Introduction

Social media is one of the most talked-about tools in the author space.

It’s also one of the most misunderstood.

For some authors, it becomes a performance.
For others, it becomes avoidance.
For many, it becomes a cycle of posting, second-guessing, and wondering why nothing seems to move the needle.

But this topic isn’t about hacks, trends, or chasing virality. It’s about understanding the role social media actually plays in a long-term author career, and how to use it intentionally instead of reactively.

Throughout this topic, we’ll look at how to choose and structure your presence without spreading yourself too thin, how to navigate algorithm pressure without burning out, and how to shift from broadcasting into silence to building relationships that compound over time.

We’ll also explore what authentic engagement really means in a professional creative context, how to shape your content calendar depending on where your book is in its lifecycle, and how to approach social media sessions with clarity instead of urgency.

Whether social media feels energizing, exhausting, or somewhere in between, this topic is about helping you use it in a way that supports your writing life instead of competing with it.

For some authors social media is the easiest entry point and for others it’s a terrifying space to explore. For some it will play a supportive role and for others it will be their primary focus for the entirety of their career. But in today’s digital age, social media will play a role in your author career on some level no matter what, which makes it an important topic to get clear on.

But before we dig in, I want to make one important clarification: Social media is just one possible visibility lane, it’s not the entire marketing universe.

Marketing in general is widely misunderstood in the fiction author space, which is why I wrote: Marketing Fiction Isn’t What Most Authors Think. It’s a good supplemental read for insight into different perspectives around your relationship with marketing in general.

For now, we’re going to focus on the roles social media can have in the career growth for any fiction author, regardless of how you currently feel about social media.

The Role of Social Media

The reason social media feels broken is because you’re treating it like a billboard instead of a room full of people.

This is why social media starts to feel like something you have to perform rather than something that reflects who you are.

But when social media feels like a second job instead of a natural extension of your author career, something has gone wrong.

So it’s not that you’re bad at social media. You’ve just been conditioned to use it in a way that no longer works, which often leads to the belief that social media isn’t effective unless you pay to play.

But the real problem is that using social media like a billboard doesn’t build careers. The real starting point for every career is forming relationships. 

At some point in every author’s journey, their experience with social media will feel discouraging or completely baffling.

Either nothing they try ever works, or what was working suddenly stops working. The knee-jerk reaction is to blame the algorithm, because the alternative feels like we have to take responsibility for being bad at social media marketing.

I’d argue that neither is true.

There’s currently a general belief that posting book content gets silence. But what’s actually happening is that broadcasting posts for free that still feel like “ads” produces silence because it’s the wrong use of the tool. Meaning, it’s more a matter of the wrong content, in the wrong way, while paying attention to the wrong metrics and misinterpreting the data.

The algorithms are doing exactly what they’re built to do. The disconnect is that what you believe the algorithms should do isn’t what they’re meant to do. But it’s not because you’re bad at playing the algorithm game, it’s that you’re trying to use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail.

The lived experience of most authors who feel like social media isn’t working for them is that they’re “performing” by publishing broadcast style posts, that no one is responding to which makes them feel like they’re failing or doing it wrong, so they believe they need to do more, which still doesn’t work and they end up burning out.

How many of these scenarios feel familiar:

• Posting about your book and feeling like you’re annoying people.
• Overthinking every post.
• Posting book content that gets silence. 
• Posting non-book content that gets engagement but not growth.
• Feeling like you’re doing social media “wrong,” but not knowing what “right” is.
• Knowing you should engage, but not knowing how to do it.

You may already suspect that the cost of continuing on your current path is burnout. But the question is why? 

It’s because it looks like this:

→ You keep spending energy on posts that can’t work as written.

→ That creates repeated disappointment.

→ Disappointment becomes self-doubt.

→ Self-doubt kills consistency.

→ Then everything feels pointless.

And if nothing changes, the results are predictable:

• more silence
• more frustration
• more quitting

Preventing this is the entire point of what I teach.

At the end of the day, social media is a relationship engine, and relationships create visibility that compounds.

The trick is to be making decisions before emotions and algorithms make them for you. That means shifting from being reactive to being intentional.

Reactive is:

• “What should I post today?”
• “What’s trending?”
• “Why is my reach down?”
• “Maybe I need a new platform.”
• “I guess I’m bad at this.”

Intentional is:

• “I know why I’m here.”
• “I know what I’m doing this week.”
• “I know what I’m measuring.”
• “I know what I’m ignoring.”

When you change your relationship with social media… 
you go from:

• Broadcasting into silence to building visible relationships.
• Reactive posting to a strategic presence.
• Burnout risk to sustainable habits.

These shifts create sustainable momentum that compounds.

When that happens, growth is an inevitable by-product.

Change Your Relationship With Social Media

But making the necessary shifts means changing your relationship with social media in terms of what you believe its role is in the growth of your author career.

We’ve been conditioned to expect algorithms to do the heavy lifting for us, and it’s time to let go of that.

The good news is that in doing this, you’ll feel lighter, happier, and most importantly, back in control.

Utilizing social media effectively to serve your goals and assist with the growth of your career doesn’t mean having to constantly fight against the algorithm or chase trends. Which is why throughout the topic of Social Media Visibility we’ll explore how to challenge the hustle culture and algorithm-driven pressures that surround us, while still pursuing meaningful ambitions.

One of the hardest shifts for authors is understanding that their use of social media as a creative who is building a public-facing career is different to how they may have used it as a regular user. Changing your approach alone will significantly change your relationship with and experience of social media, as well as protect your time, energy, and mental health.

You’ll find that the way I approach the concept of social media marketing is different to the way a lot of other experts approach it.

I don’t cover specific platform strategies or how to become a Booktok star. 

