Social Media Engagement: There's Always a Cost

This Week's Topic: Social Media Engagement

{steeples fingers}

{stares into camera}

Your time is a commodity. A very valuable one. 
Your emotional investment is an undervalued yet critical commodity.
Not every commodity is measured in money.

There's a lot of advice on where, when, and how authors should engage with their audiences. There's even pressure from publishers of all sizes for authors to grow their audiences to the magical level of "influencer" (thus, making the author the owner of the marketing burden, aka the marketing costs). Taking on the social media challenge is all well and good for authors who enjoy virtual engagement, but there's a significant portion of authors who don't, and that's okay too.* 

Social butterfly or not, the minimum requirement in the virtual space for an author is a website that lists your books, preferably by series then by reading order. That's it. No engagement necessary. Your website exists for readers who've stumbled on your work(s) and want to read more. All the other stuff that authors of small, medium, or large readerships have on their sites is there because the author either: a) has the time and desire to offer and maintain it, or b) pays someone else to do it for them. Either way, there is an out-of-pocket cost in cash and time. 

If you want to be more aggressive, get your name out there, and develop an auto-buy readership, a robust social media presence is certainly one way to do it. However, understand that the pressure on authors to be active on social media comes from the misbegotten notion of "free advertising." Just because you're not paying money to exist in a virtual "public" space doesn't mean that you're not paying in opportunity costs, in your time, or in your emotional capacity. Lots of writers prefer to spend those resources on writing their next book. Is engaging in social media a direct 1:1 cost exchange for a writer? Of course not. Your personal resource values are unique to you, and only you can truly know the costs. 

For some authors, it's cheaper to pay big platforms like Facebook, Amazon, or Bookbub to run ads than it is to build brand awareness and loyalty through social media. It's certainly easier to measure ROI on an ad campaign than on a Discord server.

Don't allow external pressures to force you to do more than you can afford, be it in finances, time, or health. 

By contrast, be aware that the less effort you put forth, the fewer sales you get.

When it comes to social media,
you should do what enjoy
and discard all that gives you angst.

*Note: If you're under contract with a publisher, be sure to read and, if necessary, modify any clauses that stipulate your web presence and/or participation. You don't want to be in breach of contract just because Instagram is an anathema to you.

What's On My Mind

I wish I had something sexier for you. I don't. What's on my mind is Covid. Not just because it's surging in the US and around the world but because it came in my door 14 days ago. It got Mom first. Then it go the rest of us. We did the Paxlovid thing and are dealing with the rebound now. Y'all. There have been SO many runs to Urgent Care. It's silly. Anyway. You know why I missed last week. I felt like hot garbage. I'm feeling better than that, now, but this rebound nonsense is zero fun. 0/10 do not recommend. 

So. Stay safe out there. We masked everywhere that wasn't home and it wasn't enough to keep us safe. Thankfully, so far, my father (the objectively most vulnerable) is the one skating this with the fewest issues. Anyway. Look out for yourselves and your loved ones. I wish this on no one.

Best Laid Plans and Magical News!

I had Plans for today's blog post here at the SFF Seven. But we know what the poet said about best-laid plans...

Yes, my day has gang agley. 

All in a good way, though. I got a lot done. Important stuff, just not quite the several steps required to post what I hoped to post today. So the short and dirty update is:

• TWISTED MAGIC will have a release date and preorder link soon!! (Though you can already preorder it on my website.)
• Of my new book that I've been writing, the one I wasn't supposed to be writing, but that insisted on being written, which I've been calling ONEIRA, Agent Sarah said: "You’ve crafted your very own fairytale, Jeffe and it’s magic."
• We strategized today, so look for more news on ONEIRA soon! And on TWISTED MAGIC!

On My Mind: Marketing Ouches & Ought To's

 This Week's Topic: On My Mind

What's on my mind this week? Marketing plans. Coming up with an improved version that will hopefully net more sales with a positive ROI. I've subscribed to assorted marketing guru sites and newsletters, enough to make my mailbox weep from the digital space hoggery. Some guides are useful for general sales, others for books, and still others for fiction. Of that, maybe 2% is relevant to selling fantasy novels. That's the kicker with most marketing resources, very few are applicable to novels. Fashion? Beauty? Tech? Resources abound, but selling books is a different beast. Moreover, selling fiction is different from selling non-fiction, just as selling Inspirationals is different from selling Grimdark. The key to successful marketing is to get your product in front of your target audience without getting too niche. There's a cost to micro-refining your audience, both in higher monetary cost as well as loss of potential audiences. 

