In Which I Learn To TikTok Like a Wound-Up Watch

Or maybe I don't . . .

These guys probably have longer attention spans than we do by now: Image by Pexels from Pixabay

I know, it’s a Chinese Commie front, but EVERYBODY is on TikTok.

Wait . . . you’re not?

Google’s AI, which nobody would even think to question, says there are over 1.5 billion active TikTok users monthly. In the U.S., there’s somewhere between 120 and 121 million TikTokkers (Tikkers? TTers?FastTokkers? Don’t ask me, I'm a noob).

Also. If you’re an author, then Everybody knows you should be on TikTok. More specifically, #BookTok, which is a big important hashtag, a word which I used to think meant a symbol for pound. Or number.

Anyway, Everybody also knows that authors, even traditionally published ones, are expected to do much of their own marketing these days. Therefore, every author needs a platform. Which is not something you stand on to preach the gospel or reach the jar of capers in the back of the pantry.

Wait, I have one! A platform,I mean. I have my website right here at JanMFlynn.net, with a blog, and I’m published in literary magazines and anthologies, and I write regularly on Medium and on Substack. I’ve produced over 100 episodes of my own blogcast, Here’s A Thought. I’m a recurring host on the Crow’s Feet podcast. I have followers! I have subscribers!

But if I listen to the social media proselytizers, none of that means squat if I don’t also have a gazillion likes on my latest Insta-reel or TikTok video.

The problem is, I don’t post videos. Or I hadn’t, until I finally signed up for a how-to course. Because even after watching YouTube tutorials, I had no more idea how to Tik a Tok than I did how to split an atom in my home kitchen.

#TikTok is a kingmaker for writers.

So proclaimed the young, media-savvy, instructor from whom I took the “TikTok For Authors” course. It seemed doable: a couple of two-hour Zooms spread between two weekends, with the promise that we’d come away with not only a clue as to how the whole thing works, but three completed and posted TikToks of our very own.

Plus it was affordable.

I’ve felt like I should be TikTokking and Insta-reeling for over a year now. If you listen to authors who also teach social media marketing, they are quick to tell you it’s NEVER too early to build your online brand. Ideally before you write your book.

My debut novel — the first book in a middle-grade fantasy series — is set to launch in May of 2026. That’s less than a year and a half from now.

Egad! I had to get on this STAT. So enrolling in the course and putting some money where my angst was meant I could blast past my resistance and get ‘er done.

I mean, how hard could it be? My grandnieces and grandnephews whip out whizbang videos like they’re throwing confetti.

For the two-week interval between signing up and the first session, I relaxed and did what I always do about social media. Which is, basically, to ignore it.

Then came Lesson 1.

In which I learned how sorry-ass behind the times I am, for one thing. Yes, I had a TikTok account, and yes I’d liked and followed a few folks (mostly my grandpeeps, but then some authors and #BookTokkers too).

But it was like walking into a very loud, very crowded party where not only didn’t I know anyone, it was like I’d gotten there via a time machine that had ejected me into a slightly dystopian future.

Never mind, I told myself. Learning anything new is uncomfortable at first. I can do this.

And now I had this highly self-assured young woman to walk me through the whole process, A to Z! Or at least A to G.

Except.

It must be nearly impossible for a digital native to even know where A is for someone of my vintage — someone who got through college without a laptop or even a calculator, someone who remembers when slide rules were a thing.

It would be as though I had to teach a mentally competent but illiterate adult to read. I’d realize that I’d have to teach them the alphabet first, but maybe not that I’d have to first help them grasp the concept of what letters are for.

The instructor gave it a good shot. She began by reassuring us that it doesn’t take long to build a following (a debut author herself, she’d been working on her brand to promote her forthcoming book for all of seven months, and now she has a jillion likes or whatever). She outlined strategies that made a lot of sense. I was almost feeling encouraged.

Next was the how-to component.

Here’s where I immediately felt like a Neolithic hunter-gatherer at a Ted Talk about astrophysics.

A very fast Ted Talk.

“So you can just set up your phone like this, and go into your app, and once you’ve got your script figured out . . .” At this point, no doubt wishing to stay within her two-hour time limit and not explain a bunch of stuff she assumes normal, functional people already know, she hit her stride:

“Thenyouhittherecordbuttonandmakeyourfirstclipwhichyoucankeepordiscard,seethisbuttonhere,oryoucanjustrecordavideolikeregularandwhenyou’vegotyourfootageyoucanedititherebutIliketouseCapCut,souploadyourvideothereandthenyoucanscrollthroughandsplitoutsectionsanddiscardwhateveryouwantandthenyoucanaddeffects,oryoucandothatpartfirstoruseatemplateandthenyoucanaddtextorcaptionsandaheadlinewhichyouonlywanttohaveupformaybethreesecondsatmostsopeopledon’tscrollawayandTikTokwilladdmusicforyouifyouwantandhitthisbuttonoverheresoyoudon’thaveawatermarkandyoucanalsopostittoInsta . . .”

“. . . and that should get you started,” she concluded. “Questions?”

Does the Neanderthal at the Ted Talk have questions? Yes. Starting with, “huh?”

But hey, the Zoom was recorded, so no problem. Off we were sent to make our three videos and add the links to each of them in the shared class worksheet. The results were due at the next session on the following Saturday.

The following Tuesday was the presidential election.

Watching American democracy take a face-plant did nothing for my TikTokking zeal. For most of that week, I more or less crawled into a hole and pulled the hole in after me.

But I always was a grade-grinder in school, and I wasn’t going to let the rise of fascism in my beloved country get in the way of finishing my homework.

So I made my three TikToks, each of which took an inordinate amount of time for a less-than-one-minute video, and each of which was as much fun as having a root canal in the middle of Times Square. While naked.

Meanwhile, I watched more TikToks to help me get up to speed. And was, mostly, appalled. Talk about speed; no wonder we now have the attention spans of ferrets force-fed Rockstar. Images flashing at blurring speed, jarring cuts, shrieking subtitles, overlaid with blaring music.

Compared to a lot of those seizure-inducing vids, mine were like watching paint dry. If drying paint could also make you cringe.

Still, the instructor was very kind about my offerings. “The pace, it’s so nice and slow, kind of ASMR,” she said dreamily.

Thanks?

I still don’t know how to make TikToks, not really

But I give myself props for persistence. I have since enlisted the help of my eldest grandniece, a college student who makes social media videos as a side hustle and pulls in way more income than my lousy waitressing jobs did when I was her age.

She helped a lot. I felt encouraged enough to make a couple of vids that actually got hearts and comments (probably from her, her friends, and my other grandpeeps: look how cute, Aunt Jannie is trying to make TikToks!).

But it still feels like having teeth pulled. And when my grandniece pointed out that her younger brother watches double-layered TikToks, speeded up, and even then scrolls through most of them before they’re done — well, maybe TikTok is not my metier.

Now that I think about it, the people who will actually buy my books aren’t so much the young readers themselves as parents, teachers, and librarians. Especially school librarians.

I bet they don’t hang out on TikTok so much. Maybe LinkedIn?

I’m not giving up, though. I’ve just signed up for a college extension course: “Instagram For Beginners.” It starts in February.

Until then, I can go back to chiseling on clay tablets.

Wish me luck.