What I do cover are the foundational strategies that apply across all platforms in a way that can be scaled up or dialled back depending on what aligns best for you.

The one thing that has become more common advice that I do agree with is to start with one platform. Always start with one. 

It takes time to learn even the basics of a platform, to gain confidence with posting and engaging, to build a consistent habit, and to gain momentum.

If you try to do that on more than one platform at a time your efforts will be less effective and you’ll be far more likely to burn out. At very least, you’ll get frustrated and start to believe that social media doesn’t work for organic growth. Which is a myth.

But what few materials cover effectively is how to choose which platform to start with or how and when to expand to other platforms.

If you’re like most authors, you’ve heard the advice to choose 1-2 platforms to focus on and you’ve constantly struggled with the advice and sticking to it.

The first hurdle is trying to choose the best platform, because what if you choose wrong?

The next hurdle is often second-guessing the choice you’ve made because “everyone else seems to be everywhere else.”

And the last hurdle usually stems from experiencing what you think is slow growth (especially compared to others) and then questioning whether being on more than 1 or 2 platforms would speed up your growth.

So many of the concerns around these points comes from the advice being incomplete. It comes from a lack of clarity of what using social media, as an independent creator, actually means and looks like now and over time.

After working through the materials and Quests in this topic you’ll not only understand the role social media plays in your author career, but you’ll also have:

• a cohesive social media presence that you know how to expand progressively
• a personalized plan for identifying your own red flags of burnout and how to cope
• a personalized schedule and system for intentional social media sessions
• a content calendar that fits where you’re at right now
• a solid routine for showing up authentically and engaging with confidence

If you’re new to the concept of anti-marketing for fiction authors, check out The Anti-Marketing Toolkit.

Choose Your Platform

The first thing you want to do is think about your personal experience and use of social media. Which platform do you personally use regularly and enjoy using?

Forget about where your readers likely hang out the most. And yes, I’m aware that everyone else is saying to choose the platform where your readers hang out. I don’t. For starters, at this point there’s a good chance you don’t know the answer to that or how to figure it out.

But more importantly, using social media effectively to grow an audience means being consistent. Now ask yourself, when was the last time you consistently kept doing something recreationally for years that you didn’t enjoy?

This is no small thing. Sure, we’re adults, we all know how to suck it up and do jobs and meet responsibilities that we don’t entirely love. But building an author career isn’t the same. Even if you’ve decided you want to make a full-time career out of writing, it’s still a choice you’re making and we all know how easy it is to procrastinate when something isn’t fun or we feel stuck.

Your success with social media will be directly impacted by how well you’re able to establish a consistent habit. And if you can’t build a consistent habit on a platform you enjoy, it’s even less likely that you’ll manage to do it on a platform you don’t enjoy.

So whether you’re just starting your author presence for the first time, or you’ve been doing it for years, put some serious thought into which of the social media platforms you actually enjoy using and make that one platform your primary focus for the next 90 days.

If you genuinely don’t know which platform you enjoy most, or you’ve never really used any platform, then my top recommendations for consideration are:

1. Threads
2. Substack
3. BlueSky

Other possible contenders are: Facebook, X(Twitter), Reddit, and Tumblr but unless you’re already a regular user of one of these platforms, I wouldn’t make any of these your starting point.

I also don’t recommend starting with Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Pinterest.

The number one reason for my top three recommendations is because they are text first platforms. This means you can remain entirely focused on getting your wording and messaging right before worrying about any sort of visual graphics or videos. As a writer… a wordsmith… this approach alone removes a big barrier.

Because here’s the thing, if your wording and messaging aren’t good, no amount of visual enhancements will make them do the job you need them to do. But bad visuals can absolutely detract from good wording. Having to learn about good visual aesthetics while also learning everything else makes the entire process more difficult than it needs to be.

Even if you’re good with graphics or videos, they will always take more effort to create than text-only content because you need to plan and create the visuals as well as get the wording right. The less time you have to spend thinking about and doing formatting and design the more time you’ll have to focus on the quality of your content and engagement.

The other reason for my top three recommendations is that they are more community-based and better for connecting with real people and having real conversations. That’s not to say the other platforms don’t have community or conversations, it’s simply that in the three platforms I recommend it’s easier to create those connections. And building your core network is a critical component of your author journey, which was covered in the topic on Your Ideal Reader.

But, remember the question I posed at the beginning: Which platform do you personally use and enjoy using? My recommendations are for if you can’t answer this question. If you can answer it, start with that platform. Because, even if it takes longer to create good carousel posts or reels, if you enjoy doing it, you’ll want to do it.

The key thing here is to minimize the load of what you’re learning at any given time, while making sure it’s enjoyable. Once you’ve learned specific pieces of the process, it’s easier to add a new piece.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Sort Out Your Social Media Accounts

When it comes to social media always choose one platform to be your primary focus, especially at the beginning. Whether you’re brand new to social media, brand new as an author, or simply ready to take a brand new approach with your relationship with social media, even if you’ve been at it for years… you are here which means you’re starting at the beginning. So focus on just one social media platform for now. I really can’t stress this enough.

You have a finite amount of time available and there is an audience available everywhere. Which is why you’re picking one to focus on for at least 90 days. You can change your focus later, or add another one if you want, but always start with one.

Now, with that said and clarified, owning your username across multiple platforms strengthens your discoverability, credibility, and your Owned media ecosystem. It also prevents anyone else from creating an account under your name.

So in this section we’re going to sort out your social media accounts on other platforms. But please don’t confuse this exercise with trying to be everywhere. Only ONE platform and account will be your primary, active account.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Your Quest Tasks:

Create Your Accounts

Secure Your Username

Set Up Your Profiles

Your social media accounts are an important part of your overall ecosystem and they provide some low-hanging fruit passive visibility. This is an area many authors overlook and end up missing out on opportunities because of holes they haven’t filled. So set aside some time to use the information below to get all of your profiles properly set up.

