You really need a fact-checker

+ TikTok Ban +Another group for nonfiction authors

January Meeting Info:

Authors' Meeting - ANBIP
Event Invite
Saturday, January 25, 2025 · 5:00 PST / 6:00 MST / 7:00 CST / 8:00 EST
Video call link

News

Maybe this time, the TikTok Ban will go through.
Where to follow your faves elsewhere:

Boooo. I’ve given four talks on TikTok for writers/science communicators, so of course I hope TT doesn’t die, but at least I always told people that social media changes all the time, and there could be a completely different dominant platform than TikTok a year from now.

I’m on other platforms, but there goes most of my followers if the ban happens. :(

TikTok: RollBones (222k)

Facebook: Carcass: The Afterlives of Animal Bodies (29k)

Instagram: CarcassAfterlives (22k)

YouTube: CarcassAfterlives (82, yes, just 82)

There are some articles about the importance of BookTok but like I’ve said before, BookTok is very romance-focused. So, IDK if that was much of a resource (with regard to getting reviews from Booktokers) for nonfic-nonmem anyway. Still, I liked it and benefitted from it, despite writing how TT/social media never really was as necessary for trad authors as you may have been led to believe.

That said, going forward, whatever platform you’re on, there is an audience for you if you’re willing to carve out a niche and make good content. Heck, if you’re worried that there “isn’t enough [your topic] on [the platform],” then you should be celebrating that you’ll be the one to bring it there!

I’ve mentioned some TikTokers whose books really benefitted from their experience and audience development on TT here:

Some recommendations and where else to find them:

• Gina Denney: author, editor, and publishing professional who helps you make your writing better
  (TT, LinkTree, YouTube)

• Schizophrenic Reads: The only big TT book reviewer I’m aware of who primarily focuses on nonfiction (TT, LinkTree, IG, YT)

• Morbidly Curious Book Club: A nonfiction, spooky-type book club (TT, IG)

OPINION:
A fact-checker is non-negotiable for non-fic non-mem

Meta is discontinuing fact-checking in favor of community notes. I actually used to work as a third-party fact-checker, checking FB and IG posts for them via PolitiFact.

That job was kind of, but not really, similar to a fact-checker for a book. Let me explain how really, really important it is for you to have one.

Here’s a little clip from something I published a while ago called How Much Money I got to Fund My Book and Where I Got It:

Subscribe to Premium to read the whole thing.

In this post, I talked a lot about income and spending regarding the book, and in one section, I described whether the spending was worth it (in all cases, yes, even if I could have done some things better/smartlier.) Here’s what I wrote about the importance of fact-checking non-fic non-mem books:

Call me an ideologue, but I think books are important enough to take very seriously, and in the case of nonfiction non-memoirs, it’s better not to publish them at all than to publish too many mistakes.

You would be shocked at how much even an excellent writer misses without a fact-checker. I’m still worried I’ll introduce errors as we edit the book. Your book isn’t a digital article you can edit, one that people might forget about in a week (and it’s also really bad to publish misinfo in those); this is a big project printed on paper! Potentially for your whole life! Imagine going to all these book conferences, promoting the book, and constantly having your errors in the back of your mind, worrying that you’re going to actually harm people’s understanding of a topic. (I bet this happens all the time, even with a fact-checker, but they’ll seriously reduce the number of errors.)

People might quote your book in their books and articles! There are entire communities of which you can either win the heart or the ire, and a few facts can be the whole difference.

I even cut some of that rant, but here’s some further explanation as to why I would not write another nonfic nonmem book if I didn’t have another fact-checking budget:

• Imagine a “gluten-free bakery” selling bread that contains gluten and the baker complaining that she can’t afford gluten-free flour (or whatever reasonable alternatives there are.) When confronted, the baker insists she should be allowed to make, sell, serve, and profit from her product, regardless of whether it is shoddy, shameful, or even dangerous. You would tell her, “If you can’t afford the ingredients, don’t sell the bread.” She can sell or do something else. Maybe that’s “gatekeeping,” but it’s true.

• Hitting closer to home: Someone wants to publish a weekly 20-page magazine and only has enough budget to pay $1/hour to one person. You would say, “If you can’t afford the staff or the time to do it all yourself, don’t publish a magazine.”

• Someone wants to learn to compose gorgeous, mind-bending orchestras but complains that they don’t have the privilege of time to learn anything about music. Do you see a pattern here?

All of the examples above include things that people could get, whether through personal sacrifice, grants, loans, refusing to accept contracts unless and until the advance is higher, etc. And if you can’t? IDK what to tell you, I wish there was infinite funding for every creative project in the world, and I wish that funding was extremely easy to get, and I hope you get everything you want. If you don’t, that’s that.

As to the fact that some holding nonfic nonmem book-publishing to a high standard means fewer books are published? C’est la vie!

Decent projects require decent investments.

My beloved Bijou on my lap on Christmas morning at the fam’s house. (She’s not fat! That’s just the angle. She’s 6.8lbs.)

Another group for Nonfiction Authors

Surprisingly, I had never heard of the Nonfiction Authors Association until a few days ago! If anyone here has any experience with it, please comment your thoughts and who it might be most useful for.

They currently have a promotion for 15% off memberships with code HOLIDAYJOY15. They even have Author Brainstorm sessions (monthly virtual meetings), and an annual conference. The base rate for a membership is $390/year and there are a number of freebies on their site.

(ANBIP is free with an optional $40/year premium package, but I’m much smaller, of course!)

Hope to see you on the 25th!