The subject of my latest zoom call with my book publicist, Brian, was social media. In a recent post I said I hoped it would cover Instagram and TikTok, because although I have accounts, I have no idea how they work. My hopes were dashed. Brian said that readers of historical fiction are of an older demographic and don’t use those platforms. We focussed instead on how to gain followers on Facebook and Twitter. That’s probably for the best. I’ve been using Facebook and Twitter for a while, I can find my way around them, but I had / have still a lot to learn about growing followers. Brian gave me lots of great tips about achieving that.
I still wondered if it was true though. Are readers of historical fiction of an older demographic? I read C.S. Forrester’s Hornblower series when I was about ten. Sure I didn’t start reading Hilary Mantel until I was in my late fifties, but I’d put my Sir Anthony Standen Adventures more in the Forrester than Mantel camp. I think I have readers in their eighties and in their early teens. So I thought I’d start the day with some research. I googled “historical fiction reader demographics”. Sadly I didn’t discover anything revealing about social media demographics. From bookadreport.com I discovered that the top selling genre is romance/erotica, followed by crime/mystery. Well my books include romance, and from Fire and earth onwards are crime/mystery. Sadly, historical fiction isn’t in the top five, but then it isn’t in the bottom five either.
I did learn that women read more than men, but not by a huge margin. People seem to read both ebooks and physical books. They don’t become wedded to one or the other. Also, as with everything I’ve read so far, audiobooks are growing fast. Thank you, John Holland, my friend, for giving me a kick in that direction.
Ironically, having set out with the intention of gaining followers for my author blog, I’ve started following two other author blogs, Catherine Curzon and M.K. Tod. I think I can learn a lot from them. What worries me now is this. If I have to post a blog every day, and invest time in growing my social media following, where am I going to find the time to write?