by James L. Rubart, @jameslrubart

I’m guessing you’re familiar with the phrase, “If you’re not paying anything, YOU are the product.” 

I’m also guessing you’ve seen reports on how Facebook knows how incendiary they are and how they use algorithms that are designed to tick you off and/or keep you on their site as long as possible. 

But allow me to give a quick example of how Facebook controls what you see from my own life. 

Early last month we got dumped on (snow) like my area hasn’t seen in 50 years. So I went out on our deck and Darci took a shot out our living room window.

Did you notice the engagement number? Five hundred and two.

Now look at this post, which I put up a day later:

Twelve engagements. Twelve! Now maybe very few of my friends want to know about this amazing little book my friend Jess and his son David wrote. And maybe few care that I voiced it. But I think (actually I know) it’s more likely Facebook didn’t want people going away to YouTube so they only allowed an extremely small number of my friends to see it.

My Point

For the most part, I enjoy Facebook. And I still use it to promote my books (even though I know statistically it sells very few copies). 

But I don’t put a ton of energy into the platform. It’s simply not the best use of time. Maybe it’s not your best use of your time either.

(And I’m just not that big a fan of being the product.)

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The Pages of Her Life

How Do You Stand Up for Yourself When It Means Losing Everything? Allison Moore is making it. Barely. The Seattle architecture firm she started with her best friend is struggling, but at least they’re free from the games played by the corporate world. She’s gotten over her divorce. And while her dad’s recent passing is tough, their relationship had never been easy.

Then the bomb drops. Her dad was living a secret life and left her mom in massive debt.

As Allison scrambles to help her mom find a way out, she’s given a journal, anonymously, during a visit to her favorite coffee shop. The pressure to rescue her mom mounts, and Allison pours her fears and heartache into the journal.

But then the unexplainable happens. The words in the journal, her words, begin to disappear. And new ones fill the empty spaces—words that force her to look at everything she knows about herself in a new light.

Ignoring those words could cost her everything . . . but so could embracing them.

James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski like a madman and dirt bike with his two grown sons. He’s the best-selling, Christy BOOK of the YEAR, CAROL, INSPY, and RT Book Reviews award winning author of ten novels and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember months after they finish one of his stories. He’s also a branding expert, audiobook narrator, co-host of the Novel Marketing podcast, and co-founder with his son, Taylor, of the Rubart Writing Academy. He lives with his amazing wife on a small lake in Washington state.