Start with your active, primary social media platform, then work through the other profiles as time permits.

Each platform will vary a bit, but for the most part you should be able to include the following:

• Username (ideally your author name)
• Display name (also your author name plus a keyword)
• Bio (make this 100% relevant to you as an author)
• Profile photo (ideally a real photo of you, exceptions below)
• Bio link (just one, use LinkTree to start if necessary)
• Pinned post (to extend your bio)

Set up each of your profiles, then log out and leave them alone. Beyond your primary platform, the rest of the accounts are simply placeholders for now. It’s a good idea to schedule a recurring quarterly reminder in your calendar to do a quick scan of all your accounts to make any necessary updates periodically, but having these accounts doesn’t mean you need to actively use them.

All of the information you use to create your social media profile should be more or less the same across all of your accounts. If you change your profile image at some point on your active account, update it across your other accounts too. The goal here is to make sure readers recognize you now matter where they find you.

There are some key things to keep in mind when setting up your profiles aside from the username details previously covered, so let’s take a closer look at each piece.

Not ready to become a Pathfinder yet? Grab my free Social Media Survival Guide to get started.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Learn Your Primary Platform

If you’re pretty seasoned with social media in general you may be able to skip this particular section if you want, though it might be a good refresher to at least skim through too.

For the next 90 days your entire focus is going to be on learning everything you can about your one primary platform of choice. A big part of this is simply using the platform but there are different layers to learning a platform. Use the following list as a starter guide:

1. Don’t immediately start posting content or following people.
2. You want to explore all of the settings, menus, options… everything the platform provides at the time (it will change and you’ll keep learning, this step is just to get grounded).
3. You want to observe. Be a lurker for a bit. See what the general vibe is. Look at the types of content others are posting and what conversations are happening in the comments. Every platform has its own general culture that you want to start understanding.
4. Search for specific content relevant to you as an author. Genre, subgenre, publishing path, stage of writing, other authors, service providers, artists. Don’t assume that the main feed is all there is to the platform.
5. Notice the differences in the vibes based on algorithm-driven content and the specific relevant content you search for.

How much time you need to spend on this will depend on where you’re at, your experience with this particular platform, and your understanding of social media in general. If you’re really new, use the Need a hand form in the sidebar as often as you need to get feedback and guidance. There are no dumb questions. Social media works in its own unique ways and if you’re not familiar with it the best way to learn is to ask people you trust… which is what I’m here for.

If you’re new to social media, or to your platform of choice, or are nervous in anyway… take your time. This isn’t a process you need to rush. 

Also understand that there are many separate pockets or bubbles within every platform. And every platform has a dark side; spaces that are negative and even toxic. You do not need to engage with this content, and I recommend that you don’t. Utilize the features to mute, block, and filter words, even while you’re lurking. Use whatever the platform provides to help you shape and curate your account into a space you enjoy and feel safe in.

Ease into a new platform or account. Don’t spam a bunch of posts in an attempt to get some early traction. The content you post initially will get the least amount of visibility. Your early posts won’t typically draw crowds for conversations. Your engagement on other people’s content is what will generate early conversations and traction.

Be selective in who you follow and don’t instantly follow back everyone who follows you. The goal is not to build as big of a following as fast as possible. The goal is to build a strong, aligned, and relevant following.

A large following that isn’t aligned with the content you’ll be publishing will hurt your engagement rate and subsequently your reach will suffer too.

Two common strategies to avoid:

1. Follow for follow, also tagged as F4F. Don’t participate in this on any platform.
2. Mass following a ton of accounts to raise awareness of your account. 

There are a few reasons to avoid these two strategies:

1. They don’t work well and will reduce the quality of your audience.
2. If you follow too many accounts too fast you can get your account banned for spamming or bot behaviour. 
3. There are actually following limits on most platforms.
4. Unfollowing irrelevant accounts later is a time-consuming, manual process.

During the learning phase be curious and observant.

Over the first 90 days your goals are:

• Get familiar with the platform’s tools.
• Figure out how to find your way around and specifically how to find relevant content.
• Gradually start posting (start slow, like once or twice a week and build up from there).
• Engage authentically and abundantly.
• Selectively follow people who align with you as an author and build relationships with them.

You’re not tracking any metrics at this point, because your growth is going to be slow. If you start focusing on follower count, reach, and engagement on your content, you’ll feel pressured to do more or switch platforms or switch strategies or to do things that aren’t right for you.

For now, just take screenshots of whatever insights your platform of choice offers every 30 days. You can also make a note in a notebook or spreadsheet, just don’t spend time trying to analyze them and don’t judge them.

Put your energy into creating Awareness and Interest based content at a steady and consistent pace you can sustain, and engaging with other people. That’s it.

And remember, creating a social media account to promote your upcoming release isn’t a Hail Mary for an unplanned launch without a sufficient runway. So if you’ve left things a bit later than you should have, don’t try to fast-track the process. Accept that it’s going to take time even if it means your launch might not have the big-bang you were hoping for.

As with everything, there are caveats and exceptions. So if you have questions about your current, unique situation, drop me a message using the Need a hand form in the sidebar and let’s talk about the nuances that will be specific to you.

Challenge Hustle Culture 

Social media in general has perfected the process of imposing FOMO on users. By nature it’s a fast-paced environment that thrives on hustle culture and instant gratification.

The algorithms are specifically designed to heighten this experience in order to keep users in the platform for longer periods of time.

The sense of punishment or failure we feel when our content doesn’t perform as well as we think it should is at the heart of algorithm-driven pressures.

And all of it is a mirage.

