Meta announced subscription plans a couple of weeks ago. Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, and WhatsApp Plus are their subscription services or what I call their ‘pay to play market platform’. These are fee based programs costing a few dollars a month each, with creator and business plans coming later. One of the higher tiers includes better placement in the Facebook feed and higher ranking in search.
So now we can pay to be seen.
I’ve thought about that a lot. It confirmed what most authors already knew. The free ride on social media ended a while ago with ads being their primary way of showing content. Now they’re ‘suggesting’ we pay to show things not quite worthy of an ad (in my opinion).
Was it too good to be true? A platform that reached across the world and opened up new opportunities, relationships, and markets? It was simple, really. Post regularly, talk to people, and the platform showed your posts to the people who followed you. They followed you because they wanted to hear from you. The platform delivered your message.
But that deal ended. I can post to a few thousand followers and reach a few hundred on a good day. The rest never see it. The algorithm picked something else for their feed. Usually something uninteresting like ads for something you’ve already purchased, abused dogs (not uninteresting, but traumatic) or something you mentioned in passing near your phone, which is incredibly alarming. And the fix Meta now offers is a monthly fee to show my posts to people who already asked to see them.
Think about what that means for a working author. Every follower you build on a platform you don’t control belongs to the platform, not to you. Though let’s be honest, that’s how it was already.
I tried Patreon a few years back. I set up tiers, posted behind-the-scenes material, and waited.
Not much happened, and posting on multiple platforms took a lot of time.
I don’t blame Patreon. I made the classic mistake. I asked readers to support me before I’d given them a reason to. Patreon works when you already have a community that wants more access to you. It deepens a relationship that already exists. I tried to use it to find new readers, and that’s the one thing it can’t do.
The few readers who did sign up taught me something, though. Readers who want a direct connection with an author are out there. I just haven’t built a good way to reach them yet.
Meta sells reach now. Patreon, Substack, and Ko-fi compete to host the direct author-to-reader relationship. Readers subscribe to individual writers the way they once subscribed to magazines. And the platforms where authors spent a decade building audiences keep changing the rules.
Some authors see all this as bad news. I see it as a correction. A social media following never equaled a readership. We just acted like it did. Followers belong to the platform. Readers, if you’ve earned them, belong to you.
Meta charging for visibility just makes the arrangement honest, though it’s not what most of us want. Money is money, and paying for a connection is ridiculous to me. Honestly, I can’t stand it. I don’t want people to pay to see my dog posts or a random video I create.
I haven’t quite figured this out though because every article on this topic comes from somebody selling a course. I’m not selling a course. I write mysteries and thrillers, and I want the people who enjoy them to know when the next one comes out and if I’m lucky, to preorder or buy them. That’s the whole goal.
Social media still has a place. It’s a good spot to meet new readers and have a conversation. But the real connection has be somewhere I own. My email list. My website.
I’m not comfortable keeping my reader relationships on platforms and hope those platforms stay generous.
If you found me through social media, thank you. If you want to make sure an algorithm never stands between us, join my newsletter. It’s free, it goes straight to your inbox, and nobody decides whether you see it except you. Where can you find my newsletter? Right here, on this site. https://carolynridderaspenson.com
