper (18m 11s): Yeah, I had a feeling that would be on your list. I like the picture. So yeah, I mean I've been, I'm incredibly visual. Uh, you have a graphic artist background, so I love seeing pretty pictures, but it's also, it's the hashtags. Am you're allowed 30 hashtags, which is a lot, but I love how it's sorta like Twitter where you can search by hashtags, super easy.

Autumn (18m 31s): You can follow hashtags. So, and the am books diagram, which is the, basically the biggest hashtag for readers, and there's a ton of one like am reading fantasy and fantasy reader fantasy book series. There's all of these other ones that you know, you can just target those, meet other people. Then there is a whole bunch of author ones like amwritingfantasy and fantasy author, fantasy writer, indie writer. So you start targeting those and you meet other writers and there's lots of follow loops, Friday follow loop where you can then meet a whole bunch of other writers, authors, bloggers.

They're not, they're not exclusive. They're very inclusive and they're like, you like books. You're, whether you're a writer, whether you're a blogger, a book blogger, it's just fantastic. And then you get to see really pretty pictures of other people's books and yeah, so definitely been one of my favorites. Yeah. Dude, do I have a feeling of, uh, I mean, because I think at least a while back at least I was talk about how Instagram might be a bit easier to get into them to get some traction on, I should say, rather than the other platforms.

Jesper (19m 39s): Because it is a bit newish. I don't even know if we can call it new anymore but, but do you have a feeling if that's true or is it easier to get engagement on on Instagram compared to many other places? I think so. If you reach out and talk to other people, they get back to you very quickly. Um, I mean I have over 2000 followers, which I think I grew my Twitter followers a lot faster than I'm going my Instagram ones.

Autumn (20m 3s): But they seem very interactive and very talkative. Um, you end up in conversations, they're very easily and it's also a younger crowd. I think the Facebook ones are 40 plus an older, more with some younger ones because we feel like we have to be on there because it's so big. Instagram is, you know, the J K Rowling's a 20 somethings a teenagers, the 30 somethings, they're on Instagram. And so I'm meeting a lot of very young voices and very just excited and dynamic.

And I think that's sort of maybe the difference. Do you think it can be used to generate sales, so to sell books and stuff? Possible, do you think? I think so. More like an engagement platform. No, I mean there's am obviously your Facebook ads can now be placed on Instagram and I do see those. I do see people, you know, mentioning the free book offers and people share them like hotcakes, you know, they'd help spread the word really. It reminds me of Twitter and I'm sure we'll get to Twitter. That reminds me of her away when I was younger.

But um, when I first joined Twitter, it has this kind of vibe that Instagram has now where it's super helpful, super nice people that are really, of course you still get your creeps in, your spammers, you've got to watch out for those are everywhere. But in general, my experience there has been super positive and yeah, I think it's a fantastic place. And I do think you can, you can definitely hit find readers and you can definitely find book bloggers who want to talk about your book and you can network with people really solidly.

And so yeah, I think you probably can sell books, but the very least you can find the networks to be able to sell more books. They're right, but can you post links with your pictures on Instagram? So can you direct people to somewhere else? It helps to have a short link so you, unless you're paying for an advertisement, it is not a clickable link. So what most people do is they have it in their bio, like a, there's something called dry tree. Yeah. Yeah. If you click on my bio link tree link, it actually then list four or five different buttons so I can direct people through that to wherever I want him to go.

Jesper (22m 11s): Okay, cool. Yeah, because basically when I, when I run our Facebook ads and whatnot, I, I can definitely see if I run them to Instagram, that performance is a lot worse than if I just run them on Facebook. So that was why I was wondering a bit about how efficient you, you view it as an advertising platform.

Autumn (22m 29s): I think as advertising and my PC, a waste of money, it is more being on there and being a member of the community that makes it different than organically kind of grow it and get other people to share it and spread the word all right. Right. Okay, cool. So what's your next one? What's number two? Yeah, so number two on my list is Twitter.

Jesper (22m 55s): One of those two would be your top two. So I guess this, this is too easy for you to get these five known you for a minute. Maybe you kind of guessed the next one. We'll see. Yeah, we'll say, yeah, I post a lot, a lot on Twitter. I mean really a lot and I gauge with a lot of people there as well. And I, I really like it as a platform. I think it's, it's, it's, it's an easy way to communicate with people. It doesn't take much. And also because of the, let's say RADA short messages or the tweets that cannot be too long.

