Do Writers Need to Be Everything, Everywhere, All At Once?
Having an online presence is important, but not THAT important
In the internet age, writers who want to promote their work would do well to have an online presence. But sometimes it seems like there is a pressure to have an online presence EVERYWHERE.
They need to be on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, Bluesky, TikTok, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Reddit, Discord, Telegram, Threads – and any other social media sites that are out there.
They need to have a blog (and post on there regularly).
They need to have a Substack (also with regular posts).
As well as a newsletter that goes out at least once a month, a website that stays updated, and an ongoing series of readings or live sessions that they are regularly posting.
And you know what? Doing ALL of those things can be exhausting. Not only this, but the stress can harm a writer’s mental health.
It’s enough to make us writers cry out, “Stop the insanity!”
We writers know that we need an online presence. The problem is that there is an increasing amount of pressure for writers to be “always on.” The audience gets used to the writer doing ALL THE THINGS and they develop an expectation to see new things from the writer 24/7/365.
Having the ability to receive notifications of new comments and messages on our phones, right in our own hands and within easy reach, only makes the pressure to respond right away worse.
That said, I strongly feel that it’s better if the writer finds some kind of balance in their online presence and stick to it. We can’t ALWAYS be online. We need time with our families as well as time to write.
Writers should try to have an online presence, yes, but that online presence should not interfere with their lives. For this reason, it’s important to create boundaries. Establish a schedule or create a routine for when you do “social media stuff” for your writing.
Additionally, don’t try to be “everywhere” online. I do use a lot of social media sites, but I don’t use all of them. I’m not interested in Threads, Discord, or Reddit. However, I do use TikTok, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Bluesky.
Also, decide what sites you will choose to use daily and which ones you will use every so often. You don’t need to use social media every day, but for me, it is a personal choice. I am on a lot of the social media websites, but I do not use ALL of them every single day. There is only a couple of them that I do use every single day (for the most part). On a personal level, I refuse to be on X, because I got fed up with them for constantly blocking me, but I do use it for business purposes.
Bottom line: You decide what kind of an online presence you will have as a writer and create a schedule that works best for you to maintain it. Don’t sacrifice your family time, your personal time, or your writing time to maintain it.
People know that we all have lives off of the internet. Becoming a slave to promoting our work online will only damage our health, our relationships with others, and maybe even our jobs. So find a routine that works best for you to establish and maintain that online presence, and stick to it.
What’s New This Week
My article “Order Up! School Cafés Brew Confidence and Job Skills” was published in the May 2026 issue of Able News. You can read it here.
My short story “Final Answer” was published in Teen Screams, a new YA horror anthology!
Book Reviews
I reviewed the YA horror novelette Farm Girl by Jerry Blaze at Dawn Reviews Books
What’s New at SPARREW?
Check out my interview with author Loralee Clark, which was published in the April 2026 issue of the SPARREW Newsletter.
Read it here.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!
Week of Terrors Anthology series
Twisted Dreams Press is now accepting submissions for a new anthology series! It is seven books with ten stories in each book.
The first anthology will be published in June. The others will follow in the subsequent months. Submissions of stories for all anthologies opens the beginning of April.
Open until each anthology has ten stories. We will announce when an anthology is no longer accepting submissions.
Series Name: A Week of Terrors!
Here are the themes:
Monster Monday: Creature Horror Stories
Terrifying Tuesday: Evil Clowns
Werewolf Wednesday
Thriller Thursday: Zombies
Frightening Friday: Mix of horror subgenres: psychological horror, eco-horror, cyberpunk horror, erotic horror, etc.
Slasher Saturday: Slasher horror
Spooky Sunday: Ghost stories
Payment: One print and digital copy.
Submit your stories today!
Length: 3K-10K words
Reprints welcome! Simultaneous submissions welcome but please let us know if your story is accepted elsewhere.
Email your stories as a Word .doc or .docx file. Google Docs are okay as long as you grant Dawn permission for access.
No PDF submissions, please.
