Behold the Field in Which I Grow My Readership and See That it is Barren

My decision to pull up stakes at Substack after looking at the data made me turn my attention to Twitter. I’ve gone back and reviewed my analytics for the last several months and on average when I post content related to my writing and books (not spammy “buy my book” nonsense, actual content with substance):

• Only about 200 people see it (impressions)
• Maybe 10-15 people care enough to engage in some manner
• Less than 5 people care enough to click a link (not a spammy purchase link, but to an article on world building or a sample chapter or something interesting)
• Statistically no one feels it’s interesting enough to share with their own audience

Which means my Twitter “author platform” is less than 20 actively engaged people. Not thousands. Not hundreds. Not even dozens. Ten to fifteen human beings who are actually interested in my writing. 

That’s it. That’s the number.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

That’s not a platform. That’s a small Discord server.

And that’s not today’s numbers, after the recent “controversies.” These are historical numbers, averaged over months. All the nonsense in the last several weeks hasn’t measurably moved the needle downward at all. The fewer than 3% who self-selected out or I told to get lost weren’t ever invested readers anyway. 

I’ve spent years building an audience of thousands, and the data shows less than twenty truly care about my writing enough to engage with it. What’s even worse, I have statistically ZERO organic amplification (no retweets = no discovery).

I’m not entirely sure what to do about this or what this means for the future of my account. This isn’t about selling books (but let’s be honest: ultimately it kinda is). This is about what the hell I’m doing on Twitter, because the data suggests my followers are overwhelmingly there for anything but my writing. And even those few who are, overwhelmingly don’t repost to their followers. The lack of sharing is particularly damning because it means even my engaged readers don’t think “hey, my followers would dig this.” So my writing content dies on arrival—no ripple effect, no network expansion, nothing.

Before anyone asks: no, I’m not mad. Disappointed? Sure. But mostly I’m just done pretending the metrics are showing me anything approaching real progress in building an invested readership. 

This isn’t a rant—it’s a spreadsheet.

I figured me being myself on Twitter and sharing what I was interested in would translate into interest in me, which would lead to interest in my writing, but that particular funnel strategy has led to a, what, 0.47% conversion rate? And even worse, Twitter’s algorithm appears to assume my audience wants my other content (the jokes, the legs, the political shit) and actively suppresses my writing content because historically it gets less engagement. This creates a vicious cycle: writing content gets shown to fewer people → gets less engagement → gets shown to even fewer people. 

I’m algorithmically pigeonholed.

So even if I have more than 20 fans on Twitter, they’ll never see the content I post for them. Which really blows. 

I have to be honest though, it’s the lack of reposts that’s the real kick in the balls, because I can’t grow my reader base if new people aren’t exposed to it. I have a handful of readers who actively and aggressively promote my writing (and thank God for you noble few, you band of brothers and sisters, I love you to death), but statistically the share rate on my book content is a fraction of zilch—I get more organic exposure from random Google searches surfacing my blog posts.

So here’s what I’m thinking: I let Twitter cool down for a while, hope the algorithm resets, and focus on my blog in the meantime. Maybe flirt with other communities where readers congregate and shake my thing.

I know how that sounds in 2025, when every piece of advice screams “meet readers where they are” and “you need to be on social media.” Walking away from thousands of followers feels like insanity. But let’s be clear about what I’m actually walking away from: fewer than twenty demonstrably engaged readers and near-zero organic discoverability.

Compare that to my blog. When someone lands on one of my articles about worldbuilding or character development, they chose to be there. They’re not scrolling past at highway speed between political doomposting and recycled memes and big-tittied AI waifus. When someone subscribes, they’re saying “I want more of this specific thing”—my writing, my craft, my books, my thoughts in long form. Not legs that go all the way up. Not my dogs. Not entertaining political debates or sugar skull gals. 

My actual work.

Because all that other stuff is cool and all, but it converts less than one person out of over two hundred into someone interested in my writing. And sure, maybe roughly 0.5% conversion isn’t terrible by social media standards—but that’s supposed to be offset by organic amplification through shares and retweets. Without that, I’m just treading water, spending years building an audience that will never organically grow my readership. For whatever reason no one shares my writing-related content. 

(Maybe it just sucks. Always possible. But I don’t think so. I think Twitter’s sharing culture has just collapsed and nobody shares anything that isn’t dunks or drama anymore.)

Twitter gives me wide reach with near-zero depth. My blog gives me narrow reach with actual depth. And for an author, depth is everything. I don’t need thousands and thousands of tourists and bots vaguely aware I exist. I need a few hundred people who love my writing and want to tell their friends about it.

Of course I don’t actually know if doubling down on my blog will work. I don’t have a proven model here. What I do know is that what I’m currently doing doesn’t work, like, at all, and continuing to do it would be insane.

Growth on my blog will feel slower. Way slower. But it’s really not. Tweeting my way to 1,000 new engaged followers genuinely interested in my writing per month would be an impossible goal. But a blog subscriber is worth 100x what a Twitter follower is worth to me as an author. If I can add 10 solid subscribers a month, that’s far more valuable than the thousands of casual gawkers I have on Twitter.

“But what about discoverability?” you ask. First, I’m still figuring that out. Second, I sure as hell ain’t getting any on Twitter (and Substack was worse).

Will this work? I don’t know. But I know what definitely doesn’t work: creating book-related content for an audience that doesn’t want it and pretending a couple hundred impressions with a handful of likes and no reposts is somehow “building a platform.”

And to be clear, this isn’t about the quality of people on Twitter—I have amazing mutuals and genuinely value those relationships. But there’s a difference between “Twitter is good for jokes and friendship” and “Twitter helps me find readers for my books.” The data shows the second thing isn’t happening, so I’m redirecting my energy elsewhere (while still popping by occasionally to discuss legs that go all the way up and share blog posts four or five people might actually read).

So, in conclusion, I freely admit my “be interesting and people will be interested in my work” strategy crashed and burned. The data is pretty clear: my readers aren’t on Twitter. 

Time to go find them.