Apparently I’m a vile offender, an antisocial creature, and do not deserve Instagram.

Wait, what?

Without any reason – at least none that was given to me – Instagram had randomly disabled my account at the start of February. When I tried to reinstate it, all I got was “Your account was permanently disabled” message, noting also that there is no appeal.

I have been using the platform for a few years, alternating posts about my books with personal photography and the occasional book meme. My publisher’s account (@PurpleTogaPub) has largely similar content*, and doesn’t seem to be affected.

* The reason for the similar content is entirely NOT because we’re the same person in different hats. Nope.

In the years I’ve been using it I’ve gathered about 6,000 followers, but I can’t say engagement was particularly high. A few dozen of likes per post and the occasional comment. (Notable exceptions: pictures of my cats doing something stupid or a particularly lurid book meme).

I very much doubt that there was any sort of ROI in terms of an author platform for Instagram as a social vehicle. I certainly can’t attribute any meaningful sales to it. Admittedly, I realised this a while back and haven’t put in a lot of effort, but even before when I did there was no meaningful ROI.

Each author has their own experience of course, and your mileage may vary. But for me, there isn’t really any point in trying to recreate or invest in Instagram any further at this point. I’ve created an alternate profile (@assaphmehr – instead of the now defunct @assaph), but that is just to redirect those who search for me there to this website, and that I can view the occasional post on Insta that my wife forwards me.

UPDATE: That’s gone too. Given that those decisions are probably robotic, it’s safe to assume that when the machines rise I will be one of the first against the wall.

Considering the state of the other main social networks — Facebook is spiralling into being even more annoying and their ads stopped working, and Twitter is just a dumpster fire — I doubt you’ll see me around there much. Not that I’ve been very active, but it’s very clear that there is just no incentive to use them as a basis for author platforms (supplemental at best, if you can keep the time investment under control).

I’ll keep blogging here on my Three R’s (Reading, Writing, and Romans), and possibly revive my newsletter. The most impactful thing I know about writing and marketing these days, is to write more. Each time I published original content, I saw an uptick in sales of previous content. So I’ll aim to get back to that. The only other thing is Amazon keyword optimisation to help readers find my books and convince them to buy — but that actually doesn’t require much ongoing effort (rare tweaks, once you get to a good stream).

So fare thee well until next time, or, as Felix would say, salve!

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Help me get back to writing! Read the free short stories and novels, and leave reviews! I got the next volume, In Victrix, written and half-edited. As soon as I’m settled in the new place (oh, didn’t I mention? We’ve moved interstate in December), I’ll get back to it…