You do not need to play the algorithm game or pay-to-play in order to utilize social media effectively to serve your goals.

The trick is understanding what’s at play here and how to handle it differently.

TL;DR: 

• Hustle culture is a lifestyle choice that you do not have to choose. 
• The best way to avoid algorithm-driven pressure is make them not matter to you. 
• Always focus on protecting your time, energy, and mental health.
• Social media can be treated like one big networking event where you’re making connections one person at a time.

The first thing to understand is that the algorithms are built to amplify whatever is most popular at any given time. In most cases, it’s user activity and behaviour that determines what is most popular and trending. The algorithms are simply designed to spot it quickly and then amplify it.

This is why playing the algorithm game and implementing a viral strategy is in fact a viable and strategic choice. Algorithms are coded systems designed to optimize for specific platform goals, and they adapt based on user behaviour. It’s the behaviour of people that drive them, which is why they can be influenced by refining content strategies or by people with enough resources.

Yes, there are many situations where something completely unexpected goes viral and often for reasons no one can explain with 100% confidence and accuracy.

However, there are many people who have made it their entire job or business to monitor, study, and analyze social media. These are the people who are able to make the most accurate educated guesses that they then use strategically. Sometimes it’s to shape new content that will have the best odds of going viral, other times its to ride the waves that viral or trending content is creating.

In either case, this process is a full time job, and last I heard you want to be a full time author, not a full time social media analyst.

So, unless you’re shifting your focus and strategy to becoming an influencer, or planning to fork out massive amounts of money to hire a social media analyst, stop worrying about trying to get your content to go viral.

It can and maybe will happen all on its own when you least expect it. Celebrate it when it does. But don’t count on it, rely on it, or chase it.

That right there is the number one way to deal with algorithm-driven pressures.

Make them not matter to you.

And note that this doesn’t mean you’re shrinking your ambitions. 

Protect Your Mental Health

Before we continue, as much as I want my materials to be as inclusive as possible, I have to provide a caveat that I’m not a therapist and I can’t offer guidance when it comes to mental health issues. 

If you have a condition that prevents you from implementing anything that I guide on, that is not a failing on your part. It is possible that my approaches for gaining visibility to build an author career won’t be a good fit for you. I encourage you to seek the help you need from professional sources whenever necessary.

My materials assume that you are capable of interacting with people in a healthy and positive manner to some degree (and yes it works for introverts too). 

That said, no one, absolutely no one, is immune to burnout. Burnout will show up at different stages for different people and will present differently for different people.

No matter how much you work on implementing the approaches I teach, or how intentional you are with social media, there is always the risk of stress and burnout.

So yes, make the algorithm not matter to you. However, be self-aware as well. Learn and understand what your red flags are and develop a plan to both mitigate and cope with the red flags.

We’ll create this plan in the next section because it’s an important tool to have in your arsenal that is useful throughout all phases of your author journey.

The Social Media Playground

Social media is a massive playground. If the merry-go-round makes you feel nauseous, give the swing-set a try.

I really like the swing-set analogy here because you’re in complete control of how high you want to go and you can adjust the pace based on the effort you put in.

A merry-go-round (especially back in the day) is extremely difficult to get moving. If you’ve got enough muscle to put into it, you can get it up to ridiculous speeds, but at that point you’re simply along for the ride. You have no control. You hang on until it slows down (often feeling sick in the process) or you bail and suffer the consequences.

This perfectly represents the difference between a controlled and intentional use of social media for meaningful ambitions versus hustle culture that succumbs to algorithm-driven pressures.

There are people who absolutely love the adrenaline rush of the merry-go-round, and there are others who seriously can’t handle it.

If you’re not wired to perform in the hustle culture space, trying to keep up with it will almost definitely lead to burnout.

And if you’re someone who thrives on the adrenaline rush and wants to be in the thick of hustle culture, you might not resonate with my approach to things (which is totally okay), because I don’t teach, support, or guide on hustle culture. None of my materials will ever lean into that.

Not because I condemn it, but because I have lived it and I have seen what it did to me. I’ve also seen what it has done to many other high-performing individuals across many industries and have watched them pivot away from it, and I’ve seen what it does to people who aren’t equipped to handle it in the first place.

But you do not have to live through a hustle culture burnout in order to learn how to avoid it.

It is absolutely possible to organically use social media intentionally and strategically to pursue meaningful ambitions without succumbing to the pressure they’re designed to impose.

The first step is acknowledging that this algorithm-driven pressure exists and being open to believing that it’s not the only way to “win” on social media.

Ignore the Screen

To help with this mindset shift, think about life without social media. This will be easier for some than others. But whether you think about a current event that you attended or you think back to the days before social media existed, the point here is to focus on real, in-person interactions.

Think about how you show up. How you behave. How you interact with other people. Even if you’re an introvert. Whether you’re shy, exhausted by human interaction, or have some social anxiety. There’s a good chance you have experienced both positive and negative interactions with others in person.

You know what your boundaries are in these situations.

The thing that many people don’t consider is that social media is no different.

It feels different because we’re behind a screen typing out text. It feels different because there are more bad players in social media spaces than we’d typically encounter in one local event.

But the act of connecting and engaging with people on social media is ultimately no different than connecting and engaging with people in person… unless you treat it differently.

The thing that social media offers us that local events don’t, is accessible volume. 

It’s far easier and more convenient to connect with many more people online than it is in person. The problem is that this ease and convenience, combined with hustle culture and algorithm-driven pressure tends to make us a lazy. Which is ironic when you consider how much work and burnout is associated with hustle culture.

But the reason I say it makes us lazy is because we expect social media to connect us with more people simultaneously with less effort on our part. We post content to our accounts and are disappointed if it’s not reaching thousands of people with hundreds of interactions.

So again, think back to an in-person event. How would you handle hundreds of people all trying to talk to you at the same time? How would you handle trying to introduce yourself to even dozens of people at the same time?

The answer is… you don’t.

You say hello and introduce yourself to one person at a time. And when you’ve done that enough times, you’ve built up a network of people who know, like, and trust you and want to be part of your space.

There is absolutely no reason at all why you can’t do that on social media.

The only thing getting in your way is you and the expectation that the algorithms should be doing that work for you. In fairness, it’s an expectation that social media created, because there was a time when it did work that way for everyone. But that is no longer the case.

Whether you’re working with in-person events or online spaces, there are three primary approaches to building an audience or gaining visibility:

1. Being a keynote speaker offering presentations to groups of people
2. Networking and making connections one person at a time
3. Paying for advertising or sponsorship to reach your audience

The specifics of how these are carried out online versus offline vary, but at the root of it the concepts are the same. (Note: Broadcasting content on social media and trying to go viral is one strategy that falls under option 1.)

All three options are completely valid approaches. But all three are unique and have criteria in order for them to work.

But you don’t do yourself any favours hoping the algorithm will get you the reach and exposure you want without doing the work necessary to make it happen. And it’s not about doing more. Everything about social media is strategic when you want to be in control of the outcome. Hope and luck are not a strategy and you can’t control them.

The key here is to protect your time, energy, and mental health. It’s easy to get carried away with social media; it’s specifically designed to cause that.

Your best defence against hustle culture, algorithm-driven pressures, and burnout is self-control, being intentional, and self-awareness. 

When you’re using your author account on social media you’re there for a very specific reason: to attract an audience who will love your stories and become advocates to help you grow your career. That’s it. Everything you do on your author account should be serving that goal.

This isn’t disingenuous, it’s not about being fake, it’s not about pretending to be someone you’re not. Your author account is your work space. You can be yourself and you can lean into whatever your author brand looks like for you. But always stay focused on the end goal when using this account.

Mental Health Plan

Identify personal red flags of burnout and coping mechanisms.

Every day I watch authors on social media overextending themselves, succumbing to the algorithm-driven pressures of hustle culture, and eventually burning themselves out.

I’m not exaggerating and it breaks my heart. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion and being helpless to stop it.

This section is my attempt to help prevent that train wreck, so I hope you’ll take it seriously.

As previously mentioned, no one is immune to burnout, but we can learn to understand it, how to spot the red flags, and how to cope.

The following content is typically part of my paid content. But due to the nature of this topic and the importance of it, I’m leaving it open for public access.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Burnout will show up at different stages for different people and will present differently for different people.

Over the years I’ve learned that burnout doesn’t usually arrive all at once. For me it tends to show up first as small signals, like losing focus, inexplicable tiredness, procrastinating on tasks I normally enjoy, or feeling strangely irritable about things that wouldn’t usually bother me.

Those signals are my personal red flags that it’s time to slow down and reset.

The point of this Quest is to take a moment to pause, and really think about what burnout looks and feels like for you so you can see it coming and do something about it.

Because yes, even if you’re following all of my anti-marketing best practices, there is still always a risk of stress and burnout. We’re human. Adrenaline spikes, whether from excitement or stress, can contribute to the risk of burnout. Like a sugar rush followed by a crash, emotional highs are often followed by dips in energy and motivation. The point isn’t to eliminate the signs of burnout, it’s to understand them.

Now, I’m not a doctor or therapist, and I can’t guide you in a medically professional way. But what I can do is guide you based on my own experience and research.

If you are experiencing extreme signs of burnout, please consider speaking with a doctor or mental health professional. Believing that you just need to toughen up and push through it is not the answer… for anyone.

The first step to mitigating burnout is awareness, the second step is being honest with yourself, the third step is doing something about it. Ignoring it rarely makes it better.

Your Quest Tasks:

1. Make a list of your red flags and triggers
2. Make a list of coping mechanisms 

The thing that will make this exercise most successful is if you can be honest and objective with yourself. It’s not always fun to look at some of our less desirable behavioural moments, but the reality is that some of those behaviours could be warning signs of burnout.

Acknowledging them as a sign of burnout isn’t a free ticket to say that these behaviours are acceptable, rather it’s a wake up call to admit that you need to do something about it before it gets worse.

The thing that’s often hardest is that we tend to brush off the early signs, and sometimes we don’t even realize that something is an early sign.

So, below is a list of common red flags, as well as some links to additional resources that dig into more information about the signs of burnout. But remember, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a candidate for medical intervention or not. Any ongoing and consistent signs of burnout, even if they’re small, even if the triggers aren’t world changing, are still signs of burnout and you still want to address them.

Ignoring them is what risks leading to much bigger problems.

I also want to note that the most common information regarding burnout is related to workplace related issues, but the signs are often the same regardless of the cause. Which is to say that your author “work” on social media can absolutely cause symptoms similar to traditional workplace burnout. This is different to much of the information that’s provided about social media burnout for “users.”

Common Red Flags

Here are some of the most commonly cited red flags:

• irritability
• avoidance
• sudden loss of motivation
• feeling behind all the time
• creative fatigue
• resentment toward tasks you used to enjoy

But don’t stop there. If you’re experiencing behaviours that make you feel like not quite you, dig into the additional resources below, because the signs of burnout and the degree to which those signs present is different for everyone.

The Tell Tale Signs of Burnout … Do You Have Them?

10 Symptoms of Burnout You Shouldn’t Ignore

“Psychology Works” Fact Sheet: Workplace Burnout 

You can also do a Google search for something like: how to spot the red flags of burnout before the crash to find additional resources.

Identifying Your Personal Pattern

Start by reflecting on your current state. How are you feeling right now? 

