Meta Punishing Small-Time Creators

As if it wasn't red-taped enough out here!

If you're new to self-marketing and social media marketing as a combo, allow me to inform you of what Meta has implemented as of the first of October 2026 (or at least that's when it yanked the rug out from under me). Meta now has a 2-link limit on all your posts per month unless you upgrade to their silly Meta One for like $15 a month or something.

Some sources speculate that you can't even post as many links as you need with the upgrade, but regardless, this has left a lot of us small-time creators with the short end of the stick.

"There are workarounds!" non-marketing folks will say. "You can use this DM-link technique, or you can use the Shop link technique, or you can blah, blah, blah." I'm sure you can, and if you're fine with that, then that's fine. But as a marketing professional (how I actually have made my living in the real world until I took a break to write), I know what a shot in the foot this is. If you turn a 1-click CTA (call to action, for you non-marketing folks) into a 3-click CTA, you're going to have a massive bounce rate (drop-off rate, "never minds", etc.). For small-time creators (like self-published indie authors), we can't afford that penalty. Nor can we afford to pay $15 a month for what is the right of every personal profile on every social media channel in existence. 

Here's a video I made about it.

In an already highly competitive market where we're already burnt out from hundreds of rejections from querying where we tried to play their game, we turn away in refusal to play their game—only to be restricted further by the only avenues we have available to do this ourselves. And I don't know about you, but I'm getting really tired of the pay-to-play theme of life. Indie authors of fantasy (excluding romance and erotica) have 3 options: 

1. Query and get insanely lucky for someone to actually read your email before sending it straight to the trash
2. Self-market and get insanely lucky that someone who has a loud enough voice happens to see your content and care
3. Go into debt paying for the right to be noticed with proven-great writing and storytelling and hang out in the red for the rest of your life

With the ever-rare unicorn of a 4th option where you actually make a profit as a result of self-marketing.

This is my second time around the self-marketing game. Because I also despise the algorithm and how it is clearly connived by the same people to quash content that doesn't have the right sponsor. And now this!

It's a REALLY good thing that I don't write for other people. I'd have given up completely well before now. I write because my heart would stop beating if I quit. I write because my characters are the best part of me and their world is the escape I use to get by. But I won't lie and say that it's not disheartening to know that they'll all remain the easiest-kept secret because I never rolled a nat 20 with a +15 modifier—and Meta is just perpetuating this by penny-pinching the wrong users.

What are your thoughts? Use the social links in my footer to send me messages.