There was a tale doing the rounds a few years back about an author, supposedly an established one, who’d submitted a manuscript to a publisher and had it rejected. Hardly something new — we’ve all been there. But in this case the publisher supposedly liked the book, but turned it down because the author had no social media presence.

True or false? I’ve no idea. In the wacky world of publishing stranger things have happened. But this would have been back in the days of Twitter, when everyone was on there and nowhere else. The Musk effect has ended that one. Now people are all over — X, Bluesky, Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, TikTok. Maybe some others I haven’t heard about (because to be honest I haven’t gone looking).

None of them measure up to Twitter in its prime. That moment, which was wonderful mostly, is lost forever. I quit X when Musk did the Nazi salute and I’m never going back unless someone sane buys it and renames the thing Twitter — which isn’t going to happen. You can find me most active on Bluesky, and rather less so on Threads which mostly just reflects my irregular posts on Instagram. Bluesky seems the more sane of them all though it lacks the range and quirkiness of the old Twitter.

Wherever you are you will meet writers, established and hopeful, talking about the odd business of books. Mostly it’s harmless, sometimes it’s fascinating, and on occasion I have to do a face palm and ask myself… what is this person thinking?

So here is my entirely personal list of what writers should not be doing on social media.

• Never ever get drawn into responding to negative reviews. We all get them. A true writer’s mindset is that you ignore the 99 great reviews you get but are hung up on the one nasty one. Try and lose this habit.
• Doing little but plug your own books. This rapidly gets tiresome and treats your followers as nothing more than a potential source of income.
• Complaining you don’t have time to write. If that’s the case get off social media.
• Moaning that the work in progress isn’t going so well (unless it’s in a joke fashion). See above.
• Complaining that a writer’s lot is a hard one. Look up what Herman Melville went through and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
• Don’t get lured into pile-ons when they pop up in your timeline. The truth is you probably don’t know the background to what’s going on and it’s none of your business anyway.
• Don’t buy followers, likes or “engagement” from bot farms, or fall for the DMs and emails promising to build you an AI-powered fanbase overnight. It’s obviously fake to anyone who looks twice, and the platforms are getting more ruthless about purging the accounts that do it. If you’ve been in this business long enough, you realise there sometimes seem to be more people making money out of trying to sell dodgy services to authors than there are authors making money selling books. Best avoided.
• Don’t criticise fellow authors, publishers or editors on social media. If you’ve got something to say, say it to them face to face, not in front of an audience you don’t know.

And here’s a brief list of things I reckon authors can do on social media without annoying too many people.

• Tell people about your books but only when they’re either out or they can order them. Boasting about an upcoming publication that’s ages off and effectively invisible is quite pointless.
• Let the public know if you’re lucky enough to have a TV or film option get the green light. Crowing about selling an option is unnecessary. Those of us in the know understand that most options never get made, and these days go for a pittance anyway. If you don’t have concrete news stay shtum.
• Tell them well in advance when you’re going to appear somewhere and how they can take part.
• Give them an insight into who you are and how you work.

Oh… and whatever you do, try and stay polite. I know it’s hard but you’ll thank yourself in the end.