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Beth C. Greenberg
Adventures in Publishing, Marketing

The Great TikTok Experiment: Am I wasting my time?

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Collage of images from the TikTok profile of BethCGreenbergauthor

TikTok? Me ?

When I typed “The End” on the last page of the last book in my Cupid’s Fall series, I had no idea I would soon be setting up my own TikTok account and learning the ropes. Spoiler Alert: One year later, in March of 2021, I posted my very first TikTok. And so began The Great TikTok Experiment.

Hypothesis: I’ll give it a go, post a dozen or so videos, probably make a complete fool of myself, and be happy if I get 100 views before letting my account wither on the vine.

In my mind, TikTok was a playground for the younger generation, home to silly videos that occasionally went “viral” for no discernable reason. (And honestly, it kind of still is.) Plus – and this is no small thing – creating visual content is HARD! I like words.

But TikTok had entered my radar for effective book marketing. It was time to take my head out of the sand and test the waters.

Note: This post will be much more fun for you (like 99/100 fun factor) if you are able to interact with the videos on my page. You’ll need to have the app installed – it’s free – on either your phone or computer. Don’t blame me if you get addicted!

Ah, social media.

The free features (everything users can access without buying ads) have much in common with my beloved vampires of True Blood and Twilight. Everything about them is specifically designed to draw you in with the sole purpose of sucking your blood. Here, let Edward Cullen tell you.

There’s a cynical but accurate marketing adage: If you can’t tell what the product is, YOU are the product. You know this already, Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok user: YOU are the product. The audience being sold.

That’s fine as long as it’s understood. I get my free money’s worth every day, not complaining. But the hand that giveth a “free audience” (showing your posts to your friends and followers) is quick to taketh away.

“Organic” (non-paid) reach just doesn’t work at all. Our newsfeeds are a fraction of the content our friends are putting out. Why? $$$$$$$$

Pros and Cons of other platforms

While Facebook is for sharing baby pictures, Twitter is for political ranting, and Instagram is for showing off how popular you are, TikTok has a certain silly simplicity—a forum where you can dance in your living room, lip-synch bad jokes, capture animal antics, and share other slivers of your personal life.

The Atlantic, July 30, 2020

Setting aside the obvious pros (social interaction, momentary relief from reality, global connection) and cons (misinformation, malevolent organizing, echo chamber manufacturing, data mining), here are some specific pros and cons from my personal experience attempting to market books on other popular platforms:

Facebook

  • Having dabbled socially on FB for about a dozen years, I was comfortable using most of the features. When I engaged the commercial side, I didn’t have a problem setting up my author page – though ads are quite a different story (for a different, sadder post).
  • You can easily edit a post at any point. You can define the audience on a granular level for any given post. Doesn’t mean they’ll show it to all of those people, but they won’t show it (directly) to someone you’ve excluded.
  • FB groups are a great way to interact with other folks with shared hobbies and interests. There are groups galore for writers, publishers, and readers. In fact, I’ll be doing a live event on book 4‘s release day (Feb 8) over at Renee’s Reading Club! You’ll need a FB account and permission to join the group ahead of time in order to view.
  • “Organic reach” is a joke on FB. Our newsfeeds are a tiny fraction of what users curate for ourselves. Frustrating as both a user and a content creator.

Instagram

  • I’m a lousy photographer, so photos are not my best means of expressing myself.
  • I have to laugh sometimes at the circularity of the platform. Mention me in your IG story, and I get a notification so I can repost to MY story and tag you, and on and on it goes.
  • Thanks to a terrific virtual tour organizer named Suzy, my Cupid stories have been beautifully reviewed by a couple dozen “bookstagrammers” and viewed by the thousands of book enthusiasts who follow them.
  • At my level of engagement, it’s very hard to see any connection between IG activity and sales. I consider IG a long-term brand awareness builder.
  • Loads of bots and scammers to watch out for.
  • Um… sugar daddies.

Twitter

  • The word-centric platform appeals to the writer in me.
  • It’s a nice place to drop a quick thought that’s too short to be a Facebook post.
  • Posting is simple mechanically, but whenever I tweet, I feel like I’ve just mute-screamed into a deaf universe. (Sorry to go so dark there)
  • Hashtags such as #writingcommunity are huge echo chambers of writers following other writers. Supportive? Maybe. Effective? Nope.
  • Everyone is trying to out-clever each other. It’s exhausting.

So why bother with this TikTok experiment?

TikTok does several things astronomically better than its competitors:

  • Sheer numbers – Out of 4.48 billion active social media users, 22.32% use TikTok on a regular basis, according to backlinko.com. (Jan, 2022). That’s a mighty valuable asset to owner ByteDance, one the company is motivated to maintain and improve. If major content creators complain, TikTok (mostly) addresses the issue – at least for those accounts. (All TT accounts are not created equal. Mega accounts get special treatment in the form of features such as the ability to produce live content, to use hyperlinks in bios, to receive monetary gifts from viewers, etc.)
  • Audience Reach – While not all of Tiktok’s 1.9 billion monthly users are avid readers (which is clear from some of the content, but I digress), the hashtag #booktok has over 34.7 BILLION videos. A great (or even decent) review by the right TikTok book influencer can skyrocket a book to the top of the charts. Take a look at all the bookstore tables (and virtual tables) labeled “As Seen on BookTok” if you don’t believe me.
  • The magical “For You” page – When you open your TikTok app, you are shown a string of videos based on a number of factors: who you follow, how much time you spend and how you interact with certain videos (like, comment, or share), and what kind of content you post. The mysterious algorithm feeds you the content it believes will keep you on the app longest. Why? You guessed it – advertising dollars. My videos are shown first to my followers. If they gain any traction, they are then “pushed out” to for-you pages, where they can be seen by all those billions of potential viewers whom I would never, ever reach otherwise. And this is TikTok’s secretest sauce.

Here’s the fun part!

Time to check in on this TikTok experiment.

Methods: Learn basic mechanics of the platform. Post videos with frequency ideally ranging from 1-3 per day. Evaluate results, study advice, learn new techniques, try again and again and again.

If you were brave enough to view my page, you can see the 100+ videos I’ve posted and a few quick stats. If you “Follow” me (silly you), you’ll become one of those beta testers TT will use to see if my content is worth pushing out. Please, use your power generously.

Observations:

  • Ten months into this project, I have 1350 followers (a mere drop in the bucket on TT). Up till last week (more on this in a sec), my highest view count on a single video was around 1400. I’m not buying an “I’m TikTok famous” t-shirt quite yet.
  • Most of my videos get around 500 views. I don’t mind spending 30 minutes producing a text-rich video with excerpts from my books if 500 people are willing to take 30 seconds to look at it. That’s a fine return. A handful have racked up over 1000 views, which is by no means viral, but tells me they’re getting enough attention to tickle TT’s algorithm.
  • As you scroll through, you’ll also see a bunch of videos that never got out of the gates. Those happen to everyone, I’m told, just the way it goes.
  • There is no rhyme or reason that would explain why any one video on my page gets more views than another. Take, for example, this video I made using a text-to-speech robotic voice asking authors to show what book everyone should be reading right now:
 @bethcgreenbergauthor 1st in series on sale now ?#romcombookrecs #romancebooktok #greekmythologyseries #cupidlovestory ♬ original sound - Jessicca Augenstein

This did nicely, largely because a bunch of other authors hopped in to tout their own books. [Incidentally, they probably would have been more successful using my video to create their own as a “duet” (recorded a side-by-side with mine) or as a “stitch” (recording after a snippet of mine).] Happily, one or two viewers commented they were going straight to my buy links!

So I followed the sage TT wisdom that says mimic a successful video to create another. Here is the sad result of that experiment: 17 views. Same soundtrack, similar hashtags, similar content. Was it the gray nail polish in the first video? Excuse me while I go get a manicure!

The most outrageous happening so far

One late night of scrolling, I came upon a viral video (over 5 MILLION views!) with an absolutely ridiculous premise. Here, see for yourself.

Out of sheer exasperation, I “stitched” this video, adding my own content at the end. By the way, Tiktok encourages this sharing and collaborating. Creators are welcome to turn off the function, but most leave it on because it brings more people to their original content. Not that Paul needs any help from me!

Here’s my result, and embarrassingly, my most successful video so far at over 2k views and still accumulating views:

@bethcgreenbergauthor #stitch with @paulkri If you can’t beat ’em… #thealgorithmsentme #whatsmyniche #viralchallenge ♬ original sound – Beth C Greenberg

So THAT happened, and I, being a follower of good advice, went ahead and tweaked that post for my niche (TikTok is all about niches). You can view this spectacularly silly video here.

I taped my whole 4-book series to the wall, which sounds a lot easier than it was. I got them all to stay put long enough to capture it on video. Then, I let my book babies drop to the (blanketed) floor. It took an hour of my weekend, but so what? This one was going to take off!

Welp. This one that I “made relevant to my niche,” original content, kind of entertaining, right? 54 stinkin’ views. I still don’t get it.

Here are a few I’m actually proud of

If you have the time and inclination for a “highlights reel,” check these out:

So, what’s the verdict?

Analysis: I’d like to say I’m pre-successful.

Some negatives:

I can’t say my feelings about the platform have changed radically from my first impressions. I still feel old. It’s irritating that TikTok incentivizes creators to use the same 20 “viral” music tracks, and that music sounds like cars crashing in my head. It’s impossible to know (and honestly, frustrating as heck) what makes one video go viral while another gets twenty views – and I’m not saying all of mine should have gone viral. But that one with the books taped to the wall? COME ON, PEOPLE!

TikTok can be a huge time sink. While it is true that some of the most successful videos take only 10-15 minutes to produce, some take lots longer and require multiple media and lots of editing. Ideally, the “content” I’m creating with most of my time should be, um, BOOKS.

There’s a very real pressure to POST | THINK OF YOUR NEXT POST | POST | SCROLL TO SEE WHAT’S TRENDING | POST. Sometimes, it’s really stupidly too much stress.

Some big positives:

  • TikTok CAN be a lot of fun. People are goofy and sweet and genuinely want to entertain. (Not to be naive here, I get that mega creators do get paid and there are many, many perks to having a sizable following.) But there’s a dancing carpenter, a hunky guy who’s started reading romance books on TT, and lots and lots of good-looking guys who can’t wait to take off their shirts. Yes, please.
  • Authenticity is rewarded. You don’t have to get duded up or have pro equipment to make it work.
  • The mysterious, frustrating algorithm actually does a great job of delivering content to me that I want to see. Unlike Tivo, I can teach my algo really quickly what I do not want to see, and I’m rarely served that topic or creator again.
  • I have connected with book lovers directly (by commenting on their posts or sending the rare direct message) and turned a bunch of people on to my series.
  • So far, I haven’t spent a dime. I suspect that will change soon. TikTok is now doing a very good job of pushing out their paid videos over the creative ones, so that makes it harder for freeloading app users like me.
  • I LOVE learning, and TikTok constantly offers new challenges. I still marvel at how my daughter can grasp her camera in one hand and edit video and splice music and position text on the screen with just one thumb, but now I can do all these things too! Sure, I do it slower and with more fingers, and usually with a regret or two after I post, but I’m DOING IT!
  • TikTok coaches are the bomb! This wonderful woman who calls herself themuthership creates step-by-step tutorials for all the fun trends. She’s the one who taught me how to do the Superman freeze frame. When I tagged her on my post to thank her, she kindly replied with words of encouragement.
  • Creative collaboration turns me on. TikTok is a very cool way to collaborate with content creators from everywhere doing everything! Though much of the collaboration is silly, I’m all for human-to-human connection!

Conclusion: Am I wasting my time with this TikTok experiment? Oh heck yes, if I use book sales in the immediate term as my only metric. But as with every other aspect of writing and publishing, I’ve discovered so much more than what I thought I was looking for.

So how about you? Dare to join me on this new, crazy adventure? Check out my most recent TikTok right here and leave me a comment!

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Adventures in Publishing, Books, Writing

Crossing Genre Lines is Risky. I did it anyway.

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silhouettes getting trapped behind police tape representing crossing genre lines

Why is crossing genre lines “ill advised”?

Crossing genre lines is a skip in the park for an author with a NAME. You see a book by James Patterson or Nora Roberts, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Sure, a rock star like Stephen King can write horror one day and crime fiction the next. But a l’il ol’ indie like moi? That’s a big NOPE.

It’s all about author branding. Here are some of the objections I’ve heard:

  • You’re going to mix up your readers!
  • You’ll never get an agent!
  • You’re going to waste boatloads of money on misplaced ads!
  • How will your book covers work for multiple genres?
  • How will booksellers – both physical and digital – know what shelf to put your books on?
  • You’re going to mess up the algorithms! (This last one is absolute Amazon suicide!)

Three books later, I can attest that these points are all valid and excellent advice. Advice I continue to refuse to heed.

Then why did you do this thing, silly author?

Nobody puts Love in a box!

Did you know there are six separate Greek gods of love?

  • Eros, god of love and sexual passion [a.k.a. our romantic hero]
  • Anteros, god of requited love
  • Himeros, god of sexual desire
  • Hedylogos, god of sweet talk and flattery
  • Hymenaios, god of marriage and marriage feasts
  • Pothos, god of sexual longing, yearning and desire

Are you really going to tell Cupid he has to conform to some arbitrary genre definition? Hey, good luck getting Pan to obey! Guess what you’ll have at the end of that lame story- a soupy, generic nothing of a series that nobody will want to read.

Q says it pretty well in Quite the Pair when questioned about his sexuality:

“So you’re bisexual?”

Cupid shrugged. Humans and their labels. Things were much more fluid where he came from. “I don’t really know what all that means. I just like who I like.”

Reed nodded, a small smile settling on his face. “That seems like a good way to be.”

Quite the Pair, Book #3 of the Cupid’s Fall series

I get that most readers have their go-to genres.

Ask me my least favorites, and I’d probably list horror right off the top. That said, did I read and love my friend Paul Draper’s horror anthology, Black Gate Tales? Yes, yes I did. Why? Because the man is an amazing story teller.

Can you remember a time when you were persuaded to read outside your favorite genres, and you found yourself enjoying the experience?

My characters may physically exist on a digital bookshelf or in a cardboard box, but where they really live is in the readers’ hearts. I have faith in my readers. I trust that if I serve you up a compelling story with round, interesting characters, you’ll follow their story arc regardless of what journey they take the reader on. Ideally, the genre seams disappear, and the reader is simply immersed in the story. It’s absolutely thrilling when I speak with a reader who has fallen so deeply into the fantasy that they have forgotten that immortal beings don’t actually exist!

I don’t like to underestimate my readers.

You do understand that YOU’RE actually the ones being put in a box, right?

I explored this topic in a post from January 10th: One Writer’s Quest to Find the Perfect Reader. Clearly, I was already conflicted, and that was before publishing book one! Here we are after releasing book 3, and the genre waters are muddier yet.

Last week, I attended a talk by Anthony Doerr, famed author of All the Light We Cannot See and his new release, Cloud Cuckoo Land. His latest book is set in three different timelines, one being the future – which, ipso facto, puts him (at least partly) in the science fiction category. When pressed on why he crossed genre lines, he nodded as if he’d expected the question, and then answered something like this (sorry, I was too excited to jot down his exact words while he was saying them): I get that publishers need a label and booksellers need to know which shelf to put the book on, but I needed to tell my story.

THANK YOU, Anthony!

So which shelf am I actually on?

Tell me, how would you whittle down a story about hot-blooded Greek gods living in modern day USA looking for love in all the wrong places?

Right off the bat, it’s fantasy because immortals. It’s romance because love. And it’s comedy because Cupid is so stinkin’ naive and Pan is so completely blunt. And it’s LGBTQ+ because Pan is pan and Cupid is the God of Erotic Love, and as Lin Manuel Miranda so beautifully expressed it, “Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love!”

Book one leans heavily on the fantasy aspect of living gods and immortality. By book two, most readers have settled into the world and are feeling pretty grounded in the very real life marriage of Ruthie and Zach. Book three, no question, is LGBTQ+. Classic friends-to-lovers trope except for the whole not echoing issue. And book four? Well, let’s just say the story completes its arc.

So if it seems we’re shelf-hopping, maybe that’s because love is rich and beautiful and enters into every story. Think about it – what is travel without the love of discovery of somewhere (or someone?) new? What’s a great murder mystery without passion? What is cooking without the tactile experience of texture and flavor and the desire to please someone’s palate (even if it is the chef’s own!)? What is self-help without self-love?

Name me a shelf, and I will show you the love!

How does a writer decide who her characters love?

One of the most interesting questions I’ve been asked was posed at a book club meeting for FIRST QUIVER (#1): “Why did you decide to make Pan gay?” Welp.

A whole lot of poets and writers well before my time made up those stories about Pan. THE Pan. The original pansexual. I didn’t make him anything. I just let him be Pan, and I sat back and listened and watched (and took furious notes).

Actually, that’s how all my characters work. If I consciously match any of them, I try to come up with pairings that will potentially bring out the very best and the very worst in both partners, throw them in a pressure cooker situation, and watch what happens!

There are so many delicious lenses we might choose with which to explore love. For my series, I chose four prisms that strike me as widely shared human experiences: first love (book #1), marriage (book #2), friendship (book #3), and meant-to-be fated love (book #4).

And looky who Superman loves now!

This is exciting! The latest news out of DC Comics is that the Man of Steel is going to be in a same-sex relationship.

The new Superman, Jonathan Kent, is in a relationship with fellow reporter, Jay Nakamura. And according to this article in The Guardian, “Kent’s sexuality is not the only way in which the character has been updated for a new audience and time. Recent issues have seen him protesting against the deportation of refugees, stopping a high school shooting and trying to put out wildfires that were the cause of the climate crisis.” Good for you, Supe!

Photograph: DC Comics

“Superman’s symbol has always stood for hope, for truth and for justice. Today, that symbol represents something more. Today, more people can see themselves in the most powerful superhero in comics.”

Tom Taylor, series writer (NYT interview)

It seems my superheroes are in the very best company!

Okay, but why would a het woman write gay romance?

I was fortunate to have the friendship of a very dear gay man for sadly too few years before he was taken by cancer. Our lives intersected at the time I was starting to write fanfiction, and I had just begun to branch out into love stories featuring two men. I was very excited to share this with him, as he’d always been incredibly encouraging. (He also was a phenomenal critical reader, and I’m sure he would have been a valued member of my beta team.)

My friend was perplexed by my subject matter and asked me, “But why do you want to write about gay men?”

When I answered, “Because love is love,” he nodded, smiled, and answered, “Indeed. And parts is parts.”

Truth is, I came to writing gay romance the same way I hope you will come to reading it – that is, if it is new to you. I was reading a lot of fanfiction at the time (stories based off other authors’ work, specifically the Southern Vampire series – “True Blood” – and the Twilight series.) I would follow authors I loved into whatever rabbit holes they led me, and eventually, many of them ended up writing male-male love stories. Not every story was for me, but it definitely widened my horizons.

When I started writing m/m stories myself, I already had a wonderful, ready-made audience of readers who trusted me to tell a good story. I practiced, I experimented, I received critical feedback and encouragement. I bring many of those lovely women (and a few good men) to my Cupid’s Fall series.

Hence, my dedication for book 3, Pan’s love story:

dedication of book 3 with bookmark

The gauntlet is thrown.

I’m crossing genre lines like a mofo.

Will you come with me, reader?

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P.S. – Did you know you can receive blog updates straight to your inbox? Yup! Just enter your email address in the box below and cut out the middle man. This is a no-spam zone! I post to my blog once or twice a month. (Not to be confused with my NEWSLETTER, which is all the current book stuff, sneak peeks, special deals, etc. And you can sign up for my newsletter by clicking on the big open heart at the bottom of this page.)

Adventures in Publishing, Life, Marketing

Closer to my Daughter Thanks to Expert Advice – Hers

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picture of mother and daughter on safari in South Africa with a perfect sunset at our back

Oh, that mother-daughter relationship!

Ask any mom lucky enough to have a daughter, and if she’s honest, she’ll tell you the mother-daughter relationship can be intense. You know what I mean – I don’t need to lay it out for you here. (Frankly, that’s all a bit beyond the scope of this blog.) Suffice it to say, over the 28 years of her life, my daughter and I have had our high highs and our low lows, but it’s rarely boring.

Now that my daughter is a grown-up person who lives across the country, our relationship has its own imposed distance. Even if I wanted to stick my nose into Lindsay’s business, I only have that opportunity when she shares it with me. And while oversharing on certain – ahem – topics is kind of a family joke at this point, she doesn’t typically ask our/my advice on every little thing. Mostly because she knows I like to sleep at night!

So we’d been humming along for a bunch of years in this state of benevolent ignorance. And then a funny thing happened.

We both turned into writers.

Writing critique and parenting don’t always mix well.

Back when I was growing up, before spell-check and typewriters with eraser cartridges were invented, my brothers and I had a secret weapon: a well-read, well-educated Mom as an editor. She was always happy to read over our school papers before we turned them in. If there were occasional tears or hard feelings, I don’t remember them. We kids understood that whatever mistakes Mom caught, Mr. Smith/Snyder/Whitney didn’t.

That wasn’t exactly the experience I had as a parent.

My kids didn’t want that kind of help from me. Despite my best efforts at following the helpful pointers for offering critique, it can be tricky between parents and kids. It was easier to let the teachers handle the constructive feedback. So I kept my nose out of their papers unless specifically asked (which I rarely was).

But that was before my kids became adults and before I found my passion for creative writing.

Writing changed our family dynamic.

Ten years ago, I picked up a new hobby that quickly became all-consuming – writing fiction. Very soon after, my son brought home a fully formed sci-fi novel, which was as far from his chosen major (cognitive psychology) as it was from mine (accounting). His journey, which gave rise to Isotopia Publishing, is laid out in a previous blog post here.

But the real surprise came when my daughter Lindsay started writing a blog.

First off, let me say this – Lindsay is a great writer! She’s brutally honest, introspective, creative, and articulate. Let me also say this – she did a great job of keeping this particular talent hidden during her school years. Reading and writing simply did not interest her.

I wouldn’t say she’s a big reader now, but she does read MY books (yay!) and spends a lot more time educating herself about the nuances of local and global issues. She’s become a seeker and a sharer. What seems to fulfill her most is chronicling her darkest moments and sharing them with her (impressive) following on social media with the sole goal of helping someone else through their depression, struggles with body image, surviving loss, dealing with chronic pain, or navigating this crazy world we live in. Judging by the fan mail she receives on her seesparklylifestyle blog, her instagram and TikTok accounts, Lindsay is definitely achieving that goal.

A new channel of communication opened

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Mark Twain

Somewhere along the line, a very cool thing happened – Lindsay began asking me to review her pieces before sending them out into the world.

At first, it was scary giving honest feedback. A great deal of trust is required on both sides of any successful critical feedback partnership, especially one as potentially fraught as the mother-daughter relationship. But because Lindsay responded to my suggestions with an open heart and an open mind, we quickly found that trust. I was able to venture beyond spelling and punctuation edits to more macro reactions to her writing.

Through her writing, she’s also honing her passion and allowing her insights to guide her way. It’s exciting to watch the growth and self-discovery, and a privilege to play a part in that.

The tables turned when I needed Lindsay’s help.

Having made the decision in August 2020 to self-publish, I needed to create my “author platform.” With some help from a tech-savvy friend and many hours at the keyboard, I created this website, which is a constant work in progress! I set up my Facebook page, my Amazon page, my Goodreads page, my BookBub page – yeah, it’s endless! But there was a gaping hole in my online presence.

There’s a huge reader community on Instagram and TikTok, but trying to figure out how to put myself out there on those platforms terrified me. Luckily, it’s a world my daughter inhabits with ease and great skill. So, I turned to her first for help and advice and technical support. She was excited about being able to give her mom some advice for a change.

A subtle but profound shift started to move between us, and grew with every question I asked, every mistake I made. Our mother-daughter relationship was like a teeter-totter that could rise and fall on both sides.

Social Media for uncool moms

We tackled Instagram first. I’m proud to report that my sad little Instagram account with ten followers and three posts has grown into a full-on portfolio with almost 700 followers!

I’m learning the nuts and bolts of posts, stories, and reels, but I will never match Lindsay’s artistic eye for photography or composition. I mean, look at this, will ya? Lucky for me, she’s always eager to help create content or review something before I post. Did you happen to catch this photo of books one and two we posted for Mother’s Day? She took that gorgeous photo after my efforts left me disappointed.

I was sure my daughter would be horrified when I showed her the first inappropriate message I received on Instagram, but she just laughed at me and explained about the “creepers who slide into your DMs.” [“Duh, Mom. I get those all the time!”] Remember the stuff she doesn’t tell me so I can sleep at night?

Next, we opened the TikTok can of worms. Squirmy worms requiring a delicate touch and a boatload of patience and some knowledge of cool music (which I have never possessed). I try, man, I try. But you should see Lindsay take a day of adventures with Slim (the chocolate lab wonder-grandson) and turn it into a TikTok sensation with the fastest two thumbs I’ve ever seen. Check out this viral post of Slim and the Sea Lion with over 2MM views!

TikTok has been a bigger challenge for us to do together because of the time and patience required. We don’t always finish every project we start. And now that she’s back in Cali, I have to do everything with my own two hands, so … yeah.

But here’s the good news – My TikTok– which started at zero in May – now has over 500 followers, and I haven’t totally embarrassed myself. Yet.

Gratitude

Our mother-daughter relationship has been tested beyond most. Communication and common ground were not always something Lindsay and I shared easily.

Creative expression is something we’ve both discovered a passion for. I’m so grateful that the multifaceted language of storytelling – through words and pictures – has given us a chance to connect in this new and meaningful way. And I’m grateful for the ability to both give and receive meaningful and loving advice at this phase of our lives.

Here’s where you can find and follow our Instagram and TikToks: Lindsay’s Instagram & TikTok | Beth’s Instagram & TikTok

Stop by and drop an encouraging word!

And here’s a picture of Slim Shady – because he’s just too cute!

The Real Slim Shady pup and his owner/mama Lindsay

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P.S. – Did you know you can receive blog updates straight to your inbox? Yup! Just enter your email address in the box below and cut out the middle man. This is a no-spam zone! I post to my blog roughly once a month. (Not to be confused with my NEWSLETTER, which is all the current book stuff, sneak peeks, special deals, etc. And you can sign up for my newsletter by clicking on the big open heart at the bottom of this page.)