Today I am starting a new series called Dear Author.
These are different subjects as a reader I and other readers would like to say to authors. Todays topic is “Please be careful” dealing with online presence.
Social Media and Author Newsletters
As we are entering a new year it’s a good time to do an audit of our social media and newsletters. Do you know all the people on your lists? The answer would in most cases be no. I am not an author, and I have so many friends I don’t know. Some are authors but I don’t know them. There are many people who will join author lists or follow them on social media and even ask to be friend who may not have good intentions. Some of these may be from hacked accounts. I have watched enough YouTube where they warn about the dangers of social media.
One thing that concerns me is how much information some authors share online on public profiles about their children and grandchildren. On a private profile its fine where you know who your friends are. However, on an author page they need to be careful. Anyone can follow you on an author page and there are people with nefarious intentions who will follow authors.
This brings me to author newsletters. I have heard some authors say only people who will buy my books join my newsletter. This is not true. I am on many newsletters where I haven’t bought a book or may have only bought one book. This can be due to promos where you receive a free book and added to a list. Other times it has been from an author takeover on a Facebook group. Or I have joined to keep up with an author. It is not hard to join.
As a reader I often worry about how much information is shared about children in a newsletter. People with nefarious intentions will join lists to have access to this sort of information. They could take a photo and alter it; they can even find where a child is due to the information shared. While this may not happen a lot it does happen. At one time I received a newsletter with so much information about the grandchildren that I often cringed. My thoughts were do you realise how much you are sharing about their lives and locations. It was at a time we were being warned not to overshare information about children to keep them safe.
Also oversharing of both kids and even yourself can cause issues. Readers want to know about you, but you need to keep yourselves safe online. While it doesn’t happen every day Authors have been the target of stalkers. I personally know an author who had a stalker. They had to move a few times and even moved states and get a service dog for protection. They had to go to court several times, had restraining orders etc. The stalker still found where the author lived even when in a gated community. This person made their life a nightmare even moving across the country didn’t make them feel safe. Because of this my internal thoughts think when an author overshares, “I wish you won’t do that.”
We all need to be vigilant online; we need to remember while we would hope the only ones reading posts are friends the reality may be so different. We need to think am I over sharing, who may be reading my posts and newsletters. Would I share this information with just anyone. I know it sounds cynical, but I personally would rather be safe than sorry.
On a final note, readers do like to get to know an author. We also understand the need for privacy. If you do share just make sure you don’t have photos that give your physical address or school address. The most important thing is stay safe online.
Thank you Jenny for raising this. It’s a really good reminder to be diligent.
I have been thinking about what I share in newsletters. I like to add a few lines about what’s happening in our garden and am mindful that I need to make sure photos don’t show too much (Tassie is a small place!).
I agree with you about children. I personally don’t think a public author page is the place for photos of children. Safety is too important. I get a lot of random public videos of children popping up in my feed. I keep deleting them but more come back. It’s a worry.
Thanks for commenting Suzie. The other think I forgot is not using your physical address on newsletters. I know many will use a PO Box or even the address of a publisher. I agree a public page is not the place. I watch a lot of youtube and was following someone who reports on different things one being exploitation of children. They were saying how innocent photos are being taken from public pages and other places online and then used for unmentionable things. Now with AI we need to be even more careful.