When the Tech Gets Loud (But the Book Still Needs Love)
A Whole Artist perspective from The Write Kit
There are days when marketing a book feels less like sharing a story and more like being trapped inside a blinking cockpit.
Post here. Optimize that. Resize the image. Change the caption. No, the other caption. Why is everyone suddenly shouting about funnels?
If you’re an author and you feel overwhelmed by technology, you’re not failing. You’re responding like a human in a system built for machines.
At The Write Kit, we work from a Whole Artist mindset, which means this truth comes first:
You are not a content factory.
You are a creator with a nervous system.
Most writers didn’t come to this work because they wanted to master platforms. They came because they had something to say. Something they had to say.
And yet.
The book still needs to be marketed.
This is where the pressure sneaks in, dressed up as productivity:
Either I become a full-time digital marketer
Or my book vanishes into the algorithmic fog.
That’s a false binary. A convincing one. But still false.
Whole Artist marketing does not require technological fluency.
It requires intentional presence.
You don’t need to understand everything.
You need to understand what matters right now.
Most marketing overwhelm comes from trying to do all the things at once:
Every platform
Every new feature
Every piece of advice
Every single day
That level of output would exhaust a newsroom, let alone one writer and one book.
So here’s the Whole Artist reframe:
Your book does not need a megaphone.
It needs a lighthouse.
A steady, humane signal that says:
This is who I am. This is what I care about. This is the work.
That lighthouse might be:
One newsletter (hello, Substack)
One platform you can tolerate without resentment
One repeatable practice that doesn’t make you dread your laptop
Marketing that works isn’t loud.
It’s consistent.
And consistency doesn’t come from mastering tools.
It comes from choosing less and staying connected to the story.
On days when the tech feels especially hostile, come back to this Whole Artist rule:
Stay in the story, not the software.
Your readers are not looking for polish.
They’re looking for resonance.
Resonance travels beautifully, even through imperfect tools.
If all you can manage today is a short post, a quiet newsletter, or one honest paragraph written with care, that counts.
Your book doesn’t need you everywhere.
It needs you present.
Belief is the engine.
Everything else is interface.
Try This Week: The Whole Artist Marketing Reset
No overhauls. No funnels. Just a reset you can actually finish.
1. Choose One Home Base
Pick the one place you’ll show up this week.
(Substack, email, Instagram, your website—just one.)
2. Write for 15 Uninterrupted Minutes
No formatting. No links. No optimization.
Answer this question:
Why does this book matter to me right now?
3. Share One Imperfect Thing
Post or send something that feels human, not strategic:
A paragraph you love
A question you’re wrestling with
A moment from the writing life that didn’t go as planned
4. Stop There
Do not “just also” add two more platforms.
Do not spiral into analytics.
Whole Artist rule: finish, then rest.
5. Name the Win
Before you close your laptop, write down one sentence:
“Today, I showed up for my book by __________.”
That’s marketing.
The sustainable kind.
A fiction break
UNHINGED
By Liz Dubelman
The email arrived at 6:42 a.m., right between the first sip of coffee and the first regrettable thought of the day.
Subject: Your account has been removed.
For a moment, Jonah felt the peculiar calm of administrative language. The calm that came from the implicit promise: There is a process. There are steps. This is fixable.
He opened it.
Hello,
Your account has been permanently removed for violating Hinged Community Standards.
This decision is final.
Regards,
Hinged Trust & Safety
That was it. No bullet points. No hyperlink to “Learn More.” No polite fake-sympathy sentence like, We understand this may be disappointing. Just a guillotine in Helvetica.
Jonah stared at the word final the way a person stares at a tooth on a plate.
He clicked the app anyway, out of a stubborn belief in proof. Maybe it was spam. Maybe it was a prank. Maybe he’d accidentally logged into a parallel universe where he was a menace.
The Hinged login screen blinked back like a bouncer at a club who had memorized his face and decided, overnight, that it was offensive.
Your account has been removed.
Jonah’s thumb hovered over the words. Removed. Like a stain. Like an organ.
He wasn’t even doing well on Hinged. His most recent match had ended after he asked what her favorite book was and she said, “I don’t do books, I do vibes,” and Jonah, meaning only to be funny, replied, “Same, I’m illiterate in my soul.”
In retrospect: not his strongest. But surely not a bannable offense.
He went to the help center. He found a button that said Appeal a Decision and clicked it with the delicate optimism of a man tapping a sleeping tiger on the shoulder.
A form appeared.
Please explain why you believe this was an error.
He wrote:
Hi, I believe my account was banned by mistake. I have not violated any community standards. Could you please tell me what the violation was or provide details so I can understand?
He paused, deleted “please” and retyped it. Twice. He attached a screenshot of his profile as if it were an alibi.
Then he pressed Submit.
The screen flashed: Thank you for helping keep Hinged safe.
Jonah blinked. Helping?
He refreshed. The message remained, smug and placeless.
He waited.
