Suuuuuuure I have a fan club! This is the president. Look at those smoochable lips. Unfortunately, these fans aren't readers. At all. And it turns out, they really seem to enjoy impeding the work in favor of being held while they snooze. Negotiations are underway on that front.
As for reader groups, in a way I have one - it's a pre-existing group of people in a cat group. You're surprised, right? They've known me and my writing since long before I'd been published. They pulled for me and encouraged me. That group are AVID readers and these days there are weekly conversations about what everyone is reading. We have at least three authors in the group. Each time one of us publishes something, the group descends upon it. It's amazing and lovely and heartwarming. It's nothing formal, of course. It's simply my friends being awesome and helping keep my cats in kibble.
Other than that, there's a Facebook author page which I update once in a blue moon because I refuse to pay FB's extortion that would allow the people who followed that page of their own free will to actually SEE that page. I've done my best to shift those followers to my actual friends page because right now, that's the only thing that isn't being held hostage. There's also an Instagram account that has a bunch of followers, and while I'd originally set it up to be *my* author account, the cats took it over. Entirely. I think out of 300+ photos, one is a book cover. Maybe two. Regardless, that account generates a lot of conversation regarding feline rescue efforts, so when I do post something specific to the human behind the IG curtain, there're always a few 'hey cool!' comments. But if we want to be honest, that group are fans of my cats. Not me.
I had a Twitter account. It's still there, but I have had to accept the fact that Twitter doesn't work for me. My brain just handles information in a way that Twitter wasn't designed to accommodate. And that's okay. So I don't go out there much. Tumblr was fun until it got nerfed. Now it's just -- a sad shell, really. I have a terrible secret about social media, too. I'd MUCH rather talk to readers in person. I so much prefer the energy exchange of meeting someone face to face and getting to talk books and stories. Mine, anyone else's - it's all good. But trying to do that via a couple hundred characters or via a one way newsletter? Not my happy place. Maybe one day, I'll have so many readers, I'll change my tune because newsletters and Twitter are the best ways of letting that many people know what's going on. I would love to have that opportunity. Until the day I cannot possibly meet ALL THE READERS I'll keep doing my best to engage in personal relationships with the ones I do have. Cause they are wicked cool people.
