So, a while back, I decided to give Tumblr a try.
And in short, to me, it’s a love-hate thing.
What I love: The lay-out. How easy it is to find the community you’re aiming for.
What I don’t love: Well. Said community has this way of picking pet “causes” that they’re fighting for, regardless of where the facts truly lie. I wrote about the whole thing that went on about John Green back when Tumblr was still seething with all that nonsense.
Fortunately, we’ve seemed to move on from there, but unfortunately that just brings home the fact that the community is 100% pro trade publishing. Or 1000% fanatical about it.
Which isn’t a bad thing in itself. I personally have PLENTY of issues with trade publishing as it stands at the moment, but other people don’t, so I try to only throw out my two cents when I feel like there are too much bad information out there without someone bothering to understand what’s going on.
And Tumblr has this in spades. Which is to say they swallow the trade publishing line on self publishing without a second thought and makes Amazon out to be this monster out to exploit writers. (Ha. Hahahahaha. Ha.)
I just find this incredibly frustrating, because the Tumblr-ites are single-minded in believing what they’re told, and if they get told anything else, it simply does not compute.
And this, simply put, is making me wonder if Tumblr is really worth my time. I mean, if they’re going to ignore my book simply by dint of me refusing to be screwed over by publishing houses, without actually bothering to listen to reason, I can only assume that there’s not much left to do or say, is there?
On the other hand, I’m not only on social media to market my books. In fact, the marketing aspect mostly comes second. But if being active on a platform does both (marketing and meeting new people), why should I bust my butt trying to get in on one where the community can be downright punitive toward people with different opinions?
Are you on Tumblr? How do you find it?
The Five Year Project 