Don't get me wrong, this isn't bitch post. It's a statement of the opportunity landscape. Speaking of opportunities, the places to advertise--both digital and print--for small businesses with small budgets are very limited. Conversely, the publishers (indie, small, and trad) number in the millions and are all vying for that limited space. Apply the basic economics of supply and demand, and it's no wonder advertising costs are rising while sell-through (actual sales) are stagnant (or declining. Yoiks!) 

Wah wah wah. {Tiiny violin.} What's to be done? For me, I gotta get over my strong distrust of certain digital institutions that offer small business advertising platforms (lookin' at you, Meta) and reevaluate venues that generated negative ROI 5+ years ago to see what's changed, what's improved, and what's best left untouched. Additionally, I need to catch up on the tech advances of certain sales/advertising resources and update what promotions I have running. Oh, right, I also need to create an advertising calendar that empowers me to develop, engage, and track promotions, instead of pantsing and forgetting (doh!). 

Yeah, I reckon I oughtta get to getting on my list Ought To's instead of weeping over the derth of sales. After all, I can't whine if I'm leaving opportunities on the table. 

{Well, I can whine, but. that'd just make me a big 👶}

Card carrying fan-girl

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Question of the week: Do I read in the genre I write?

This question is an easy one for me, because I’m very proud to have been an avid reader of my niche, fantasy romance, long before I was a writer. To be honest, I'm a little skeptical of writers who say they don't read in the genre they write. This cynical attitude probably comes from being a part of romance spaces where the voracious readership means that sometimes people who know nothing about romance think writing it is an easy way to make a buck. With no appreciation for a genre and what makes readers love it, an author is just going to flounder.

At the same time, I'm totally sympathetic to authors who started writing from a place of love--as a fan of their genre, whatever that genre might be--and now struggle to find the time to read as much as they used to. I certainly go through reading dry spells when I'm more interested in my own stories that anything written by some one else. There is also something to be said for taking a break from reading works similar to yours when you are in the midst of drafting in order to hold onto a purity of your own voice.

But my own reading dry spells never last long—reading is just too important to me, and has always been my favorite way to relax. I also enjoy engaging with readers over our shared love of books. It’s fun to get recommendations from readers, or to be able to point them at books I love when they are looking for a specific trope or theme. If I’m not reading widely in my genre, then I feel like I’m missing out!

   

Jaycee Jarvis is an award winning fantasy romance author, who combines heartfelt romance with immersive magical worlds. When not lost in worlds of her own creation, she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, three children and a menagerie of pets.

Find her at http://www.jayceejarvis.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18092674.Jaycee_Jarvis

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/jaycee-jarvis

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJayceeJarvis

Mastadon: @Jaycee@romancelandia.club

Sci-Fi Book Recs!

This week we’re talking about one of my favorite subjects—let’s talk about books! 

It never fails to blow my mind when a writer mentions they don’t read. Maybe you’re one of them. But I firmly believe, and will continue to say,  that reading will improve your own writing. 

Yes, you can take classes and get degrees that will teach you how to write. But if you don’t read and absorb emotions from the page, it’s like following a recipe step by step but never stopping to taste what your cooking. 

Back to my favorite topic! Books! I write both fantasy and science fiction, and though I read basically all genres (sorry gridmark, you’re a touch too dark for me) I glom SFF reads. Recently I’ve devoured some excellent sci-fi! So, let me gush:

Re-Coil by J.T. Nicholas

Out on a salvage mission with a skeleton crew, Carter Langston is murdered by animated corpses left behind on this ship. Yet in this future, everyone’s consciousness backup can be safely downloaded into a brand-new body, and all you’d lose are the memories of what happened between your last backup and your death. But when Langston wakes up in his new body, he is immediately attacked in the medbay and has to fight once again for his life—and his immortality. Because this assassin aims to destroy his core forever.

Determined to find his shipmates and solve this evolving mystery, Langston locates their tech whiz Shay Chan, but two members are missing and perhaps permanently killed. Langston and Chan are soon running for their lives with the assassin and the corporation behind him in hot pursuit.

What Langston and Chan ultimately find would signal the end of humanity. What started as a salvage mission just might end up saving the world.

This futuristic, as opposed to near-future, sci-fi plays off the idea of our souls consisting of the neural pathways that we’ve been able to contain on a computer chip and when you die, you can be re-coiled into a new body. 

There’s quite a bit of repetition in describing how different people mentally handle being re-coiled into various bodies. Some readers/writers go the repetitive route, some, like me, avoid it. To each their own. But the plot line is tight, intriguing, and the emotional connection between Langston and his former crew mate is intense. 

I highly suggest this if you’re in the mood for a sci-fi with a heavy dose of mystery, tension, and a nice romance sub-plot.

The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe

When a spy is stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, she must first figure out how to survive before she can uncover the conspiracy that landed them both there in the first place.

She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and Naira Sharp knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.

He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the mining of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy his ship before it lands. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.

This sci-fi follows off the same theory that our souls can be downloaded into new bodies, making us near immortal. And it’s immortality that’s driving a dirty hunt for an element that will enable us to live even longer. 

Filled with political intrigue, undercover spies, a young scientist, and tangled emotions, The Blighted Stars is a fantastic other-world read!

I know, the second blurb was short. They’re both fantastic reads, I’m just running out of time. I need to catch a plane! And yes, I’ve packed two paperback books and have two queued up on my kindle….I hope I don’t run out of things to read! 

What are you reading this week?

Writing What I Read

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking: "Do you read in the genre you write?"

What's funny is that my answer is absolutely yes - but that I didn't always write in the genre I read. Does that make sense?

I have always read Fantasy and Science Fiction, since I was a little kid, and I've been reading Romance since I was old enough to walk to the used bookstore to buy my own books, as my mom wouldn't let me read "that trash." (Because she thought Romance was low-brow and anti-feminist, not because of the sex.) But when I started out as a writer, I wrote Creative Nonfiction.

Some of this was timing and coincidence. When I decided I wanted to be a writer instead of a scientist, one of the first classes I took was "Essays on Self and Place," from a visiting writer at the university. I fell easily into writing essays and had success with them. My first book was an essay collection. And, sure, I read some essays. I read a lot of essay collections and memoir. But I was always reading them as research and reciprocity.

All that time, what I read for pure enjoyment? Anything with a paranormal/SFF element and plenty of Romance.

It was only after my first book came out that a friend - a bookseller who knew my tastes and sold me hardcover releases of JD Robb, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer, and Jaqueline Carey - asked me why I wasn't writing in the genres I so clearly loved to read.

Funny that. It simply hadn't occurred to me. But then I started to, I wrote this Fantasy Romance* (not a genre then, but what did I know??) that was SO MUCH FREAKING FUN TO WRITE. I couldn't believe how much more fun I had writing my crazy tale about a scientist who falls into Faerie, becomes a sorceress, and ends up in a bargain with a fae lord to bear his child. I even got a really nice rejection on the book from Stephenie Meyer's agent! (Though it took a long time for me to sell it, which is another tale.)

The rest is history. ~ Waves at catalogue of Epic Fantasy Romances ~ I haven't looked back. Writing what I love to read has absolutely been a great decision.

*The book that became ROGUE'S PAWN

 

Read Broadly and Deeply

 This Week's Topic: Do I Read in the Genre I Write?

Absolutely. I like to keep abreast of evolving reader expectations, emerging storytelling styles, and exploratory concepts while evolving my skills. Of course, there's the blossoming of ideas and methods that come from studying what my peers are doing and what the "old masters" did that can be applied today. Naturally, some of what the old masters did needs to stay in the past as cautionary tales of the public mindset of their era. 

Do I also read genres other than what I write? Ayup, yup, yup. A story well-written is a story from which I can learn something. I can toss the takeaways into my bag of exponential holding and "fantasy it up" for my WiP. 

By and large, there are very few genres I avoid under the fiction umbrella. I won't read certain genres (or themes, or tropes) because of my innate biases. (Just thinking about them makes me angry.) Besides, there are too many books I really, really, really want to read so why would I force myself to suffer through something I don't want to read? College made me do enough of that.

To me, a great author reads broadly across many genres and deeply into the sub-genres.