When I opened the doors of The Short Story Editor, I decided to try all the social media to see what stuck. Besides very little sticking, I learned several things:
- I love looking at short story news and posting the highlights.
- Social media algorithms don’t favour link sharing.
- Facebook business pages are kind of useless and lonely when all you post are links.
- Meme-making is fun.
- TikTok making is very outside of my comfort zone but is also fun.
- The IG and TT algorithms require a steady output, making both of these tasks into part-time jobs (at minimum).
- I don’t have time to do more jobs.
And the most surprising fact:
- Writers almost never find me on social media.
But Twitter, Twitter was fun. It was where all the writers and publishers and editors congregated, and even though the algorithm rarely let anyone see the short story news I posted, I loved it. Until The Great Impulse-Buy of 2022.
Citing irreconcilable differences at that point, I broke things off with Twitter. From there, I tried to create a little weekly (then monthly) blog post of my short story news, but it also became another job and did not stick. So, my social engagement has languished.
Until now?! The advent of Threads has inspired me to try again. So, I’ll be posting my short story news there, @ThShrtStryEdtr.
I have also, perhaps overzealously, started a Facebook group called Short Story Writers of the Earth. There, I will be cross-posting my short story news and attempting to create a place where we can nerd out on short stories and the writing thereof.
So, if you’re tired of people asking you when you’re going to write a novel, come hang out!
