Writers Are Blogging Again
Blogging has made a resurgence in recent years, especially among the writing community. Substack, Medium, Wordpress, and newsletters are becoming more frequent. This might be expected, because what do writers do better than write? But it actually signals a larger pushback against publisher expectations, overstimulating social media, and the lack of a writing community.
Social Media is Overwhelming
Our whole lives are overstimulating, and social media is one of the main culprits. Digital overload is receiving more attention since the pandemic started, and is linked to overwhelm, anxiety, sleep problems, burnout, and more.
Every day you’re inundated with things to look at, buy, share, like, retweet, and comment on. Not to mention the many stressors and catastrophes going on that are very important and demand your attention. It’s a hard thing to handle every day.
And when it comes to writing and publishing, being online isn’t always a choice. Building your social media could impact your chances of getting a book deal, signing an agent, or selling your book.
Publishing is Fueling the Exhaustion
In recent years, publishers have shifted and started putting much more of the marketing responsibility on their authors.
There are horror stories online of querying writers who say they’ve been rejected because they don’t have a big enough email list, or who hear through the whisper network about rejections relating to follower count. We’ve also all seen more under-edited and subpar books get published seemingly because the author has a significant following.
And it’s not just the aspiring authors that are struggling, either. Publishing doesn’t put the same amount of money and time into their midlist authors like they used to, and often leave authors to sell their books with minimal help.
Requiring writers to market themselves and their books creates a new level of pressure and creative strain. You now have to build your profile up in a way that you can leverage. This means keeping up with trends, selling your work constantly, and becoming a personality, because personalities always do better on social media.
What’s your angle? What makes you unique? What tropes can you boil your book down to so it’s more marketable? How do you hook viewers? Can you plan, film, and edit content consistently while continuing to write? What platform should you use? Are your numbers big enough? And on and on.
But publishing incentive isn’t the only reason that social media is put up with. A lack of community is also to blame for why authors feel the need to have a spoon in every pot.
The Writing Community is Fractured
I was around for the glory days of writing Twitter, and I’ll admit that I do miss it, and I know others do too. As much as you can complain about it, it was a unique place for writers to gather where you were able to meet others easily, share your work, participate in pitch events, and connect with agents and publishers without leaving one app.
Since the downfall of Twitter, writers have scattered to Threads, Tiktok, Instagram, BlueSky, Timblr, various Discord groups, and many other platforms. The community fractured and hasn’t been the same since.
So, as writers, we use social media to try to find that writing group that gives us that sense of camaraderie. But it’s simply not like it used to be, and it’s much harder to find your people now that everyone is scattered, and many of the pitch and mentorship events have ended.
The Shift to Blogging and Newsletter Platforms
When writers choose to create a Substack or a newsletter they’re choosing a familiar path to the same destination. If publishing requires you to build an audience, social media is exhausting, and writers are yearning for community, the easy solution is to try to build your own micro-platform.
You don’t need to be a personality to have a newsletter. You can be more yourself, without the pressure of learning the ins and outs of social media. Not to mention a blog in a format that writers are already intimately familiar with.
Writers get a leg up in publishing and the community-seeking goal is fulfilled because you know that whoever your emails go out to, it’s someone who is genuinely interested in your work. You don’t have to hope it finds the right people, or hits the right angle to get through the algorithm.
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The resurgence of writing platforms is more than just writers doing what they do best. It shows how overwhelmed everyone is on social media, how much we want a community around us, and how impossible publishing requirements are. A return to writing-only platforms is a rejection of the algorithm’s requirements–that we be online every day, consistently trying to grab people’s attention so we can prove we’re worthy of our dreams.
As a proponent of community building, I encourage you to use this article to share your micro-community. Share your blog, newsletter, substack, or other creative venture and don’t be afraid to connect with the others you see there as well!
