social media – Andrew Careaga

Kayla Hicks is a multi-genre indie author who is a prominent voice in the X/Twitter writing community. I appreciate how she uses the platform to encourage discussion about the writing business and share her own insights. I recently enrolled in her free, three-day email course for writers interested in using social media to build their audiences, and found great information in each lesson. I hope she offers it again!

Photo of Kayla Hicks, indie author — Kayla Hicks

Kayla is the author of 14 multi-genre novels covering the young adult, superhero fiction, and children’s categories. Her first, a YA dystopian novel titled Kale Stone: An Outliers Tale , was published in 2017, and her latest, The Day the Gnomes Moved In, came out a few months ago. So in addition to her activity on social media, she is a prolific writer as well. Kayla generously agreed to share more of her thoughts on writing in this week’s Friday Five.

One of the more prolific indie writers I’ve discovered on social media is K.T. Carlisle, the pseudonym for a writer who has two murder mysteries to her credit (Reasonable and Forget-Me-Not) and two more in progress (Unhinged, which will be out this November, and I Know What I Saw, which comes out next January). The first three books are part of a series she calls, “What Happened to Mia Davis?” The fourth book is a young adult paranormal thriller.

*Reasonable*, published in 2023, was K.T. Carlisle’s first novel

K.T. also is active on X (Twitter), where she harnesses the power of that social media platform to promote her work, grow her audience, and connect with other writers.

Despite (or perhaps because of) her experience working in a literary agency, K.T. decided to self-publish her novels. In addition to writing murder mysteries, she offers copywriting, website development, and social media management services through a niche marketing agency she founded in 2018. Somehow, while juggling all these activities, she found time to share insights about her writing, her influences, and her use of social media as a marketing tool.