If you’re not currently in a state of stress, that’s great! It doesn’t mean you should skip this task. Use this step to look back and reflect on situations that did cause you stress.

Make a list of how stress shows up for you and anything you can identify that triggers it. We all have different thresholds for stress, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to live in a state of stress you can tolerate. Persistent stress, even if it seems small, can have a negative effect on our overall well-being.

If you’re really not sure what your signs or triggers are, start a journal to help identify your patterns. This is also useful to identify new patterns, even if you have a pretty good idea already.

While we can’t always avoid the things that might trigger the types of stress that can lead to burnout, knowing what they are can help in how we approach them and react to them.

The goal here is that you’re looking for patterns and the triggers that cause them so that you can acknowledge them early and nip them in the bud.

Coping and Mitigation Ideas

This part is more fun. Here, you want to make a list of all the things that bring you joy, make you smile, and help you to relax. It’s anything that will provide a simple reset and help you to establish protective habits.

You might be tempted to resist writing this down. I know I did. But trust me, having these things written down and keeping them somewhere accessible helps. A lot.

The next time you notice one of your identified red flags or triggers, refer to this list and work through each item until something helps. I recently discovered that listening to SodaPop from K-Pop Demon Hunters has an instant positive impact on my mood. It sounds too simple to be so profound, but I assure you, it’s been a game-changer for me.

Find your game-changers and write them down. It’s worth it, I promise.

Remember, the goal isn’t to never experience the symptoms of burnout.

The goal is to recognize it early and respond in ways that protect your creativity and well-being.

Using Social Media With Intention

One of the hardest shifts for authors is understanding that their use of social media as a creative who is building a public-facing career is different to how they may have used it as a regular user. 

Understanding this shift alone will significantly change your relationship with and experience of social media, as well as protect your time, energy, and mental health.

Most people use social media the way it’s presented to be used:

Log in, follow some accounts, post some content, then scroll the main feed looking for content to consume and maybe engage with.

Rarely does anyone stop to think whether there might be a different way.

Social media is a gateway to millions of people. So let’s look at how to tap into that potential organically, without succumbing to hustle culture or algorithm-driven pressures.

What Intentional Sessions Look Like

[ ▸ ] Video Walkthrough

The Benefits of Being Intentional

When you make the shift from using social media as a regular user to using it intentionally to find and engage with new connections, not only does it change your relationship with and experience of social media, but you discover the many benefits it provides as well.

You’ll find that networking through social media is easier, more efficient, and lets you control how much effort you put into it, in comparison to networking in person. 

Plus, building a relevant network is the most reliable way to grow a loyal readership without burning out.

Social vs In-Person Networking

Connecting the Dots

Intentional Social Media

It’s time to set yourself up for intentional sessions.

Learning and talking about schedules and being intentional is one thing, but we only benefit from the power of these concepts when we turn them into habits.

We only turn concepts into habits when we make a conscious effort to implement them.

This Quest is all about setting yourself up for success by putting into action the processes that have the ability to change your relationship with and experience of social media in order to protect your time, energy, and mental health.

In taking this step you’re taking control of how to make social media work for you, instead of the other way around.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Set Up Raindrop

Your First Session

Create a Schedule

Optional Session

Consistency vs Frequency

One of the most common things I hear from authors about working with social media is how time consuming and exhausting it is.

This stems from a combination of the emotional debt simply scrolling through social media can create, constantly engaging with content to remain active and visible, figuring out what content to post, and creating that content.

With the way social media tools are designed to work, and the natural sense of FOMO they create, it’s really not surprising. I too have experienced extreme social media exhaustion.

Learning how to take back that control while still benefiting from the massive potential social media provides us is what the entire topic of Social Media Visibility is all about. Through the first half of this topic we’ve already taken back control of where your focus is, dealing with hustle culture and algorithm-driven pressures, and using social media more intentionally to serve your goals.

For the rest of this topic we dig into your content planning system where we take a closer look at the relationship between consistency and frequency, how to identify the right balance for you to avoid diminishing returns on your efforts, and how to map out the right content ratios for where you’re at in your journey.

First up is an important reminder that consistency does not equal frequency.

Consistency means: acting or done in the same way over time
Frequency means: occurring or done on many occasions

Think patterns versus volume.

Through the lens of publishing social media content, being consistent means reliably showing up in some form of regular pattern. That could mean daily or it could mean once a month. What it doesn’t mean is to batch post a whole pile of content back to back, several times a day for a week, and then disappear for three months. (Even if that becomes your regular pattern, it’s not reliable consistency.)

Frequency is related to the volume of content you’re posting and how often you’re posting it.

It’s a common misconception that for organic growth to work on social media you need to be producing a ton of content. This is a myth, and in fact there is a tipping point where you will see diminishing returns on the effort you’re putting into creating the content. There is also a tipping point of when too much content can actually have a negative impact on your growth.

Negative Impact

Posting more doesn’t necessarily accelerate your growth. Your growth is what makes room for the ability to post more.

Diminishing Returns

When you take into account the time and effort that goes into creating good quality content, there comes a point when you have to ask if the amount of effort is paying off.

Work smarter, not harder, and always ask if the result is worth the effort.

Choose the Right Frequency For You

The most important thing to remember is that in all cases ongoing consistency will win over a high-frequency that you can’t sustain.

So when considering how often you’re going to publish content ask yourself, “What is a frequency of output that I can realistically sustain consistently for an extended period of time?”

Avoid over-extending yourself because it’s not worth it in the long run, and if you burn yourself out you won’t keep being consistent.

But that still doesn’t answer how often you should be posting. Because yes, you can post once a month consistently, but your growth will be slower because of it. Even once a week, which is reasonable, still won’t optimize your growth.