Stories written with AI will NOT be accepted!
When you submit your story, please put the following in the subject line:
Submission: WOT Anthology, (Title), (Day of the week your story is for)
Please include in your email if the story is a reprint as well as your bio.
Please send your stories to Dawn at submissions@twisteddreamspress.com
We look forward to reading your story!
An Update on An Old Anthology Call!
If you missed out on the anthology call for the Friday the 13th Summer Camp Horror anthology, you’re in luck!
This anthology is reopening to submissions!
Learn more about that on the Twisted Dreams Press blog here.
BONUS CALLS FOR SUBMISSION
Endless Archives, Entrancing Tomes
Cryptic Frog Quarterly
“We are now accepting submissions for the first-ever Cryptic Frog Anthology! It is tentatively titled Endless Archives, Entrancing Tomes.
Prompt: The library is explored, or rediscovered, or destroyed. The tome is neverending, or enlightening, or madness-inducing. Books, digital repositories, libraries, archives, library cards, librarians, creatures in the library. Evil librarians? Library spaceships? Ghosts with unfinished books?
Tell us the story of a library that’s haunted, infinite, or unearthly. Give us the tale of a book that is cursed, sentient, or ever-changing.”
No erotic fiction. No SA. No excessive profanity. No multiple submissions. No serial fiction. No fan fiction. Simultaneous submissions welcome. Reprints welcome.
Length: 2K-7500 words
Payment: “Writers will be paid $10 per piece, as well as a digital copy of the anthology.”
Deadline. Not stated. “We expect to keep submissions open for this anthology for quite some time.”
Harbor Review
“DESCRIPTION: This summer marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document that describes Indigenous peoples as “merciless Indian savages.” That phrase still echoes as a reminder of how language can wound, distort, and justify violence, and how the label savage has long been used to mark peoples, cultures, and lands as less than human.
For this issue, we invite you to enter the word savagery from any direction it calls to you. It might mean exploring the word as it has been used politically. Savagery might mean brutality, survival, or the flux and flex power. It might point to what is wild, untamed, instinctive, feral, lush, or ungovernable. It could live in the natural world, in desire, in grief, in joy too large to be polite. It might name what society tries to civilize out of us, or what refuses containment in bodies, landscapes, histories, or hearts. We welcome work that questions who or what gets called savage, who does the naming, and what happens when the word is rejected, reshaped, or reclaimed.
Connections to the Declaration or to Indigenous histories are welcome but not required. We are equally interested in personal, ecological, political, mythic, or metaphorical interpretations. Take us somewhere unruly, take us down desire trails to history, bring us to the now, to the future. Let the word unpetal.”
They are accepting submissions of poetry and art.
Length:
Poetry: 1-3 poems
Art: “Send 1-3 high resolution images with titles (minimum 2000 pixels on the longest side).”
Payment: $10 for both poetry and art
Deadline: May 15, 2026
Pinhole Poetry
“Looking for a place to submit your poetry and pinhole photography? Pinhole Poetry reads submissions on a rolling basis.
The July 2026 issue will be all about subways, undercurrents, subtext and undertows, basically anything that moves us, somewhere under the surface.”
Original work only. They want poetry and photographs. Simultaneous submissions welcome. No multiple submissions.
Length: Up to 5 poems. “We encourage you to submit poems that are no longer than two standard pages.”
Payment: “Pinhole Poetry pays an honorarium to each contributor ($5 CAD), but we’re happy to reinvest it back into the upkeep of our website and development projects if you so desire.”
Deadline: May 15, 2026
“Every Bombed Village is My Hometown”
Deceleration
“In 1968, James Baldwin famously said of the Vietnam War: every bombed village is my hometown.” As we watch US bombs fall on the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, Venezuela, and the Caribbean, we invite your best poems, prose, photos, sound, and visual art., revisiting Baldwin’s words in our time.”
Original work only. Simultaneous submissions accepted.
Length: Not stated.
