The Twitter Thing, Part 3

Well, it happened. Musk bought Twitter and showed up with his usual horrible smirk, carrying a kitchen sink. Then he proceeded to fire most of the staff and introduced the idea of a subscription fee. Any posts that criticize or mock Musk seem to mysteriously vanish. People’s heads are exploding and they’re all talking about leaving for other social media.

The problem is, for writers and other creative people, there really isn’t a substitute for Twitter. It’s like Amazon. You can try to sell your books in other places, but Amazon still dominates the marketplace. Twitter is a one-stop show for industry news, calls for submissions, news about great books, and conversations with fellow authors. I’ve consistently picked up opportunities there. I frequently mention my books there.

Twitter also allows an unlimited intersection of interests. Right now my feed is a mix of publishing and writers with politics, Dragon Age fandom, environmental affairs, and cute animal pictures. So far, the alternatives I’ve seen would require me to join a different server or e-mail list for each one of my interests. It really sounds like too much work.

So what’s an independent author to do? My response has been as varied as my interests. In the past, my Twitter was separated from my Facebook. Twitter has been part of my writing and Facebook is more personal to friends and family. Since the takeover, I’ve been posting more material to both platforms. I’m considering other social media, too, although nothing has really caught my interest as yet.

I’ve been satisfying my vengeful side by rejecting a lot more ads on Twitter. I know, the company has to pay their employees (such as remain) and ads are how they do that. I’m just being more strict about the ads I’ll tolerate looking at. Promoted tweets and ads that are meant to look like comments in a thread have got to go. I’ve also gone through my followers and blocked a lot of lingerie models. If someone comes along to analyze my brand based on who I follow and who follows me, I want them to see the ACLU and a bunch of fellow writers, not would-be porn stars. Not that I judge how the models try to support themselves, but adult services are not for me.

And, yes, I blocked Musk himself after he tweeted a conspiracy theory about the vicious beating of an elderly man. Political violence is on my auto-block list.

I’m also asserting myself in terms of the algorithm that controls what tweets I see. I’m systematically watching for people whose tweets I enjoy and making sure to follow them. Then, I go to their profiles and click the bell icon so I’ll get notifications when they post. If my main feed becomes too chaotic, I can find the people I really want to see by going to my notifications.

As for Musk’s plan to institute a subscription fee, I’m actually not so upset about that. I mean, I pay a monthly fee to Pandora so I can listen to their music. My husband pays for Netflix and Disney + each month. A Twitter fee wouldn’t be that different. So I’m on the fence about that. I want to see how bad the service gets before I commit.

What about some of you? I’d love to hear if you’ve changed social media. Where did you go, and how easy or hard has it been?

Have you read one of my books? Then it would be great for you to leave a review! Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about me and my work, check out my website, Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter.

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