I kind of like you, you kind of dipping in and out of conversations here and there. It's, it's like a, like a cocktail party thing. We're just going around. You're dipping in here and there where you want to and on, on Twitter ads. That's perfectly fine. You know, you can, as long as you keep on topping, you can, you can sort of bought into other people's talk conversations about and whatnot. And it's, it's very informal and I like that. Um, and I, I have sold some books from being on Twitter, but not a lot a I, and honestly, I don't think it's the best place to connect with readers if, if that's what you're looking to do.

But what I will say is that if you're trying to expand your network and meet fellow authors, then I think it's excellent. I mean, there was a lot of authors on Twitter and it's quite easy to stop some conversations. And then of course some of it will develop an and whatnot and you'll talk more and more to the same people over time. And I think on bet sort of one to one conversation basis, Twitter's probably one of the best platforms out there. Yeah, I think I used to be my favorite used to be my hub, just the way Instagram's become my hubs.

So from Instagram I like feed out to my other feeds because that's usually if you want to get me in person, that's where I am.

Autumn (24m 42s): But, and my Twitter feed is languishing because I don't even go in and check it as much as I used to. But I, that's where I started and I gained a lot of followers pretty quickly and I still, I mean I know you way out paced me cause you've put a lot of time in there still. Yeah. I think I have 52,000 or something like that. Like I'm somewhere in the 2020 fours or something like that cause I just really have not been paying attention. But I do. I remember someone once saying that you will always remember your first thousand followers and you know those were the definitely some of the deepest conversations I had.

But they do. I do remember that is when I first started publishing and the authors, there were the ones that it made me realize how amazing the author network is, how helpful they are. Um, very little pushback and lots of support. And I know that's probably still there, but I just don't connect. And I used to love the humor. Oh my gosh, authors are so snarky in 140 characters and now it's 280 characters. But back in the day when it was 140, they cracked me up.

The funny things that could come up within, so fuel characters. And so that was always my favorite. But I, yeah, the more recent politicizing and other things, it's been hard for me to sort through. So I've kind of neglected my Twitter feed. But that's nice to know that you say it's still there. No. Yeah. But I think a lot of it has to do with, with how you use Twitter. I mean, for example, I never scroll through my, my main feed because if I scroll through the main feat, there'll be a ton of different, uh, you know, the political stuff and all the stuff we don't even want to talk about on this podcast here.

Jesper (26m 26s): But there's going to be a lot of that in the main feed of Twitter. And I'll never scrolled through that. So what I do instead is that, um, uh, once a week I go in and I check, uh, so I use, uh, who tweet. And within Hootsuite I've set up different cues that for different words. So for example, I have one for fantasy maps. For example, I have one for world building, I have one for fantasy books or something like that. I don't remember them all, but I probably have like 20 of them.

And then I look through those and I see and that just find some interesting stuff that I liked there. And then I comment on that. And, and, and, you know, and today after somebody will reply and then the conversation goes for a bit there. And so it's, I really like actioning it. Like that and, and of course, and then I have, you know, a system set up so that I'm posting our podcast episodes on a regular basis goes out without me having to do it manually and so forth. So that automat automization of course helps.

And if course also helps that if you have well quite a lot of followers than you automatically get a lot more likes in which which and whatnot. But uh, but I would also say, I mean I don't think it matters too much. I mean, maybe I should start a different place, but a while back, I think a lot of people got really hooked up on how many followers you have on this platform and that platform. And honestly, I don't think it matters. Uh, I don't think it matters if you have 2000 followers or 52000 like myself.

I don't even remember the exact number, but around that, I don't think it matters. I think all that matters is how you're using it and, and what, how you engaging with people that that's, that's all that medicine. You can do that just as fine with a thousand followers that you, that you can with 52. I mean I really wouldn't get up hung up on the numbers. It also drives people crazy because then you're chasing the numbers and you're sort of missing the point that it's in the word, right. It's called social media social. It's right there in the world.

So you need to be social there. You're not chasing numbers. So I think that's true.

Autumn (28m 36s): The platforms were mentioning it's really about forming a network and putting the time and him being there. Because I know, I remember when I was on Twitter and people were complaining about it, just everyone on there seem to be bots. Um, but it's, you know, when you find a real person and you can actually really talk to them. And that is key I think with any platform that it isn't the numbers, it is actually putting in the time and finding friends. Basically it's, it's like Chino choosing your favorite cafe or your favorite bar. You're going there because of the atmosphere because it feels right because it's people you want to talk to.

