The Importance of Social Media Following in Bookselling

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In the early 2000s, when publishers or editors are trying to figure out which authors or manuscripts to accept, they started looking at your social media following. But I don't think it's true. If you're selling a book, if you have a million Instagram followers that actually does still get their attention and people I think still do sell books based on their social mediaFollowing. And conversely, if you're like me and you'reselling a book and you say, well, you know, I don't really have a small number of followers everywhere. It makes some think while you're less of a sure bet, right?

We live in a chatter-filled world. People will talk your ear off when you see them in person and everyone is constantly sharing their thoughts online. But my guest would say that all this chatter may be hurting us more than we know, and it would be better to close our pieholes and sit on our typing fingers a lot more often than we do.

His name is Dan Lyons, and he's the author of STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World. Today on the show, Dan unpacks how being quiet and speaking with greater intention can improve your life. We discuss why some people tend to overtalk more than others and the six types of overtalkers out there, from the blurter to the most extreme case, the talkaholic, for whom overtalking is practically an addiction. We then discuss not getting sucked into spouting off online, avoiding conversational narcissism, the argument for spending less time working on your personal brand and more time doing quality work, how silence is power, how the best way to deal with issues in a marriage may be by not talking about them, and more.