March’s Monthly Digest: Goodbye Social Media

If you want to keep in touch after the end of March, the best place to find me is here.

The year is nearly one-quarter gone and I’ve been reflecting on many things over the past month, especially after having lots of conversations with writer friends. One of the things that keeps coming up in those conversations is social media.

If you’ve been with me on Substack from the start, you’ll know I came here because I was tried of being an unpaid content producer for Meta who, let’s face it, don’t need my blood, sweat and tears. But I’ve kept my social media going, albeit on a slightly reduced scale because everyone says authors have to be on social. And it’s hard to walk away from almost ten thousand followers on Instagram, and another eight thousand on Facebook.

But …

Many of the conversations I’m having with my writer friends have revolved around how little authors can really do to shift the dial on sales. If everyone who followed me on Instagram bought my book in the first couple of weeks it was published, it would be an instant New York Times bestseller. (For context, the 7th book on the Hardcover Fiction list this week sold 9,983 copies, so about the same as the number of Instagram followers I have.)

Of course not everyone who follows you on social media does buy your book. They borrow your book from the library, which is absolutely fine; they wait for it to come out in paperback; they followed you years ago and have forgotten to unfollow you; or they’re a weird man in a military uniform and they follow all blonde-haired authors for some unknown reason.

And authors aren’t just on social media to sell books. They’re there to connect with readers in the space between books, which is usually a minimum of a year, but often longer. The thing is, people are increasingly being their more angry selves when they interact with posts on social media, demanding to know why a giveaway is only in the US rather than Australia, shouting in ALL CAPS about why a book is being published in one country earlier than another or cursing you, again in ALL CAPS, because you dropped a damn curse word in your book.

Those interactions are draining, and tend to overwhelm the flurry of positive and supportive reactions from others. You start to resent the time it takes to be on those platforms and you can feel that the headspace required to be there is very different to the headspace you need to be in to write a book.

And then you ask yourself the question: will I be lying on my deathbed wishing I’d written one more Instagram post? I think we can all guess at the answer to that!

How Much Delight Did I Cause In the World?

The main thing that prompted me to really start thinking about this is I had to make an impromptu visit to Sydney last weekend. My 17 year old daughter, who’s just moved there for university, rang me in tears at six in the morning because she’d come down with gastro or food poisoning and was sick and sad and needed her mum. Needless to say, I was on the next plane out of Perth at 8am.

She bounced back relatively quickly as young people do. But the most precious thing of all to me about that visit was the look on her face when I arrived. She was so happy, so happy, that I’d come to look after her. I brought her so much joy, just by turning up. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt before that same sense of how fulfilling it is to be the thing that causes someone such delight. And I realised that was the most important thing about living: to bring people, especially those you love, as many moments of pure joy as you can.

That’s what I’ll want to account for on my deathbed: how much delight did I cause in the world?

I Would Have Missed It

The one thing you have control over as an author is the quality of the book you’re writing. That’s what will make people come back and read your next book—because they loved the last one so much, not because they saw a picture you posted on Instagram. And writing is rewarding and joyful for me and I think books, poems, songs, all art forms, can bring people joy and inspiration too.

So my goal for right now is to focus my time and effort on the things that can create more of that delight and inspiration. Turning up for my family. Writing a book that moves my readers. Writing posts here on Bijoux that entertain or inspire. Just like when I do events where I can meet and talk to readers properly and really feel a sense of connection to them, I feel the same here. The comments you leave are always interesting, conversational, happy, curious. And my readers are the same.

All of that is to explain why the social media posts will be much, much less for the next few months after the end of March. I have a brand new book to write, which I’m really excited about. I have to finish editing another one. My kids are growing up fast and I don’t want to miss these precious moments as they become adults.

And I feel like everywhere I turn these days, people have their heads down, their eyes fixed on the small screen in front of them. This article from

Magdalene J. Taylor

presents a really interesting discussion around the disconnection that fixation creates in so many areas of our lives. And it makes me so thankful that when I approached my daughter in Sydney last weekend, I wasn’t just checking Instagram one last time on my phone. If I had been, I would never have seen the sheer, beautiful delight on her face and I would have missed one of the most important moments of my life.