And if you're just in there because you want to be looked at or you want other people to, you know, put you up on the stage and, and follow you, you're not going to get the same experience. No, I agree. Okay. Do you have one more? Yeah. Well, let's see. That's a tough one because I definitely, like I said, I start with Instagram. It's if I have time, because time is so huge. It's where I go. But there are a few other ones. Like I've recently joined a writers' groups on mighty network, so there's a couple on there. It's a more of a new network.

Um, it's what you got to watch for because you can join for free and join some groups and be able to interact, but then they can have certain areas that you have to pay for. It's one of those ones that has some hidden subscription areas. And so you do have to watch that. Those always, Kenny irritate me. It's, yeah. You know, if people want money, I'd rather than be on Patrion and say, Hey, support me here. Then you want access to this, you have to pay for it. It's, yeah, not everything I understand. I mean heck, we run a business, we know, you know, is there a cost to everything, but I like when people are up front about it.

But I will say that there some great interaction. It's sorta reminds me of Instagram where there's, um, you know, you can have the pictures and then you can have a lot more posts and links and those links are alive. So that's, and again, it's, I followed a group of authors over there that I already liked, so I already, I went with instant friends. It, since it's a smaller community, we can talk a little bit more direct. So that's kinda nice. And I, I've been enjoying that. But if anyone else sort of wants something that's in between Facebook and Instagram and once more talking, if there's look at some of the groups on mighty networks, there are some nice ones.

And like I said, and just try to find one where, you know, it has a vibrant community that doesn't always lurk behind the pay window.

Jesper (31m 2s): Yeah. And I think mighty network was also the one we were looking at at some point with an appreciative we should use that. But uh, I think how well their Facebook group is going, there is no chance that we're moving away from that. Facebook dies at this.

Autumn (31m 17s): But that's okay. You know, it's, it's grown organically and you can't argue with that.

Jesper (31m 23s): No, no indeed. Okay, that's cool. I've never tried a mighty networks. I looked into it a bit when we were considering but the eye, so my knowledge of it is fairly limited. But is it more like, is it more like what I said for Twitter that is good for connecting with other authors and, and building that whole or do you think so it's not like a place where you could sell books in

Autumn (31m 44s): no, it is totally just for networking. I haven't seen anything on there for advertising other than being able to say, Hey, but if you want more of this, you have to pay to get access to it. So I'm not sure how keen I am on that pop though. Let's see. That's where I'm at. It's like, I really like y'all, but I don't think I want to pay to be your friend.

Jesper (32m 7s): No, it's okay. No, I think I'm a, I'm at the same view as you. I mean, if then put people, direct people to Petra on if they, if they really enjoy what you're doing, then uh, and then you can really focus on it too. So I don't know. Yeah. Now on Petra, on you, you, you can give them, of course, you can give them extra content, like, like we try to do on our Petro and page, but you can also give them a special rewards and whatnot. Right. And it feels a bit like, I dunno, it feels a bit icky to me if you're supposed to pay to be on a, on a social media platform.

Okay. On the other hand, to be fair, you could to some degree say the same thing about Facebook, because if you post something, you have to pay Facebook to show it to your followers. Right? So in that way, I guess you can say that's not a true different, but

Autumn (32m 51s): no, and I was gonna say am if you're already, it kind of gets you already on that because you're there to talk to people and then you can, if you do go into the special access airy gives you just like an extension instead of a whole different website. But I haven't explored that territory because I just, I just haven't, I feel like that's not why I'm there on the social media. I'm just there to network, so I, I owe, everyone has something to learn, but I just don't feel like paying for it right now.

So do you want, what's your number three then? You said you had three?

Jesper (33m 26s): I have three and two bonus ones. So my number three is YouTube.

Autumn (33m 31s): Oh really? I should have guessed that. Because you have had a YouTube channel for we have had, yeah. Well you started before me for two years and then we teamed up for a year and we still keep it going even though it's now mostly this podcast. So that's interesting. So what do you like about you

Jesper (33m 50s): as a social networking now? Yeah, so, so I, I'm also a bit conflicted with this one, but I think I'm coming at this right now from the point of view as North of course. Um, and as you said, you know, we ran a YouTube channel for a while together as well, and then we converted into like a full on podcasts like we're doing now and I, I very much do not regret that decision one bit. I mean I think we did the right thing.