At 9:13 a.m., another email came.
Subject: Re: Your account has been removed.
Hello,
After reviewing your appeal, we have confirmed that your account was removed for violating Hinged Community Standards.
This decision is final.
Regards,
Hinged Trust & Safety
Jonah read it once, then again, then a third time with the sort of intensity usually reserved for medical test results.
After reviewing, they had confirmed.
He pictured a team of serious people in a glass office, leaning over his profile like detectives.
“Look,” one said, pointing at a photo of Jonah holding a pumpkin at a fall festival. “He’s clearly dangerous.”
“Agreed,” said another. “And he listed ‘Walking fast’ as a hobby. That’s threatening.”
But the absurdity didn’t make it less real. It made it worse. A person could plead with a person. A person could misunderstand, apologize, clarify.
A system only had one face: correct.
Jonah tried again, this time with evidence. He had always liked evidence. Evidence had edges. Evidence could be stapled.
He wrote:
Hi again. I think there’s a mix-up. My name is Jonah Kline (with an I). There is also a Jonah Klrne (with an R) in my city. I have reason to believe he is the person you intended to ban. Please double-check. I can provide ID.
He attached his driver’s license, feeling simultaneously ridiculous and strangely virtuous, like a child showing a teacher his clean hands.
Submit.
The screen: Thank you for helping keep Hinged safe.
At 11:30 a.m., the reply:
Hello,
Due to privacy considerations, we are unable to provide details regarding enforcement actions.
Our decision is final.
Regards,
Hinged Trust & Safety
Jonah’s coffee had gone cold enough to be mistaken for punishment.
Privacy considerations.
He imagined someone, somewhere, being protected from him.
He stood, paced, sat, stood again. His apartment was suddenly too small for a man who had been officially declared a problem.
He opened his laptop and typed his name into a search bar, as though the internet might confirm he existed properly.
Jonah Kline.
Results: a dentist in Iowa, a high school soccer roster, and a mortgage broker with his exact name and a face like Jonah’s after two bad nights of sleep.
Jonah clicked.
The mortgage broker lived in L.A. like Jonah. The broker’s headshot had the same hairline, the same polite chin, the same expression of someone apologizing for taking up space.
Jonah’s stomach tightened. It felt like watching a stranger wear your skin.
He clicked through. The broker’s bio included a “fun fact”: I’m a huge fan of spicy pranks.
Jonah stared at those words, then at his own reflection in the dark screen.
“I do not prank,” he said out loud to no one. “I don’t even enjoy mild surprises.”
He filed another appeal.
This time, he tried tone.
Hello Hinged Trust & Safety Team, I’m reaching out with sincere concern that I’ve been mistakenly banned. I can’t correct behavior I don’t understand. If you can’t share specifics, can you at least confirm whether this is a case of mistaken identity? I’m happy to verify anything.
He pressed submit.
Thank you for helping keep Hinged safe.
The thank-you began to feel personal.
By the fourth appeal, Jonah had started keeping a document.
At first it was simple: dates, times, copied emails. A log, like one kept by a reasonable person in an unreasonable situation.
Then the log grew.
It became a folder. Inside the folder: screenshots of every message he’d ever sent on Hinged. His profile drafts. His photo history. His location services settings.
He titled the folder:
EVIDENCE I AM NOT THAT MAN
On day three of being banned, Jonah’s sister called.
“How’s dating?” she asked brightly, as if dating were a hobby like pottery.
Jonah hesitated. He had not told anyone. Being banned felt like being accused, and accusations tended to leak into your voice.
“I got kicked off Hinged,” he said.
“Kicked off? Like… you got, what, too charming?”
“It was a mistake.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jonah heard it then. The tiny shift. The gravitational pull of suspicion. The way people leaned toward the simplest narrative: He must have done something.
“I swear,” he said, too quickly. “It’s literally an identity mix-up.”
“Then fix it,” his sister said, already bored.
“That’s the issue. You can’t fix it. There’s no person.”
There was a silence long enough for Jonah to wonder if his sister had hung up, and then she said, “Well, maybe take it as a sign? Like, the universe wants you off apps.”
“It’s not the universe,” Jonah snapped, surprising himself. “It’s a customer support workflow.”
His sister laughed, not unkindly. “Okay, Jonah. Don’t… spiral.”
When the call ended, Jonah sat with the word spiral like it was a diagnosis.
He opened the app store and searched Hinged.
He clicked Get.
The app re-downloaded with cheerful speed. Like it hadn’t just excommunicated him.
He opened it. The login screen appeared. He typed his email. His password. His thumb hovered, then pressed.
Your account has been removed.
Jonah tried a different email.
He made a new one on the spot: jonahkline.real something, because he was not losing on branding now.
He entered his name carefully. He picked new photos. He wrote a new bio:
Good with communication. Bad with injustice.
He pressed Create Account.
The screen flickered, considered him, then presented a new message:
This device is not eligible for Hinged.
Device. Not eligible.
