Hello, all!

I was saddened to see the closing of The Novel Approach and the USA Today Happily Ever After Blogs. I’ll definitely miss Lisa Horan’s blog, but I understand her desire to relax a little and read again for enjoyment.

I’m not sure if these sad endings signal some new shift in the world of writing, or if it’s simply inevitable that things ebb and flow. I do know one thing though, the business of writing has changed so much over the last five years. I guess it only makes sense that all the businesses that are attached to writing are being affected too. It’s not just the authors who are struggling with burnout, and trying to keep up with the new trends. All of the peripheral services are also being impacted. Sometimes that means a big explosion in the number of customers, for example editors might be busier, but sometimes other parts of the business suffer. I think that blogs have been affected in a negative way by the huge growth of social media.

I definitely still enjoy book blogs, but I suspect that in the past blogs were sometimes the only link readers had to authors. With the explosion of social media, that has probably changed. Readers used blogs to keep tabs on what authors were doing, and it was a way of interacting with authors. With the invention of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among others, readers can connect directly to authors now. I sometimes wonder if that has hurt the blogs? I hate the idea that it has.

With this huge emergence of social media platforms, even the very job of writing has changed. Writing is no longer a solitary job. It’s more solitary than working as a waitress, but gone are the days when readers couldn’t connect to authors. Authors can no longer just hide in their house. In fact, authors are now required to have a social media presence. If you don’t ever interact on social media, you do run the risk of losing readers interest because there are so many other authors willing to interact. I’ll be very honest and say I don’t always love the pressure to be on social media every day. As a shy person, I can find it very draining. One reason I loved writing as my job was because I’m a naturally reclusive type of person. I could literally never go anywhere for a month and be fine with that. lol I know other people would say I’m crazy, but I just love being home writing. It’s one of my most favorite things to do. I love immersing myself in my books, and that’s why it was the perfect job for me. I think it still is the perfect job for me, but I have to push myself to be on social media more than I would naturally do. It’s just how it is now and it’s either adapt, or fade away. As an Marine ex-boyfriend of mine used to say: Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

I guess the point of my post is simply to acknowledge that things change. Writing has changed. Social media is a huge part of that change. Change can be good or bad, but I think usually it’s a mixture of both.

S.C.

www.scwynne.com