Marketing: Neyuki hit the market today

Neyuki is available today! To help people know that, I made a BookTok video and posted it. It took quite a few tries, and I wasn’t truly satisfied with any of them. But the last one was good enough, so up it went.

Social media are now the lifeblood of marketing for books. Almost all of it devolves onto the author, even if the book is published by one of the Big Five publishing houses. The publishing house still does great work getting the product into bookstores. If you’re a superstar, they may even do some advertising for you. But the day-to-day communication with readers is now the author’s job. In some ways, that makes perfect sense. The author knows the book better and cares more deeply about it than anyone. At the same time, though, the author’s specialty is writing books, not creating social media. We’d get more great books if the authors didn’t have to market them. We’d probably get better marketing too.

While I understand the importance of social media and some of the ins and outs of how they work, media creation is not something I enjoy. In fact, it’s the one part of the publishing and marketing process I wish I could simply pass on. I love to write. That’s how I want to spend my days. Social media are a necessary distraction. Making BookTok videos takes too much effort. Posting to Facebook and Instagram and X and BlueSky and how many more is … ? Making a video every day? Will I ever get to that point? Not the way I feel about it now.

Unfortunately, my sales will reflect that attitude.