The Catholic Writers Guild

One of the first things I learned as an aspiring Catholic writer was the importance of using social media.  This was back when using an internet handle, rather than your real name, was a common practice.  Social media was, then, still largely an offshoot of the mostly-anonymous discussion groups that were the lifeblood of the early internet days.  “Get your name out there!” we were told.  “If no one knows your real name, how will they recognize you when your book comes out?!”

That was Social Media for Authors 101, and at the Catholic Writers Guild we continue to stress the importance of good marketing practices.  Every year at our conferences, we expand and deepen the discussion.  For about 5% of authors, marketing is a delight: A chance to get out of the writer’s box, meet people, chat, share the exciting news.  For the rest of us, it’s a chore.  I’d rather be writing.  I’d rather be holed up in my hermitage minding my own business.  I don’t want to bother people.

Many of us Catholic writers have an ideal of humility that involves the hidden life, and we like it that way.  We’d rather be hidden.  We have to learn to accept the other kind of humility, the kind that comes with taking the basket off the lamp so that the whole world can see the light we’re living by.   What I want is to show the world the Light of Christ; what’s going to happen is that people will see me, too.  That means they’ll get to see how poorly I measure up to the standard I’m trying to meet.

That’s the context in which we Catholic writers and artists promote our works.  We might be motivated by simple evangelical enthusiasm, or we might have the additional need to feed our families or to satisfy our portion of the marketing load that is our duty to our publishers.  Simple love of fellow man is sufficient reason to share good Catholic writing on social media: If my friends don’t have something decent to click on, what will they read?  Let me point them to the good stuff.

When are we going overboard?

In light of the reasonableness of using social media to promote good Catholic writing — our own or anyone else’s — we have to ask ourselves: At what point have we crossed the line from “spirited” into plain old obnoxious?

This is new territory.  Our instincts are at times unreliable.  There are generational and cultural differences in the way people compose e-mails, for example; there’s not a single established format for proper digital communications.  For shy writers, any use of social media at all for promotion of our own works can feel like too much of the Me! Me! Me! game.  For the naturally boisterous among us, it can be hard to tell what’s just a friendly hello from an author friend, and what comes across as pushy or self-aggrandizing.

I’d like to toss out a few observations, and I’d like to hear from others. What works in social media marketing and what irritates?  What do other authors do that you admire, and what do other authors do that you can’t stand?

Here are a few of my thoughts, by way of conversation-starter:

In e-mail correspondence, the busyness of the recipient matters very much.  There are fellow workers in the vinyard who have time to read and answer your e-mail. There are others who have to wade through hundreds or thousands of messages a day.  You can’t always know who has free time and would love to hear from you, and who doesn’t.  You can’t always guess when you do send an inquiry to an editor whether what you are sending is exactly what they’ve been praying for, or if it’s going to be one more dreaded thank you, but rejection note they’re going to have to send.

Two things that seem to help:

1. Put the most important information in the topic line. Vague subject lines like about the blog or just wanted to share . . . are maddening to a busy editor.  Proposed Guest Post, Advent theme, 800 words gives the recipient enough info to know that this is important, and to set aside about five minutes to open and read the e-mail.  
   
2. Acknowledge that the recipient may not have time to respond.  No need to go on and on, but a single-sentence, “I realize you may not be able to get to this, and if so, no worries,” takes a huge burden off.  While you’re at it, in your e-mail get straight to the point and keep the initial communication short:  “Attached is my 800-word reflection on the beauty of Advent Candles and how that fits in with the theme of Commercialism versus Community that you’ve been discussing on your blog . . .”

I think a certain amount of e-mailing links to articles you think your friends and contacts would enjoy is fair game, but it needs to be thoughtfully done, and with a light touch.

In specialty groups, self-promotion gives way to group interest. If you belong to, say, the Catholic Fans of Idaho Rugby Teams Who Also Grow Rutabagas Facebook group, sharing your work concerning Idaho, rugby, or rutabagas makes sense.  Posting links to everything you write because hey, fellow Catholics, they must be interested? That doesn’t fly.  People realize you’re not in it for the rutabaga, you’re in it for you.  It’s off-putting.

Bumping or posting on friends’ and contacts’ walls should likewise be of personal interest. I have a friend who regularly bumps me links on medieval art, rabbits, and libraries.  I love those things. She knows it.  It brightens my day when she points me to those links — not just because I might be interested, but because it reminds me she’s thinking of me.  It’s not spam, it’s a genuine personal connection.

In the same way, if I write about someone’s work, I might send them a note or leave a comment on their social media presence to let them know I covered them.  It’s fair game to share your contribution to an on-going conversation that someone else started.  “Hey, I loved your piece on Library Rabbits, and here’s a link to my follow-up on how to keep the hay dust down.”

What doesn’t work is constantly bumping your own writing or advertising onto other people’s social media feeds as if you’d purchased a commercial time slot.  It starts to get annoying, and eventually people will just unfriend or unfollow you.  (In contrast, if someone says, “I love your rutabaga posts — could you please bump me every time you add one?” then that’s your invitation to share early and often.)

Your own wall is yours to do with as you like. I think people pretty much understand that your house = your rules.  If it’s your blog, Twitter feed, Facebook profile, or whatever, it’s yours to do with as you like.  If you make it interesting, you’ll have more followers and get more interaction.  If you make it a non-stop series of boring advertisements, people aren’t going to read.  But it is your place, so you can manage it how you want.

Those are my thoughts.  How about you?  Agree? Disagree?  Have more to add?  In addition to leaving a comment here, it’s absolutely fair game to leave a link in the combox to a reply post you’ve written at your own blog.

Jennifer Fitz

Jennifer Fitz is the author of The How-to Book of Evangelization: Everything You Need to Know But No One Ever Taught You from Our Sunday Visitor and Classroom Management for Catechists from Liguori Publications. She writes about all things evangelization and discipleship at jenniferfitz.substack.com. For updates on where else to find her, visit JenniferFitz.com.