I usually only post book news on this blog but posting about my current distaste for social media on social media seemed a bit silly.
If you follow my Facebook page, you may have noticed I don’t post much. Only a small percentage of my followers see anything on there because it is mostly “pay-to-play.” I also don’t spend much time on Facebook because of its various shady business dealings and its slow response to its major disinformation problem—in fact, it’s still happening.
If you follow me on TikTok, you may have noticed that I stopped posting. The TikTok algorithm is particularly difficult to harness unless you have time to post at least twice (or more!) daily. I simply don’t have the time. I still scroll the videos on occasion but the BookTok drama gets me down. (With that being said, there are some very good conversations happening on BookTok about representation and diversity in books.) Plus, historical fiction fans don’t gather there. Yet.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that, well, I don’t post as much as I should. I’m kind of bad at it. When your whole thing is words, coming up with pretty images to share on a regular basis is tricky. It’s also tainted by the Zuk. I really have to get better at it though.
If you follow me on Twitter, well, uh, thanks! I’ve been an active Twitter user for over a decade and have made some online friendships that I cherish. That’s why it’s so heartbreaking to see Twitter taken over by He Who Shall Not Be Named—a person who has time and time again shown that he is a bad person. Learn more here and here and here. I’m currently experimenting with a couple Twitter alternatives. I’ll share the link when the dust settles.
Authors (and basically everyone else trying to promote their work) are expected to market themselves on at least a couple of platforms because that’s where the eyeballs are. There’s a pretty good chance this post won’t get read because it’s tucked away on my website, away from the rest of the internet. I get that. But I wanted to make it clear that I haven’t disappeared—I just don’t know where to post anymore where it will actually get seen by the right people.
If you don’t want to miss out on book announcements, the best thing I can recommend is signing up for my newsletter: jilly.ca/subscribe And I would say that about all the authors you enjoy—newsletters are usually the most reliable way to stay updated with authors and other people whose work you enjoy. As authors, we own our lists while we don’t own any of the social networks we take advantage of. We never know what could happen to them.
As for what I’m working on, I’m finishing up my first round of edits on the sequel to my WWII romance, The Hobby Shop on Barnaby Street (Homefront Hearts) this very evening. This novel is about Maisie’s friend Nora—I had a lot of fun getting into the head of the sassy seamstress. I’ll probably be announcing the title fairly soon. Then I’ll do another round of edits and then it will go off to the editor for a bit while I start work on the third novel in the trilogy. I’m planning to release books 2 and 3 closer together next year.
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