in The Writing Life 994 Words

I Feel Like the World has Passed Me By

I recently read a blog post that made my head spin. It left me wondering if I can make it as a writer. The world is changing at warp speed, and I cannot keep up.

My post today is a bit of a rant. Please bear with me. I’m curious. Do you feel the same way, or am I just an old fuddy-duddy? (Granted, if I casually use the term “fuddy-duddy,” I probably am one.)

What set off this particular rant (a.k.a., blog post)?

The blog post I’m referring to is https://writersinthestormblog.com/2024/02/social-media-best-practices-for-authors-in-2024/. This is a blog I have followed for years and I usually benefit from reading the posts. This particular one gave me pause.

I didn’t realize how much I was lagging behind in the world of social media until I learned that “you might want to consider IG Thread, Mastodon, or Bluesky (still in Beta and by invite only). The stated goal of Threads is to become part of the Fediverse (of which Mastodon is a part) so many people have just jumped straight over to Mastodon.”

WHAT?

That one paragraph was confusing on so many levels.

I continued reading and learned that there is also a social media platform called BeReal, in case I want people to know where I am at all times.

No thanks.

I learned that Reddit “has released an API in preparation for its upcoming IPO.” I have used Reddit, but I don’t know an API from an IPO. In fact, I have very little interest in learning the difference. (I’ve looked them up before, but I don’t have enough brain cells to clutter up my head with information I don’t need to recall.) It’s frustrating to read an article about what authors need to know about social media when you don’t understand the abbreviations. It’s overwhelming.

Granted, API and IPO were clickable, but the assumption is that I should already know what they are. It just reinforces my feelings that I’m so far behind there’s no hope for me to catch up. And, oh… in my spare time, when I’m not studying the latest technological advances and numerous social media platforms, I can do historical research and turn that into a novel.

I also learned from the Writers in the Storm blog post that “Google has been talking about E-A-T for a few years now, but with the extensive use of generative AI, they have added another E. This is good news for us, as their requirements and Quality Rater Guidelines for good content will almost certainly exclude most AI-created content. E-E-A-T stands for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.”

The explanation of E-E-A-T was much appreciated because I had never heard of E-A-T in the first sentence of that paragraph, much less E-E-A-T.

My readers know I’m not the most computer-savvy person in the world, but I have managed to write a blog on a regular basis since January 24, 2010, format and publish two local history books, two short stories, and a cookbook for publication. All but the cookbook are available in electronic as well as print form. I’m on Facebook and have many boards of interest on Pinterest. I’ve learned how to create book covers and memes. I put a new meme on Pinterest six days a week to publicize my various books and short stories. I’ve created bookmarks, flyers, and business cards. I publish an e-newsletter. I have my own website.

Apparently, it is not enough.

I should not have to be a technology whiz to be an author, but I have read and heard a multitude of times that I need tens of thousands of followers on social media if I stand a chance of catching the eye of a literary agent or book publisher.

Perhaps I was born in the wrong century.

And did I mention the scammers I have to deal with several times a week?

I’m proud of my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2014; however, I can’t visualize it as a movie. I get numerous phone calls from people speaking broken English telling me that I can make boatloads of money if I agree to let them turn the book into a movie. I received a call a couple of weeks ago from someone claiming to be with HBO promising me $300,000 if I would allow them to turn my postcard book into a made-for-TV movie.

The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, by Janet Morrison

Yeah, right! I’m sure it would be a blockbuster.

Since my last blog post

I’m putting the finishing touches on my March newsletter. If you have not subscribed to my newsletter, please go to https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com, click on the “Subscribe” button, and fill in your email address. In return, you will receive a free downloadable copy of one of my short stories, “Slip Sliding Away: A Southern Historical Short Story” and you will receive my newsletter every other month.

In my newsletters I give details of the “field trips” I take to do research for my historical short stories and the historical novels I’m working on as well as photographs from those trips. I give more information about the things I’m doing to move my writing career forward than I do in my weekly blog posts.

I promise I won’t bombard your inbox with emails!

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. As usual, I’m reading several books. So many books… so little time!

Please get your news from more than one reliable source.

Remember the people of Ukraine and let your representatives in Washington, DC know how you feel about aid to that country. It just might get through to them and make a difference.

Janet

31 thoughts on “I Feel Like the World has Passed Me By”

  1. Just reading the Writers in the Storm article made me tired. As far as I’m concerned, the conventional wisdom of focusing on the two or three social media platforms where the readers who would most appreciate your work hang out is valid. I set up a Substack account a couple of months ago because it is gaining a lot of traction with writers, and I think it may become the preferred platform for writer’s blogs at some point.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Well Janet, I understand completely but I simply ignore all those sites, platforms, social media etcetera… I am content with WP and Instagram and my publicist uses Facebook too, but I stay away from all the rest. Recently I joined Threads on the prompting of my team but I’ve yet to post anything on it. I know one has to keep up with the times, but the times they are a-changing too fast for me and I don’t have time for all that, so I steer clear. In any event, yes, be quite careful with scammers. I deal with them too, sometimes calls or messages through IG offering me way too much for paintings, I delete and block them all. I am only interested in buyers that come face to face or who come through my dealers. I had a scammer telling me he was from Nigeria (immediate red flag) and that he wanted one of my paintings which he saw in the website of a gallery I had exhibited in New York and that he was moving to London and wanted the painting for his new house. He was quite thorough and identified the painting by name and size and even provided a phone number. Needless to say it was all a scam in the making as he wanted to pay, more than the asking/agreed upon price, with Money Orders which I would cash and send him back the remaining amount. I received the Money Orders and immediately contacted the US Secret Service and they confirmed they were phoney and confiscated them and started an investigation. I knew it all along but I wanted to see if we could catch the crooks… In any event, I hope your book does well, I am sure it is beautiful. Keep up to good work my disciplined and hard-working friend. All the best!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. You have done well and is still doing great as an author so I don’t think you should worry about all those new technology. Everyday something new comes out and it is hard to keep up. Have a great day.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Yes, just reading the Writers in the Storm article was exhausting! I don’t have the energy or the technical savvy to keep up if this is the way things are going to go. I agree with you that most advice for writers is to find one’s lane and concentrate one’s efforts there. I looked into Substack months ago but never did pursue it. Perhaps I need to check it out again. Thanks for mentioning it to me.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Thank you for the encouraging words you so often send me. I don’t feel disciplined when it comes to time management. The majority of each day’s to-do list usually get push to the next day! LOL! I think I can’t do as much in 24 hours as I think I can. I’m posting more on Pinterest, but it’s hard to know if those efforts are paying off. I got off Twitter when Elon Musk bought and subsequently ruined it. I didn’t spend much time on Twitter, but I had made some writer connections there. I hated to lose that aspect of the platform. That was quite an experience you had with the scammer! They are very cunning. Hurrah for you for pursuing it with the US Secret Service! It’s 9pm… it’s time to cut and paste half of today’s list and add those tasks to tomorrow’s list….

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Thank you, Beverley, for the kind and encouraging words. I appreciate what you said about the new technologies. There’s no way for anyone to keep up. I know I can’t do everything. I’m tired of all the outside pressure that writers need to do it all. Have a good week

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Hi Janet – social media. Ignore it. It’s pay to play these days, and even paying doesn’t get you much unless you spend a lot of time and money on it. Blogging, or paid advertising (say directly on Amazon or via book promotion sites with lots of subscribers) will provide much better returns.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. I think you’re right, Chris. I would have liked to have had the validation of being published by a commercial publisher, but I think that ship has sailed. Fortunately, being self-published isn’t looked down upon as it once was. I’m inspired by what you’ve been able to accomplish.

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  23. Haha, some of that jargon is mind-blowing! If it’s any consolation, I suspect all those new communication methods are probably used mostly by authors trying to appeal to the YA market. Us mature types seem to still stick to Twitter and blogs, at least as far as I gather from the zillions of book blog posts I read each year! Most of the readers I follow never even got into watching book-tubers which was the new big thing a couple of years ago, and as for E-E-A-T… what???

    Liked by 1 person

  24. I love your comment! Just what I needed to hear. I think you’re right. I hadn’t thought about the YA authors’ aspect. Thank goodness that’s not what I’m attempting to write! My Twitter account got hacked last summer and gave up on it. When Elon Musk bought it, that was the last straw for me, although I do miss some of the writerly connections I had made on there. It’s all I can do is tread water without taking on any more social media platforms. I am what I am, and if that means I don’t make it as an author… so be it. Your comment made me think and laugh. Thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

  25. I did, too. It was a genealogy software in the early 1990s that promised you could add an unlimited number of people. When it completely shut down on my 10,000th individual, the company said, “Well, we thought it could. We’d never actually tried it.” I guess each of us of a certain age have similar stories. I just wish when I was born someone warned me that the computer age was coming and it wasn’t all going to be pretty.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. After receiving some helpful feedback from this particular post, I think I, too, should be content not to be in the loop. I think I’ll let the writers who are 50 years younger than I tackle the technology. I need to concentrate on my writing. I hope you are doing well, David.

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  30. Janet, I read that piece and here are my 2 cents:

    1: you can spread yourself thin and do a mediocre job at them all, or do a few things right. I am heavily in favor of the latter having made the mistake to join all sorts of networks, sites, forums.

    2: if you know where your audience comes from (check stats, JetPack, etc) concentrate on that. For my private blog, I just check in with the WP Reader. For my professional website, I checked SEO, found my audience, and dumped the rest incl SM. Most of my traffic there comes from Google keyword searches. Dumping FB, T or X, etc hardly had an effect on views and did not change the percentage of new or returning visitors. Those two categories are my most important indicators. Are people still finding my site after so many years and do they come back to it.

    In short, you are doing a great job as is, so carry on!

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Thank you so much, Alice, for your thoughtful and thorough comment! Excellent advice. Thank you for finding my blog. I look forward to reading your blog.

    Liked by 1 person

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