To write the best book, it seems that looking up, not down, is the way to go. Connecting with people so I can write about human connection. Being out in the world so I can write about its realness, not the way it looks in an Instagram square.

So, here’s to delight, to looking up, to making art, and to joining me here if you’d like to stay in touch.

What I’m Working On

I’m currently editing my next historical, which will be out in April 2025 in Australia and North America. This one is about Marie-Madeleine Méric (later Fourcade), the only female leader of a Resistance network during WWII, and her story is one of the most inspiring, sad, beautiful and thrilling I’ve ever written. I can’t wait to bring it to you! We’re tossing around title ideas right now and I’ll let you know when that’s finalised.

I finished working through my editor’s notes on Friday and now I’ll read through the whole thing for what’s probably the elevnty-billionth time, find more small errors and things I want to change and really make sure I’ve addressed everything and made the book better. I also need to do a little more cutting as, like always, it’s a few thousand words too long.

So the pile of paper above is what will have my full attention until March 25, when I have to send it back to my editor. If you’re interested in finding out more about the editing process, you can watch this video I did for paid subscribers last week.

Sydney Writing Workshop—3 Places Left!

Don’t forget I’m running a Masterclass in Writing Historical Fiction and Dual Narratives in Sydney on March 23. We’ll be focussing on the fact that readers of historical fiction want a compelling story that sweeps them away to another time and place. And they also want to experience the history rather than just wade through pages of facts. It’s a tricky balance to strike, as is the act of making each storyline in a dual narrative feel just as fascinating as the other. So I’ll be taking you through the strategies I use to achieve all of this and a lot more in my own internationally acclaimed novels.

There are only 3 places left for the workshop, so please grab those before it’s sold out if you’re interested in attending. You can find more info by clicking the button below. And please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments.

Reading Recommendation

Shankari Chandran won the Miles Franklin Award last year for Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens and my goodness she deserved it. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year and I’ve no doubt it will make it to my list of best books for 2024.

She’s such an accomplished writer and juggles so many huge themes with ease and extraordinary humour. The book is quite remarkable in that way. It covers everything from society’s treatment of the elderly, what community means, maternal loss, endemic racism and how that manifests itself in society, storytelling, trauma, the Sri Lankan civil war, the plight of the Tamil people and no theme ever feels underdone or glossed over. I can’t believe it’s only her third book; she writes like someone who’s been honing her craft for a very long time.

If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, please do. It will make you think and reflect, it will make you laugh and cry and it will definitely inspire you and bring you joy, as well as making you dig deep inside yourself and consider how you interact with the world.

I was also very lucky to interview Shankari yesterday, along with my co-host Belinda Alexandra, and she was such a wise, intelligent, beautiful human being who had so much insight to offer about a range of topics. I thoroughly recommend watching the interview; it’s one of my favourite author interviews I’ve ever done. I could have spoken to her all night. I hope you enjoy it.

Interviews, Bestseller Lists and More

• I loved doing this in-depth interview for the Art in Fiction podcast, which focuses on books with an artistic theme. It’s rare that you get the chance to talk for so long or in so much detail about how you construct a story, the way your writing mind works, the intricacies and curiosities of process and lots more. I hope you enjoy watching.

• Massive thanks to my Canadian readers for putting THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ASTRID BRICARD onto the Globe and Mail Bestseller List! You guys are the best.

• I was also interviewed for About the Authors TV, who had me on the show to discuss THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ASTRID BRICARD, the writing process in general and lots more in the video below.

• It’s been a dream of mine to be invited to the Kimberley Writers Festival because there’s some of the most beautiful country in the world up there—and this year I scored an invite! I’m so excited!! Save the date and join us if you can.

Have a Great Week!

That’s all for now! I’ll be back in the inboxes of paid subscribers in the last week of March with the monthly Magazine. Otherwise, have a great month!