Yeah. You 100% agree. Yeah. So, so the YouTube channel is still alive in the sense that we upload a version of this podcast to the YouTube channel in case some people wants to listen on YouTube. So that's absolutely fine. It's not a lot of extra work for us to just to upload that there. So we do that. But that aside, you know, just because we and I and we were not able to make it work for us, does not mean that it's not a very viable platform for authors.

Because I have seen a lot of YouTube channels run by authors who have excellent success with it. It was built and huge audience on YouTube by uploading videos there. And I think why I have it on my list here is because I firmly believe in the power of video, and I know I've said this to you in our private chats many times as well beforehand, you know that, but when, when we just can see you on camera, it just builds another level of trust and connections.

So,

Autumn (35m 23s): and so do you see authors using this as a way of networking with other authors are a way of trawling in readers? What are they, what are the ones you see that are successful? What are they doing? I, I, I've seen

Jesper (35m 34s): both. Um, I, I the most of them that I see. So in that sense you can say that is a parallel to podcasting here as well. It's, it's, it's a lot easier to have a podcast or YouTube channel that talks about, you know, advice for authors. So like we do here we are authors talking to other authors about something specific, Ali on how to do am marketing and selling books and all that stuff. That's a lot easier because you have a lot of how to stuff that you can discuss.

Whereas as fiction it becomes a bit more difficult because, okay, what are you supposed to talk about? You know, if you just upload videos, uh, about, uh, you're talking about a different character or whatnot, you know, then for the random viewer who will just come across you in the search on YouTube, they probably wouldn't engage, not because they have no clue who you are. I said they wouldn't care. But I have seen a few am where they talk sort of about their writing process, but not in the way that they talk about advice for authors, but more a bit more angled to what a reader.

So they just talk about how they write and what they're thinking about and, and that sort of thing. Which and this is probably where the wheel fell off. For you have to be extremely good at creating very, very engaging content in on video because actually on YouTube, you know, if, if, if there's just like 30 seconds where people get bought the click away. Yeah. So it's, at least in my view, and maybe some other people will be, we'll find YouTube to be very easy to use, but at least in my view it's incredibly difficult.

Um, but, but if you can make it work, I mean it is one of the biggest search engines in the world. So it is, yeah. I don't think you can neglect it. Okay.

Autumn (37m 33s): Yeah, it makes me make me want to go back and like I used to do a lot of blogging and talk, you know, targeting readers and talking about my process and to be, it seems almost easier than I'm sitting there and typing it all out, but just doing a vlog and putting it on my website. But yeah, I know we've, I've been there with you and there's no way I'm going to be producing something with B roll and special effects. You gotta be a film major. I'm sorry you are a specialist.

Jesper (38m 2s): It is. It is a lot of work. And there was, of course, there was also a lot of competition on YouTube, so it's not easy.

Autumn (38m 10s): Yeah. That's why I thought should know if I linked it with my website and my existing blog, that might be an actually a pretty cool way of getting it going again because goodness knows I've been neglecting it and if people liked it so much this year, but 2020 is coming up, I will get better. 2019. I can't wait till it's over.

Jesper (38m 30s): There's one of the, uh, one of the authors on who's a email list I'm on, uh, he to actually in the emails that he sends out, he sends out a, uh, a video. So not in all of them, but in most of them, he, he had some video where he's talking about something and that actually, I mean, again, of course it's a lot more work, but it works pretty well because in the email you get a video of him talking about something that's pretty clever. But again, it's a lot of work so.

Or think about the, the F yeah. Ooh, go to back to that one. Anyway, we're on social networks, so I think I've got a runner up for my three like two different ones because to ones that I'm engaged with, what I used to be really engaged with. What Pat, it was great. I actually have my books and a lot of short stories and stuff posted there and I just haven't been keeping it up.

Autumn (39m 21s): But it was so much fun to network with readers. I mean a lot of the time you're literally targeting readers, some of them might be other authors, but what Pat is all about finding readers and that is just, it's perfect. And they're younger readers mostly, I mean 13 two twenties that's, if that's your target audience, you should be on what pad. And if you're an author that's just getting your feet wet and you want a lot of feedback from like beta readers, uh, what pad? It's free.

They have some levels now where you can pay for stuff, but it's just dynamic and amazing. And I really, every time I think about it like I've got to get back into Wattpad and it's just, yeah I need to be focused. I have this goal of getting back into like just diving into one or two serious social media networks. And the other one, the one that I've recently actually even took it online training that you targeted am and you sent to me was good reads a good ratio. Yeah. You sent me an email that there was this KTP cause some say animal Amazon owns it.

