Lupe Farkas

Yesterday my book was released in three languages.

WOW.

Yes. Wow!!!

And the normal thing to do would have been to post about it on social media.

And post a lot.

Apparently, if you want to be a successful person on the internet, you should post five times a day on Instagram, five times a day on Pinterest, and if you want to become a TikTok sensation you’re supposed to post approximately eight million times before breakfast.

Then, of course, you need to post on your website.

It’s good to have a Substack.

Don’t forget LinkedIn.

If you’re in Europe, apparently it would also be great if you posted on Monnet.

Am I forgetting something?

I’m sure I’m forgetting approximately seventeen things.

Nothing.

I thought about recording a podcast. I actually wanted to. Then I checked the time and it was already 6 p.m., I was hungry, so I went downstairs and cooked Mexican food for dinner.

It looked absolutely terrible.

The taste was amazing.

Actually, I think I’m going to start posting photographs of the ugly food I cook because nobody believes how extraordinarily bad I am at plating food.

Whatever.

I’m writing nonsense again.

Back to the point.

I posted the day before.

But on the actual day my book was released in three languages?

Silence.

Why?

I ask myself this all the time.

My brain thinks publishing the book means the job is finished

And I think this might be my problem.

Once the book is released, my brain immediately files it under:

The book is out in the world. It doesn’t belong entirely to me anymore. People can buy it, read it, love it, hate it, question my life choices because of it.

So naturally, I move on to something else.

Yesterday, for example, I was working on my website.

I wanted to make sure it looked right, that everything made sense and that all the information I want people to find is actually there. I wanted my work as a professional ARC reader and book reviewer to be visible and clear.

So there I was.

Moving things.

Fixing things.

Changing colours.

Arguing with WordPress.

Wondering why one menu exists in approximately twelve dimensions simultaneously.

Very productive.

Just perhaps not the thing an indie author should be doing on release day.

I also have another book coming out around Halloween, so naturally my brain was already over there.

Then there were books to read.

Emails to answer.

ARC submissions.

Life.

Apparently I need to become… organised

Horrifying.

Apparently indie author marketing means writing the book was only the first part of the job.

I need to put it inside my head that social media is actually part of the job.

Not something I do whenever I suddenly remember Instagram exists.

I think I need to divide my day and dedicate maybe one hour every day specifically to social media and book promotion.

One hour.

Instagram.

TikTok.

Pinterest.

Whatever survives the great platform elimination process that is about to happen.

I have no fucking clue.

But somehow I’m going to have to learn.

How do you do it?

Seriously.

Tell me your secret.

Tell me your system.

Tell me which social media platform you abandoned because it was consuming your soul.

Because if you’re an indie author, you probably should not follow my example.

Actually, if you’re an indie author, I may currently be the last person you should use as an example of what to do after your book comes out.

I’m laughing alone in my office as I type this.

Thankfully there are no cameras in here because this entire process already looks questionable enough from the outside.

But I have a plan

The website is basically done.

The tools are there.

The accounts exist.

Some of them exist twice, apparently.

Now I just need to feed them.

So I’m going to organise myself and start treating social media as an actual part of my working day.

And I’m going to try what all these experts say we are supposed to do if we want to become successful indie authors in 2026.

Almost 2027.

Jesus.

I’m going to try it.

All of it.

Including showing my face.

Yeah.

You read that correctly.

I’m going to show my face.

I’m going to speak to the camera.

And you know what else?

I’m going to make myself like it.

Because eventually it must just become normal, right?

Right???

Well.

I have absolutely no idea.

We’re going to discover that together.

Together?

Yes.

Together.

Welcome to my indie author marketing experiment

Every day I’m going to come here and write about what I did.

What I posted.

What worked.

What completely died.

How I felt doing it.

What grew.

What didn’t.

The wins and the losses.

No.

Wait.

Let’s keep some positivity here.

There will be no losses.

Unless I get cancelled.

Although to get cancelled I think you first need to be vaguely famous.

And I am definitely not there yet.

So technically it is still too early for me to be cancelled.

Excellent.

We have time.

So let’s talk numbers.

Instagram: 141 followers.

TikTok: 107 followers.

Facebook: 32 followers, although somehow I have two pages and I need to understand what the fuck I did there.

Imperfect Rebel Podcast on Spotify: 16 followers.

Apple Podcasts: 11 followers, because apparently I’ve decided we’re counting absolutely everything now.

Substack: 9 subscribers, most of them my friends 😂

Threads: one profile has 10 followers and another has 239. Again, do not ask me what I did. I don’t know.

X: basically nothing because I don’t use it. Should I?

Monnet: I think zero. I don’t understand how it works. Again, should I even bother?

Tumblr: 1 follower. Apparently Tumblr is coming back from the dead. Should I be there?

Goodreads Author Page: 9 followers and 234 friends. This is actually my favourite social media platform. I’m there every day. I love Goodreads.

LinkedIn: around 50 connections. I used LinkedIn a lot in the late 2000s, then I started receiving approximately one million messages and deleted my account.

Now I opened another one under my author name and, surprise, one million messages again, most of them apparently from people trying to sell me something.

I’m already considering deleting it.

Does LinkedIn actually help authors?

Pinterest: 127 followers and almost 400,000 views.

Pinterest used to be my favourite until its AI moderation decided to scrutinise the living fuck out of my pins and apparently concluded that sarcasm, humour and half my personality were crimes against humanity.

I lost around 800,000 views, which still hurts.

Ohhhhh fuck.

I almost forgot I also have a YouTube channel.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I’m going to hide under a rock.

This is actually a ridiculous commitment

Look at that list.

That is not “post something occasionally.”

That is practically managing a small media company.

And what better way to find out than doing what the experts tell indie authors to do for a while and actually measuring what happens?

So here is the experiment.

I’m going to post.

I’m going to test things.

I’m going to show my face.

I’m going to talk to the camera.

I’m going to try different platforms.

I’m going to track the numbers.

Will the posts be beautiful and perfectly curated?

Absolutely fucking not.

But I’ll be there.

And then we can actually see what happens.

Because maybe indie authors really do need to post five times a day.

Maybe we don’t.

Maybe TikTok changes everything.

Maybe Goodreads quietly does more for books than all of them.

Maybe Pinterest forgives me.

Maybe LinkedIn finally explains what it wants from me.

Maybe Tumblr has secretly been waiting twenty years for its glorious resurrection.

I have no idea.

And that’s why I want to document it.

So tell me what you think

Which social media platforms are actually worth an indie author’s time?

Which ones would you keep?

Which ones would you throw directly into the sea?

Comment below or send me an email because I genuinely want to know.

And, obviously, if you want to help this extremely scientific experiment:

Follow me somewhere.

Read Before October Ends.

Actually, if every author who sends me an ARC bought my book, that would already solve quite a few problems.

I’M JOKING.

You absolutely do not need to buy my book.

Unless you want to.

Then obviously you should.

Whatever.

This is my Journal.

And in a journal I’m allowed to write whatever is currently bouncing around inside my head.

So get ready.

Because apparently I’ve committed to doing this every day.

Me yapping.

Except now I’m typing.

Which might actually be worse.

And please.

If you’re an indie author…

don’t do what I did on release day.