Welcome to the Too Much community!
Want to use Instagram to find more readers? Ask me your questions, or share your frustrations in the comments - I want to know how I can best support you!
I’m Nicola, a social media strategist and I’m here to teach writers how you can use social media - especially Instagram - to find your readers and promote your work, without it taking over your life.
Perhaps you have a Substack you want to promote, maybe you want to grow a community around your ideas, or perhaps you’re working your way towards publication date for your book: whatever your reason for being here, I have lots of free resources that can help, and if you want more support you can choose to become a member of the Too Much Instagram membership by upgrading your subscription.
First of all though, I’d love to hear more about what you’re working on, AND what problems, issues or challenges you’re facing with Instagram or social media in general. Leave a comment underneath this post and let me know how best I can support you.
This is how I got here…
For twelve years I was a secondary school English teacher and seven years ago, when that career was flushed down the maternal brain-drain with all the ceremony of a goldfish funeral, I was completely untethered.
I’d identified my whole self so strongly with my job that the loss of that label, alongside the concurrent mind-altering shifts of relatively early motherhood, left me with as much shape and direction as a corner-shop plastic bag being tossed around on the breeze.
Rebuilding myself is an ongoing process and only in the last year or so have I stopped answering the question, ‘What do you do?’ with the preamble, ‘Well… I used to be a teacher…’
Long story short, I learned the hard way not to define myself using my job.
So, while the first sentence of this post tells no lie, I feel it’s also important to tell you I’m also mother of two, a wife (we only got married last year after twenty years together so this idea is still wild to me!) a whippet-owner, a country-phile, a London-dweller, a curious soul, a dedicated collector of (often fairly useless) knowledge, a recovering people-pleaser, a quiet rebel, a lover of ideas, words, books, and <deep breath> a writer (I had to delete the word ‘aspiring’).
I’ve been working on a fiction project for the last three years. I’m edging my way through its fifth (I think?) edit after some encouraging feedback from a couple of agents.
I’ve also been experimenting with writing short stories, inspired strongly by
whose Miniature Worlds Short-Story Course I took earlier in 2023.I have a constant whirl of ideas swirling around my mind which is simultaneously a gift and a curse as ideas are great until you (I) can’t decide which ones to pin down, and even once you (I) do it’s an ongoing battle not to let them go in pursuit of something shinier…
Anyway, that’s quite enough about me - I’d love to know more about the people who are joining me here so please go ahead and leave an intro in the comments :-) PLUS let me know your Instagram handle so I can find you over there too!
Oh hi! I’m a divorcee and solo parent who spends my work days helping authors with their marketing. I am also a writer, but not fiction, or particularly non fiction. I guess I’m a journal-ist in the sense that I like to journal in public, but am teaching myself to be less navel gazing and to focus on the reader a little bit more as I try to help my authors to do. Still a lot of navel gazing going on - not sure that’ll ever go away! - but hopefully creating useful content occasionally, too ❤️
Hi Nicola, I really love this introduction - great idea! At the moment I’m going a bit incognito on here, to have a play and see how it all works. In March I’m leaving my job (eek!) as a BBC producer and going freelance, so I really understand about the loss of identity and can imagine I’ll be saying ‘I used to work for the BBC’ for longer than is necessary! I’ve been there 17 years so it’s going to be important to me to find my voice and my own ways of working outside of such a recognisable institution. Once I get going, I hope to find a creative and understanding freelance community on substack so I feel less alone! What I’m excited about most is the freedom to pursue ideas, connections, collaborations and hopefully make some important work. I very much relate to your constant swirl of competing ideas! I’m mainly a radio / podcast producer but I also spent five years making video content for social. I really love working with audio, crafting documentaries and telling stories. I also present my own series on BBC Sounds called The Aberystwyth Book Club. It’s just been commissioned for its fourth series and I couldn’t be happier. It combines two things I love, getting to know people and chatting about books! Which brings me to writing. I’ve recently joined my first writer’s group. It’s such a privilege to read people’s work before anyone else, I find it so inspiring, as well as it being an incredibly supportive and empowering space to share mine. I’m not writing as much as I would like at the moment but am tentatively chipping away at my first novel. If I’m honest, even admitting to that is still very scary to me (!) and without the group, I don’t think I would’ve ever taken that first step.