Jonah stared at his phone as if it had betrayed him. He turned it over. He inspected the case. He wanted to peel the eligibility off like a sticker.
He tried on his laptop, through the web version. New email. New bio. Same process.
This device is not eligible for Hinged.
Jonah felt something slip in his chest. A hinge, maybe. A small metal piece that had been holding the door of his composure in place.
He imagined a spreadsheet somewhere with his device ID highlighted in red.
Not Jonah. Not a person. A string of numbers, a little serpent of identity.
He began to notice Hinged everywhere. Ads on the subway. Billboards. Podcasts.
The dating app designed to be deleted, a woman’s voice purred through his headphones one afternoon.
Jonah stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk.
Deleted. Like him.
That night, he had a dream that he was standing in a long hallway of doors. Each door had a small plaque: APPEALS, TRUST, SAFETY, FINAL DECISIONS. He opened one and found another hallway. He opened another and found the same hallway again. The floor was carpeted in the same corporate gray. He could not remember what he had been trying to reach.
When he woke up, he opened the document.
EVIDENCE I AM NOT THAT MAN
He added a new section.
THE OTHER JONAH
He found the mortgage broker’s professional email. He drafted a message, then deleted it. Drafted again.
Hi, this is going to sound strange, but I think you got me banned from a dating app.
He deleted again.
He tried a different approach.
Hi Jonah, I believe we share a name and perhaps a digital footprint. I’ve been mistakenly banned from Hinged and suspect you were the intended account. If you’ve had any issues with Hinged, please let me know.
He stared at it. The email looked like a man asking a stranger if he could borrow his innocence.
He did not send it.
Instead, he went back to Hinged support, because there was something humiliatingly pure about pleading into a void. At least a void could not judge him.
He found a new category in the help center: Report a Safety Concern.
He clicked it and typed, without thinking:
I have a safety concern. You have banned the wrong person.
He hit submit.
The screen responded:
Thank you for helping keep Hinged safe.
Jonah laughed. It came out sharp, then softer, then turned into something that might have been a sob if he’d allowed it.
He realized, in that moment, that he was not asking to be reinstated anymore.
He was asking to be seen.
To be distinguished.
To be one Jonah among the many, not a statistical smear.
And there was no one there to do it.
The next day, a package arrived. Jonah hadn’t ordered anything. He opened it with the suspicion of someone whose life had become a series of incorrect deliveries.
Inside was a T-shirt.
Black. Minimalist. A small logo on the chest: UNHINGED.
Under it, in tiny text: Designed to be deleted.
Jonah read the return label. It was from a merch company he didn’t recognize.
At first he thought it was a mistake.
Then he saw, folded beneath the shirt, a little note printed on glossy paper.
Hi Jonah,
We noticed you’ve been very engaged with Hinged Trust & Safety.
We thought you might like this.
Stay safe,
The Hinged Team
Jonah sat down on the floor, package debris around him like the aftermath of a small explosion.
“Engaged,” he whispered.
That was the word they used for him now.
Not single. Not looking. Not human.
Engaged with Trust & Safety.
He looked at the shirt again.
He imagined himself wearing it on the street, walking past strangers, letting the word broadcast itself like an accusation or a warning or a punchline.
UNHINGED.
He stood, carried the shirt to the bathroom, and held it up to the mirror. The black fabric swallowed light. The logo sat where a heart would be.
His phone buzzed.
Another email.
Subject: Re: Your account has been removed.
Jonah opened it, already knowing.
Hello,
After further review, we can confirm that your account was removed in error. We apologize for any inconvenience.
You may now create a new account.
Regards,
Hinged Trust & Safety
Jonah stared at the words removed in error until they stopped looking like English.
Inconvenience.
As if his life had been delayed by traffic.
He waited for the relief. He waited for vindication. He waited for the sweet click of reality snapping back into place.
Nothing arrived.
Instead, he felt a strange emptiness, like someone had returned a stolen item but kept the box it came in.
He turned off his phone.
He folded the shirt neatly and placed it in the trash. Then, after a moment, he took it out again and folded it even more neatly and placed it on the top shelf of his closet, where it could sit like a relic or a warning.
He opened his laptop. He opened a new document.
At the top, he typed a title:
UNHINGED
Below it, he wrote:
The day they banned me, I thought the worst thing was being misunderstood.
He paused.
He listened to the quiet of his apartment, the hum of the refrigerator, the distant city.
Then he continued.
I was wrong. The worst thing was that no one had to misunderstand me at all.
And as the sentence appeared, clean and undeniable, Jonah felt the smallest hinge inside him tighten again, not closing, not opening, just holding, for now, in the only place that still recognized him: the page.
My recent book has the sun masquerading as a lighthouse. No one has read it.
OMG! It needs a lighthouse. This piece is very validating for my method of working as I have struggled with wanting to do more than I could for decades. Focusing on what you can do today and not what you couldn't. That's major! Being content with small wins everyday is the key to my sanity.