Twitter, a lack of activity, an increase of followers, and why should I give a damn?

Now, it is true that social media is about the only way we independent writers can get information to prospective buyers about our product, in the case of writers, this is, of course, our books. I belong to several writers groups on Facebook, posting as often as I can. you know - engaging with potential readers. I follow other writers on Twitter, I put my stuff out there in the twittersphere, and it matters little in sales.

What I noticed this week is that, the less I post, the more followers I gain. I don't think this has anything to do with mystery. I think it is merely a reflection of the fractured nature of those who follow me on twitter. Because I am a sportswriter, actually receive money (about 5000 per year for two articles per week) for what I write, I have quite a few fans of the team I cover that follow me... but during the football offseason, I rarely post anything related to what I get paid to write about... so most of my posts are related to my novel writing.

But it seems that every time I post about my books, I lose sports fans as followers, and every time I write about a sports topic, I lose those who follow me for the more serious writing topics as followers. And, when I post nothing, save fo0r links to this blog, I actually GAIN followers. Kind of says something about the attention span of social media.

And, for what it is worth, the membership in Facebook groups has done nothing for sales, page likes, twitter followers or any other measurable category. But every once in a while, something happens in one of the groups that makes me smile, or gives me an idea, or answers a question. For those reasons, the groups are still valuable to me.

This weekend, I did a lot of yardwork, did some great reading and got some writing in as well; maybe not as much as I get on those weekends when the weather is dreary, but still some adequate time in front of the keyboard. I finished the chapter 'The days of barbarous treachery' with this line:

‘We just keep surviving, Liv, that’s all we can do.’

I liked that ending to the chapter because I am using it to set up the future of those couple. the end of the world we know, a dystopian pre-apacolyptic future holds some bleak times and survival will be the key word. I am looking forward to where this book takes me, but for today, I enjoyed a perfect day outside with some hard work, followed by a well-earned BEER!