So the other factor is to decide what your goal is. This is unique to you and there is no right or wrong answer. If social media is playing more of a supportive role in your author journey, a long-term, consistent cadence of once or twice a month can be perfectly acceptable. 

If you do want to use social media as a growth engine, then the phase you’re in for your writing journey will play an important role in how you plan out your frequency.

Pre-Launch Phase

Launch Phase

Post-Launch Phase

Backlist Phase

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Content Ratios

When it comes to planning out your content ratios the key is to think about what stage a reader is at in their knowledge of you and your book, as well as what phase the the book is in.

The stages and phases are covered in detail in the Talk About Your Book topic. But as a high-level review:

Every reader goes through three stages regardless of what phase a book is in:

• Stage 1: Awareness. This is where the discovery happens.
• Stage 2: Interest. This is where the curiosity and connection happens.
• Stage 3: Conversion. This is where the buying and reading decision is made.

And every book goes through four phases:

• Pre-launch: Starts at least 12 months before launch day
• Launch: 2-3 months out through to launch day and a couple of weeks beyond
• Post-launch: 2-3 months after launch day
• Backlist: The rest of the book’s life

99% of the content you publish on social media should have a purpose that aligns with a combination of these stages and phases, and the primary focus shouldn’t be on selling.

A common mistake authors make is that once their book first enters the Launch phase they focus all of their content on being Conversion content, and they never stop. This is what creates the feeling for both you and your audience that you’re constantly trying to sell something.

But getting the ratio of your content right is where you need to think more like a business than a creator. What your content actually says still stays squarely in creative mode.

The key thing to remember is:

The Conversion stage only works because of the Awareness and Interest stages. It’s not a replacement for them.

Making the assumption that the mere existence of your book is enough to convert people into readers who both buy and read your book is a mistake that will make selling your book much harder.

The business perspective here is that you want to create a continuous pipeline of readers at different stages. Which means you always want to be connecting with new readers who are in the Awareness stage who are just discovering you. You also always want to have a segment of readers in the Interest stage who are learning more about you and your book and getting drawn in (preferably to your email list). The work that’s done with these two segments of readers will directly impact how many readers land in the Conversion stage and become readers who buy your book.

This pipeline is what creates a continuous flow of ongoing sales. This is basic business 101. Any attempts to fast-track or skip the Awareness and Interest stages will more often than not result in low sales and disappointment.

For example, if you launch a book with one event and everyone you know comes to that event and they all buy your book, who is left to buy your book the next day? 

Example Content Ratio Plan

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Schedule Your Content

As much as possible, depending on the platform you choose to be your primary focus, schedule your core content.

Many platforms include built-in scheduling features and when possible use those.

If necessary you can look to third-party schedulers as well. The one I’ve used the most is Buffer, their free plan tends to be sufficient for most use cases. But these platforms are constantly evolving and new ones emerge, so keep your eyes out for options and check in with your peers to see what they use.

Batch creating and scheduling content alleviates a ton of pressure. It removes a layer of context switching on a daily basis and it frees up your daily social media time which allows you to focus more on engagement, which as we’ll discuss in the next section, is the bigger driving force behind your growth than the content you post.

There has been a lot of speculation around whether scheduling content hurts reach. There is no documented proof that it does, and there are reports directly from the platform creators saying that it doesn’t. I have also tested it out a number of times by direct posting and scheduling similar types of content, and have never been able to prove a correlation between reach and scheduling.

But regardless, what I’m teaching through my anti-marketing philosophy is to reduce pressure and focus on connection. When you’re running your social media efforts intentionally and doing all of the other steps this topic covers, you’re not trying to chase the biggest possible reach with every single post.

Your focus is to provide high-quality, relevant content that tells a story and draws people in, while making meaningful connections along the way. What they see when they land on your account is far more important than pushing out as many buy my book posts as possible in the hopes that the algorithm will show them to people.

Scheduling your content frees up your time and energy to focus on the efforts that will produce more impactful results.

My recommendation is to start by batching and scheduling two weeks worth of content, and then once a week schedule out the next subsequent week. This gives you a buffer for life to happen without feeling the pressure to set up next week’s content on Sunday night.

But as with everything I advise… you do you. You know how you work best. This isn’t about forcing yourself into a pattern that actively works against what’s natural for you. It’s about finding the routine that suits you best. So use this Quest as a guide and suggested starting point, and adjust it in whatever way you need to as you start to see how things flow for you.

🦋 Quest Time! 🦋

Show Up Authentically

For most authors, the first thing they think about and focus on when it comes to social media is the content they’re going to post. It’s the side of social media that tends to be given the highest priority.

It makes sense, after all our goal is to get the messages about our books in front of as many people as possible.

But, as part of the mindset shift around your use of social media, the role it plays in your career growth, and how to control your experience of it, I encourage you to think of your own content as secondary.

Yes, you need to be publishing high-quality, relevant content consistently. But until you’ve built up an extremely active and engaged audience, most of your conversations won’t be happening on your own content.

It’s the engagement you do on other people’s content that will raise awareness of your existence more than your own content will. This is also a factor that saves you from relying on the algorithm to put your content in front of other people.

But not all engagement is created equal, so in the next few sections we’ll cover the specifics of what engaging on social media, as your author brand, actually means and looks like.

First up, you need to understand that your author brand boils down to:

How people describe you when you’re not in the room.

That description comes from the impression people form when they encounter you. For most strangers, that’s going to be through a combination of the comments you leave on other people’s content and the content you post on your own account.

This circles us back to a point that was raised previously:

One of the hardest shifts for authors is understanding that their use of social media as a creative who is building a public-facing career is different to how they may have used it as a regular user.