Payment: “Pay ranges from $25 per poem or creative piece; $150 for opinion columns and reviews; $250 for shorter explanatory stories, videos, and photo essays; to $0.50/word (or more) for longer-form investigative and time-intensive features. We welcome proposals for short- and long-form news articles, community op-eds, personal or creative nonfiction essays, theoretical/political analysis, calls to action, multimedia content, hybrid concepts (documentary poetry, photo essay), and more.”
Deadline: May 17, 2026
Chicken Soup for the Soul
(Note: There are other open calls at this link.)
“Cats! We love this topic, and our readers do too! So, we are doing it again! This book is scheduled to go on sale in late summer 2026, so here is another chance for you to share a story or two about the member of your family who just happens to walk on four feet!
We are looking for first-person true stories of up to 1200 words. We want your funny stories, your heartwarming stories, and your mindboggling stories about your cat.
Here are a few ideas but we know you will come up with more on your own:
- When your cat is naughty
- When your cat is remarkably well behaved
- How does your cat warm your heart and make you smile?
- The crazy things your cat does
- The crazy things you do for your cat
- Eating habits
- Did you ever “smuggle” your cat into a place you shouldn’t have?
- Does your cat steal food or things from you?
- Does your cat have a strong dislike of one of your friends or family members?
- Has your cat ever done something extremely embarrassing?
- Has your cat ever done something that made you laugh out loud?
- Did you train him, or did he train you?
- Does your cat talk back to you?
- Your work at a shelter or rescue organization”
“DO NOT USE AI TO WRITE YOUR STORY. You must write your story. Your story must be true. No fiction, no creative writing, no AI generated stories.”
Multiple submissions welcome. Simultaneous submissions welcome.
Length: 1200 words max
Payment: “If we publish your story, you will be paid $250 one month after publication of the book and you will receive ten free copies of the book your story or poem appears in.”
Deadline: June 1, 2026
This Week’s Book Promo
This week, I promoted the free ebook, 101 Quotes on Poetry. It’s my birthday month and since I love poetry, I decided to promote this ebook, which is free on Kindle Unlimited.
Here is the book’s blurb:
“There’s a lot to be said about poetry, as well as poets. From Angelou to Zapruder, Auden to Yevtushenko, this collection of quotes on poetry will bring readers of verse a deeper appreciation of the beauty, agony and power of poetic words. Bonus section of 50 quotes on poets included.”
And here is the book’s excerpt!
Excerpt from
101 Quotes on Poetry
Copyright © 2022 by Dawn Colclasure
“A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.”—E. M. Forster
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”—Robert Frost
“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.”—Robert Frost
“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” — Robert Frost
“Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement.” — Christopher Fry
“Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.”—Allen Ginsburg
“Poetry is the art of using words charged with their utmost meaning.”—Dana Gioia
“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”—Thomas Gray
Thanks for reading! See you next weekend!
If you want your book to sell, you have to get comfortable being visible.
Not viral. Not everywhere. Just visible.
The goal isn’t to become a full-time marketer putting out 20 pieces of long-form content a week. The goal is to become someone who is comfortable talking about their work in a way that people respond to.
Many authors worry that they will be too repetitive or promotional or annoying. But… honestly, people are so distracted these days that they need to see a message SO MANY times before they connect the dots on what it is and if they want it.
Here are a few ways to do this now…
Get Used to Being Seen Before Your Book Comes Out
One of the most strategic things an author can do is start showing up consistently before your book is launches. This both helps you get comfortable being visible and build your trust with readers. Being visible can be very vulnerable. But once you start doing it… it does gets easier.
The more often people see you thoughtfully talking about your ideas, the more invested they will be in your journey and your book.
Make an Actual Plan to Build Your Platform
Instead of waiting to see what your publisher will do, create a plan to grow your platform. This doesn’t need to be complicated but it does need to be intentional.
Publishers are ready and excited to amplify and promote what you’re already doing! You have to create the momentum
Dawn, did GoodReads remove your rating and review of "Vampire Verses: Poems" -- or did you remove it?