“Do I Need an Author Page on Facebook?”

As you begin to publish your work and build an online presence, you might wonder if you need to create a Facebook page for yourself as an author. But do you actually need one?

Probably not.

It’s not that you’re not awesome, because you are. But you might not need a Facebook page quite yet. Think about it–when you’re a brand new author, who is going to follow your author page? Your friends and family who are already friends with you on social media, which makes an author page kind of redundant. Honestly, your time would be better spent building up a presence elsewhere on the internet (like a blog or on Patreon) until your reach extends past your loved ones.

However, you shouldn’t discount your friends and family! When the day comes for you to make a Facebook author page, you’ll need people who already like you to follow the page to boost your likes and visibility.

Another reason you might not need a Facebook author page is because of some of the issues with Facebook and its algorithm. Every time it seems like something is working, the Facebook team seems hellbent on ruining it. Seriously, I don’t even see my husband’s posts 90% of the time–and he usually tags me in them! Admittedly, some of that could be user error, but sometimes it’s just the algorithm. With all the recent issues Facebook has been having over the last few years, a lot of people aren’t using it as often. It seems like more people–especially a younger audience–are gravitating towards Snapchat and Instagram.

Twitter is also an option, but from a marketing standpoint, you need to post close to 30 times a day for it to be worth it (unless you’re already very well known). If you post a ton on Twitter–great! If you’re like me and forget Twitter exists, then I suggest trying other avenues.

I don’t personally have a Facebook author page, but I just resurrected my Lola Black Instagram page on Monday. I’m planning to post random photos relating to being a writer, both funny memes I find as well as my own pictures. You can check me out on Instagram by clicking here.

Writing can be hard enough and managing social media on top of that can be exhausting. But unfortunately, it’s just the nature of modern publishing. If you’re fortunate enough to get a contract with a big publisher with a marketing department, they’ll do a lot of the work for you. However, if you self-publish or land with a small publisher, the responsibility of marketing falls on you. Like anything else, it’s important to just work it into your schedule so it becomes routine and you can do a little bit at a time rather than everything at once.

Another option is to just lurk around Tumblr and chat with people. After all, that’s what Neil Gaiman does.

By the way, I’m also on Tumblr (click here).

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