They were having a like basically hack good reads for authors and I sat in on that and it was, there was stuff I did not know. Some really cool ways of talking with readers. Um, sharing your favorite passages, why you wrote some things, what inspired you, how to make that more of a social media site. Not even going into the forums, which I, my husband and I have this argument all the time. I really hate forums. There's no pictures in forums. They're just there. At least it's like something they made in the 1980s when people are still typing dos and using all of the horrible there.

So aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, I don't do forums. So the good reads forum is like, you know, I go there and I'm like, Oh I just went into the swamp of despair and I don't want to stay here. But there's other parts of good reads that are much more interactive and ways of talking to readers and that I wasn't truly using. And so I've told myself I'd go into good reads every day and try to do something and I haven't been, but it's been a busy week. But we'll get, I do have that goal and maybe I should put what Pat on that once I have good reads and get back into it.

But definitely if Wattpad and good reads, if you are looking to target readers, those are my two that say learn to use those. If you've got questions am I'm getting good at one and I used to be pretty awesome at the other one. Awesome enough that people would actually be emailing me, asking how I got so many likes and comments on chapters as I released them. So apparently I was doing something right and what Pat and die, I left it for some reason. Yeah, well it happens. It does.

Well I think you still have your two runners up, so come on. We still have a few. I have the final two bonuses yet I put them on bonus list because a, I'm not using these myself so I didn't think it was fair to uh, to basically put them on the official list.

Jesper (42m 15s): But as bonuses I wanted to mention them because I think they are they important? Um, the first one is NaNoWriMo. I've never done a rhino myself, but I understand that there is a lot of support that you can get there. And I don't know if this is like the old school forum stuff that we just mentioned or not, but I think there's a lot of engagement between people there. So I think if you're looking for some encouragement and, and want to do join a lot, and I mean really a lot of other authors, 8,000 words in the month of November, then I think not over, I'm a might be a thing that is worth checking out and don't forget there is now is the June or July camp NaNoWriMo.

So if you do a summer one, and I think it's a little bit lower pressure.

Autumn (43m 1s): So if the 50,000 words scares you, try camp one in the summer. And yeah, I've never done it either because I know I could write a book. Um, and I know I do not want to put that much pressure on myself because I would take it way too seriously and freak out and be upset and yeah, my whole life would collapse because I have to write so many words a day. So I've never done it. But I, I love, I love the encouragement. I love everyone doing it together and I kind of feel left out and like, I want to do it one of these days.

So, uh, yeah. And the other bonus that I have, you actually already mentioned, Oh, it's good reads. Uh, because I think that is also when there's a lot of readers on good reads. So I think it's important. 9 billion readers on good reads or not, not 9 million. Sorry. It is just amazing the amount of readers. Um, yeah, it's, I'm trying to learn it because seriously it is an amazing platform if you can figure it out.

Jesper (44m 3s): Yeah, that's the thing again. And of course as we also talked about in uh, in a previous podcast a while back, I mean I still don't know what it is that Amazon wants to do with good reads, but maybe we'll figure that out one day. I still cannot quite work out if it's just a, if they'd just asked her the data and the reader list or what they offer, I'm not quite sure. But it is weird how they have not done any updates on, on good reads or changed anything and after they purchase is just to shame seems shitty, shitty looking

Autumn (44m 32s): website. It does need a refresh. But there are some cool trips, ticks and trips and talk tips and tricks you can do with it that maybe we should talk about one of these days. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Did you have any more on your list or is that it? That's it for me. I think I, I'm happy with that. That's pretty much the key I think we covered.

Jesper (44m 56s): Excellent. So I think just in in rounding off here. Just wanted to add a few last words. I want just once just to tell you, dear listener, you know, don't, we mentioned a lot of different social media platforms here, but please don't go out and try to be everywhere. You know you're going to kill yourself and then just pick one or two social media sites that you already like and then learn how to master those and then expand later on as, as, as those become second nature and easy for you to do.

So it's really not worth killing yourself over with stress from trying to be everywhere on every social media platform out there. I mean, social media is important, but it's not so important that it's going to make or break your writing career as an author. No, not as much as actually not being on social media and writing her book.

Autumn (45m 49s): So talk, go crazy and spend all your time on social media. Yep. That's the final words. And next Monday, autumn and I will be back to discuss the all important book description, also known as the book.

Narrator (46m 5s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.