Just Books on Parlor

[Marti Talbott]

I just finished setting up a page on Parler called "Just Books" with an invitation for authors to promote their books on my page. Check it out. Parler is mostly politics, but everyone should read books, right?

https://parler.com/user/justbooks

[RPatton]

Just and FYI, AMS cancelled its hosting services for Parler. To say Parler is mostly politics, is only half the picture. It's a specific subset of a subset of politics.

While this might work for some authors, I wouldn't say I'd recommend joining Parler to authors who have created a brand that targets a broad spectrum of readers. Same reasons I would be very careful about how you approach Meewee.

[Marti Talbott]

Yet, Parler is still up and running. Parler was created in answer to Twitter's discrimination against certain political views. MeWe was created to replace FB for the same reasons. MeWe is more popular than Parler and while it has political opinions you can follow, there are also cooking groups, comedy, and several places to promote books.

As far as authors go, there are few places to promote for free these days, so I take advantage of getting the word out anyway I can.

GETTR is new and freely allows promotion of businesses free of charge. That's where my interest lies. Sites that are geared to the Republican/Christian persuasion are my target audience since I write clean books.

To each his own, of course. These sites are clearly not loved by everyone.

[Lorri Moulton]

Marti, thanks for trying something new.  I'm still on Facebook (for now) but my groups/pages are strictly not political. At all. I wish we could find something reliable that wasn't political. Still looking...

I've considered moving my groups to my website, but that would take an expensive upgrade.  I'm hoping someone will come up with an easy to understand, non-political, truly social network that we don't have to pay a fee to use.
This is one reason I finally started a newsletter. 

[Marti Talbott]

MeWe is free. On that dropdown box that opens when you click the link, just click on "later or not now," whatever it says to get rid of the box. The paid version is for people who want more than posting in groups. You can ignore the politics and set up your own feed. https://mewe.com/myworld?scope=groups

[Cindy303]

I’ll just say it.

To get booted off twitter takes a whole lot. I know not everyone on Parlor got booted, but the platform is associated with more than just conservatives.

It’s also known as a home for conspiracy theorists including QAnon, far-right extremists, and antisemitism. I’m sure there’s some readers who think it’s just Twitter for the right, and I’m all for freedom of expression, but I think authors should consider making it their home carefully.

[Marti Talbott]

Poo poo, I don't care about all that. I just care about selling books. Besides we don't want to turn this into a political discussion. We can argue about that on Parler, if you want. 

[notthatamanda]

Thank you for the offer, Marti.

[Cindy303]

Poo poo, I don't care about all that. I just care about selling books. Besides we don't want to turn this into a political discussion. We can argue about that on Parler, if you want. 

I wasn’t suggesting you care or don’t already know all that. I’m warning less familiar authors who might not know for whatever it’s worth.

I don’t think there’s anything to argue about, but even if there were, I’m not much for arguing.

Good luck with everything!

[Marti Talbott]

I'm a conservative and I don't like all the tags the left collectively lays on us. They don't know us. They don't want to know us. I'm not on twitter, haven't been kicked off, and wouldn't know QAnon if I saw it. I'm just a run-of-the-mill voter, a member of the silent majority.
Authors are smart enough to make up their own minds about any and all of the social media platforms. You don't need to warn them about conservatives - we're everywhere. You just don't know it.

[Pemry Janes]

As this is not a thread to talk about politics, I'll only add my voice to Cindy303's warning.

Parler has drawn people who have a very right wing view of politics, including not a few neonazis. If that's not the kind of people you want to associate your books with, like me, then the generous offer of Marti Talbott is not for you.

[Marti Talbott]

My whole point was that you can ignore the political posts and still promote books.

I read what's on all the sites just to see what people are saying. It's not scary, it's just like-minded people talking to each other - expressing opinions they don't feel they can express elsewhere. I've never seen anyone post threats. Mostly they just talk about the news.

Enough said before Tim tosses us into "locked" status.

[Lorri Moulton]

Let's just leave it as all authors should do their own research, and any platform can have a variety of users.  I think we all are looking for ways to promote our books.  I'm on Twitter and ignore everything but posts about old movies, Hallmark, and Dark Matter.  I believe I have more readers from Hallmark, but I am a huge fan of all three.