Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Social Media is both a boon and a curse to new writers. Online writing groups and forums are an excellent source of insider information on the publishing industry—stuff we once could only find at expensive classes and writers’ conferences.

But social media is also a major source of misinformation and dangerously bad advice.

I belong to a lot of Facebook writers’ groups where I see newbies ask questions that get a bunch of conflicting responses. Sometimes when I see misinformation, I jump in to correct it, but often I can tell that resistance is futile. There’s such a wealth of bad advice that I don’t know where to begin.

I know some people can only learn that fire is hot by getting burned. Nothing a more experienced person says will change their minds.

But if you don’t feel the need to jump in the fire, here’s some popular bad advice you…