Using social media as an author, not a user

Talking to Strangers

Remember that the goal of engaging on posts is to create connections. It’s not just for showing the algorithm that you’re an active user.

Every empty comment is time taken away from a more meaningful interaction you could have had. That doesn’t mean you can’t do some quick and easy emoji comments, just make sure that they’re serving a purpose. Most of the time these are only appreciated by people who already know you.

Let’s take a look at a few specific scenarios.

Self-Recommendations

New Conversations

Build Familiarity to Create Visibility

Mindful DMs

Make Your Time Count

Go Forth and Engage With Confidence

Authenticity and Vulnerability 

The concept of being authentic by showing vulnerability is an area that is often misinterpreted, so I wanted to give it its own section.

Remember, social media is not a therapy session or a personal diary.

Being vulnerable isn’t about sharing information in the heat of the moment. It’s not about sharing your raw emotional reactions.

Responsible vulnerability is about understanding a situation you’ve been through and dealt with and sharing that journey in way that can help others.

Too often authors turn to social media for moral support when things aren’t going well, and it rarely comes across in a way that sheds a good light on the author.

Making posts about zero sales, no reach, no reviews, no success, isn’t being vulnerable or transparent… unless it’s accompanied by an action plan.

Saying things like, “My debut released two months ago and I haven’t had a single sale,” will land with most people as being negative or as a pity post.

Framing it like, “My debut didn’t get any traction in the first two months, so I’ve decided to give XYZ a try based on information/advice I received from…”  paints a very different, pro-active, success oriented picture.

The pity post might receive a decent amount of support, maybe even a lot of support, offering encouragement to keep your chin up and not give up. The first time at least. The more often you publish posts like this, the less support they’ll get over time. But again, is this what you want to be known for?

The pro-active post will receive respect and draw in the right people to rally around you who want to help lift you up in the efforts you’re making.

The key is to think about why you’re posting certain things. What outcome are you looking for? And then make sure that you’re conveying that meaning in what you’re saying. 

That first example might not have been intended to be a pity post, but there was nothing in it to make it clear that it’s not. And simply saying, “This isn’t a pity post,” isn’t enough, you need to show why it’s not.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Social media has made many people lazy in the way they communicate, but that’s a choice.

This all applies to commiserating on other people’s posts as well. You can agree with them without making a public statement about it.

This also doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to fake confidence when you’re not feeling it. If you’re a person who can, that’s great, and there’s nothing wrong with doing so. But this is another reason why you’re creating your author and book related Awareness and Interest core content and pre-scheduling it.

We all have bad days. Weeks sometimes. You’re allowed to feel all the feels. But more often than not those feelings don’t belong on social media, and especially not in the exact moment you’re experiencing them. You’re allowed to stay unplugged and offline during these times.

This is to say, you don’t have to post information about anything you don’t want to.

There’s a lot of buzz in author circles about providing transparency posts and not gatekeeping. Most of them come from a good place with positive intent to help others. But choosing not to document your entire journey publicly doesn’t mean that you’re gatekeeping or not being transparent.

Your author journey, your learning path, your wins and failures are yours. You’re under no obligation to make that information public if you don’t want to.

It’s also worth considering whether these types of posts are in fact helping others the way they may be intended to. 

Every author journey is different and what works for one author doesn’t necessarily work for another. Crowdsourcing ideas or swapping tips with someone you know, like, and trust is one thing. But sharing partial information that is incomplete and lacking context and nuance could quite easily lead someone less experienced to make costly mistakes. I’m not saying it’s wrong to share, but I am saying it’s worth considering the impact of what is being shared.

Sharing your experiences when others ask can be a great way to connect with others, but first consider whether that person and their followers are the people you want to be connecting with. And when giving advice, make sure that you’re the right person to be giving the advice or caveat it with ‘in my experience’.

The main takeaway of this section is to encourage you to think before you post. As I’ve previously mentioned, ask yourself:

Does this post support how I want people to describe me when I’m not in the room?

Why am I posting this? What is my intent? And what do I hope to achieve by it?

At the End of 90 Days

If you’ve already been using your platform of choice for your author journey, then you can pull up the last 90 days of insights from the platform and use that as your starting point for the next 90 days. The information in this section covers what you’ll be doing at the end of every 90-day cycle.

At the end of each 90 day period you’re going to pause, reflect, and adjust. The Pause, Reflect, and Adjust process is also covered in more detail in The Right Mindset section.

The reason you wait until the end of 90 days is to prevent reactive behaviour and decisions. You will have good days and bad days over the course of 3 months. The trick is to look back on the entire time frame and assess it objectively. You don’t want to be reactive on bad days.

This is the time to take a look at your insights and think about what the experience has been like for the last 90 days.

Future Expansion

At some point you’ll probably want to add another platform to your mix, maybe more than one, and that’s fine. The trick is to pay attention to when it’s the right time for you. 

The right time is when you’re feeling comfortable with your primary platform, you’ve developed a steady and consistent rhythm, you’re enjoying it, and you’re seeing consistent growth. How long it takes for you to feel ready will be different for everyone, there is no universally “right” time.

The key thing is that expanding to other platforms should not add stress. It should feel like a natural next step in your growth.

Social Media Visibility Cheatsheet

The purpose of this topic has been to help you see social media through a different lens and hopefully reshape your relationship with it.

Social media is one option for building visibility for your author career, it’s not the only option. For some authors it will be their primary focus, but even if it’s not where you’ll be focusing the majority of your time and energy, there’s no getting away from the reality that we live in a digital age.

Leveraging social media to some extent will be beneficial to all authors, in the same way that every author should have an author website and an email list. These are tools to build your digital infrastructure. The exact way in which you use them will be unique to you.

This section serves as another piece of your toolkit for building your customized blueprint for what your author career strategy and marketing plan will look like for you.