Five Things I Learned From My 1-Year Social Media Hiatus

At the end of May 2020, I did what many of my author friends warned me was career suicide.

I closed my social media accounts. All of them. Not just left them dormant with “taking a break” messaging, but actually closed/deleted them.

The “why” is difficult for me to explain, because I’m not entirely sure what triggered the decision. In hindsight, I’m sure there were a variety of factors. The most prominent probably being that I’d gone down the rabbit hole of reading a half dozen books explaining how much big tech companies know about their users, and what they do with that information. 

But when I actually set out to close the accounts, there was no single motivation driving me; it wasn’t even planned. I simply, quietly, on a bit of a whim, shut them all down on a random Sunday. I gave no announcement or warning of any kind, and had no idea if/when I would return.

Here are some things I’ve learned while being a full-time author without any social media presence:

I was more creative, and had more story ideas.

Even before I’d closed my accounts completely, I’d had a pretty limited social media presence relative to many of my romance-writing peers, so I never really considered social media to take away from writing time. So I was genuinely surprised by how different my writing life felt without any sort of “platform.”

I realized it wasn’t just that social media was taking up my time (because honestly, so much of it can be outsourced or automated). It was that it was taking up space in my brain. By removing social media from my world completely, I felt like I had a huge new reserve of energy, motivation, and creativity to apply to my writing and pursuits.

I felt more present/engaged/happier in my offline life.

I was a little surprised by just how incredibly happy I was without social media. It felt like the first time in a long time, I was living offline, instead of online. I spent my days “chin up,” experiencing the world around me, not “chin down,” experiencing life through a screen. 

I loved falling out of the habit of snapping a photo of every moment to share with my followers, of trying to constantly catch my dog when she was at her cutest, or trying to arrange my book cover just right. I connected more with my husband, reached out to my friends/family more often to see how they were doing, and had a brand new chunk of free hours to read, teach myself to draw, watercolor, sit in the sunshine…

My book sales were minimally impacted.

Honestly, 2020 was a rather tricky year to conduct this experiment, because everything was wildly weird. But since I know the elephant in the room here is how it impacted my book sales, the answer is:

Not much.

In comparing first month sales of the book I released while still on social media to the book I released during my social media hiatus, the latter sold only 4% fewer copies in its first month.

Now, obviously there are a variety of factors that could be at play here; cover design, release day timing, story appeal, reader reception, and oh yeah, that fact that one released before the pandemic shutdown, the other smack dab in the midst of it.

But I can also say that the books were released at the same price, by the same publisher, and thus my mini-experiment most certainly called into question everything I’d been told that traditionally published authors must be on social media, which leads me to a caveat:

Because I’m traditionally published, my “hiatus” book release had the support of my publisher, even when I wasn’t promoting it (beyond my newsletter). I would absolutely not make the assumption that indie authors would have the same results of a similar experiment. In fact, I’d argue that the reason I could even consider quitting social media in the first place is because I’m a traditionally published author.

I missed my readers.

Sure, there are the occasional grumpy readers on social media who’d send me long DMs about all the things they thought I was doing wrong, or smattering of comments informing my book was too expensive, trashy, or not as good as my last. I didn’t miss seeing those comments at all. But the vast majority of my readers, and the reading community at large, is extremely warm, kind, and generous. I really missed them, especially my longtime readers who’ve supported me and my career through plenty of ups and downs.

I missed having a place to share book news and writing tips.

While the freedom from feeling like I had to share personal updates, dog pics, selfies was wonderfully freeing, I missed having a place to share the career-related updates I was excited about. Sure, I can (and did!) send my newest cover design to friends, and text my author friends a snippet of that day’s writing that I was particularly proud of, but I underestimated how much I would miss having a place to share book news with book fans. Additionally, when I was first starting out, I learned so much from published authors who were generous with their knowledge. I missed being able to do my part of sharing tips with writers earlier in their publishing journey.

Where things stand

For the majority of my hiatus, I thought I would “never go back.” The pros of being off social media seemed to outweigh the things I miss, and I’d never felt happier.

But then, as impulsively as I quit social media, I decided to dip my toe back in. I started up a brand new Instagram account (always my favorite of the platforms) on a whim. And…I didn’t hate it!

Now, I can’t wrap my head around the idea of returning to Facebook or Twitter; I never liked them even before I left, and I miss no part of them. Those I truly can’t fathom returning to. But Instagram? It’s nice to be back.

Things will be different this time, though.

I plan on keeping it mostly to the book news and writing tips for now, and keep my personal life a bit more private.

I’ve found I’ve also lost all interest in the numbers. I couldn’t tell you how many followers I have, and I no longer check “likes.” I’ll no longer allow them to be a part of my life or identity, and I certainly won’t use them to measure my worth as a writer.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips