Facebook Groups Are Toxic for Aspiring Writers

Don't focus on money. Focus on building profitable skills

I noticed one thing. Everybody was leaving their article links under the post. The title of the post had a huge error in it, and nobody said a word. “Great article, beautiful. Thank you for sharing,” they said. They all failed to let the writer know of his error.

Everybody was only worried about promoting themselves.

This happens all the time in writing groups. Everybody is so busy promoting themselves, we fail to read. It doesn't even matter what someone’s post is about, the next person comes and leave their link and run.

Facebook groups are full of aspiring writers. You would think, as writers, we would take the time to read a post before responding.

Most writers that hang out in groups aren’t actually reading, they just want to be read. But how can you improve as a writer if you don’t read?

As an aspiring writer who has only been on the platform for two weeks, your only work is writing, reading, and improving your skills. You have no business writing about how you earned $0.70 in your first week. Not yet. There are things to do and hundreds of articles to read to better yourself.

We worry so much about stats and the outcome; we fail to have fun and enjoy the journey.

There is always a post about how long success is taking or how they aren't getting any claps or views and how they are hanging tight and constantly check to see if their article got curated.

You will receive an email when your work gets curated you can't miss it. Why don't you work on your next article instead?

Many people only write for money and not because they want to help others or because they enjoy writing.

We focus on the money and fail to truly have fun experimenting and enjoying our writing journey. Focus on the reason you decided to become a writer.

Money is important. Very important. It's rewarding to make money doing what you love, but we decided to become writers because we have so much to say and want our voices heard.

Focus on doing just that and the money will follow. Quit checking stats every hour. Worry about the things that truly matter.

You decided to become a writer because you want to help make people's lives better, so worry about doing that. Even if you only get one person to read and it inspires their life, you've succeeded and that is all that matters.

Really. It's about the impact your work has on the lives of others.

It’s so painful to see new writers promote the same article over and over again instead of getting off of Facebook and going to work on their next article. We post the same article on other people's posts whether it’s called for or not.

We beat ourselves up for not being successful yet. We complain about numbers all day long and we think our writing sucks. As a new writer, your writing will suck and that's just how it is. How else would you learn and get it right the next time?

Avoid comparing yourself with other successful writers. Don't forget successful writers worked so hard to get to where they are now. Not because they regularly checked their stats and spent hours and hours on Facebook promoting the same article. They log out of Facebook and they open their editors, they write, publish, and start the next one.

The thing that gets me is the lies. When writers comment under your post saying “read and clapped,” meanwhile their name is nowhere to be found in your notifications.

What happened? Did you get lost? Did you end up on a different profile or you just lied about reading my article so I read yours? Not cool.

Successful writers love reading and they don't lie about reading just to get some attention from the crowd. They know who they are, they write, promote their work once or twice and they move on to starting the next.

Instead of taking the time to perfect our writing skills, we complain all day and spend time surrounded by other unhappy writers who stare at stats and complain about not getting enough claps.

Why should claps matter so much when it doesn't even dictate how much you earn?

The top writers aren’t always hanging out in Facebook groups, they are busy working on their next project.

Log out of Facebook, pick up your pen and notepad, open up a new story, and write. Just write. Forget about the stats for a little while and just write.

Why not just use it to have some fun and maybe make some connections that may help you down the road instead of worrying so much about making a full-time career out of it. Sure. Dream. Dream big, but have fun while working towards your dreams.

Don't take part in the promotional “I support you, you support me” crap, even if your writing is horrible and full of errors.

Go out on your own and find your own tribe. Find those who genuinely support your passion and want to see you succeed. Find your real fans. They are out there, but you won't cross paths with them if you are stuck on Facebook complaining.

Don't be that writer who posts articles with chunky paragraphs and gets upset when someone in the group points it out to you. You can't be in a group if you can't handle constructive criticism.

Don't expect everyone to clap for your writing because you shared it. The purpose of writing groups should be to help you become a better writer. How else would you grow if nobody is nice enough to point out what you could do better?

Don’t focus on making money as a new writer. Focus on building profitable skills that you can take with you everywhere you go. Don't be entitled thinking the world owes you anything.

Write because you love writing and it's all you think about. Join a group because you are interested in improving your skills and making genuine connections.

Log out of Facebook after promoting yourself for a bit and start working on your next article.

Do what you love doing. Write because you love it.

What do you think about this topic? Do you agree or disagree? And can we agree to disagree?

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