Writer Beware Blog

[APP]

For those of you that peruse the Writer Beware Blog, Victoria Strauss had posted that she's leaving Twitter. Hence, I've just followed her on Bluesky.

Here's what she said:

When Twitter changed hands last year and morphed into X, I was one of the people who swore I’d hang on until the whole thing went down in flames. But after struggling with the ongoing devolution of the platform over the past year, including a precipitous decline in engagement for my tweets after I was de-blue-checkified, I’m joining the exodus.

As of January 1, I’m mostly off X. I’ll still be tweeting WB blog posts, in order to keep my account active and protect my username (if you read down to the last entry in this post, you’ll see why I’m concerned about misuse), but I will no longer offer publishing news, opinions, scam alerts, or warnings.

Instead, I’ll be transferring my WB activity (plus the occasional cat or garden photo) to Bluesky (@victoriastrauss.bsky.social) and Threads (@victoriastrauss), where I’ve been getting comfortable over the past few months. Please join me on either or both! (I have some Bluesky codes, if anyone wants one: email me, first come, first served.)

[Bill Hiatt]

Twitter was in trouble to begin with, and the new regime hasn't improved the situation.

I stopped tweeting (or is it Xing now?) when one of my tweets got rejected for no obvious reason--except that it was critical of Tesla.

I did read an article suggesting that Musk might be correct in charging people something, if only to reduce the utility of fake accounts. But it's hard to make that transition without losing real people. More important, charging for the verification checkmark is a bad way to do that. Knowing that it's essentially for sale makes it harder to trust its accuracy.     

[Post-Doctorate D]

More important, charging for the verification checkmark is a bad way to do that. Knowing that it's essentially for sale makes it harder to trust its accuracy.   

It wasn't trustworthy before.

Originally, it was an actual verification system.  Unfortunately, it wasn't available to everyone but only famous people and such, which was problematic to begin with.  And then it eventually became more status symbol than an actual mark of verification.  If people tweeted something that TPTB didn't like, they could lose their blue checkmark.  That was positively stupid.  If it is a verification that Joe Famous is Joe Famous, but then the mark is taken away if Joe Famous tweets something TPTB don't like, are they saying Joe Famous isn't Joe Famous anymore?  It just didn't make sense IF the checkmark was supposed to be verification that, yes, this Twitter account belongs to Joe Famous.  So, it just became a status symbol which made it absolutely worthless for verification.

And, now, under Musk, it basically just means you paid for it which makes it essentially useless still.

So, under old or new management, the blue checkmark was/is useless.

[Jeff Tanyard]

More important, charging for the verification checkmark is a bad way to do that. Knowing that it's essentially for sale makes it harder to trust its accuracy.   

It wasn't trustworthy before.

Originally, it was an actual verification system.  Unfortunately, it wasn't available to everyone but only famous people and such, which was problematic to begin with.  And then it eventually became more status symbol than an actual mark of verification.  If people tweeted something that TPTB didn't like, they could lose their blue checkmark.  That was positively stupid.  If it is a verification that Joe Famous is Joe Famous, but then the mark is taken away if Joe Famous tweets something TPTB don't like, are they saying Joe Famous isn't Joe Famous anymore?  It just didn't make sense IF the checkmark was supposed to be verification that, yes, this Twitter account belongs to Joe Famous.  So, it just became a status symbol which made it absolutely worthless for verification.

And, now, under Musk, it basically just means you paid for it which makes it essentially useless still.

So, under old or new management, the blue checkmark was/is useless.

Don't forget the bribery issue.

The Atlantic was publishing articles about it as early as 2012, so it was a well-entrenched practice by the time Elon took over.

Reddit thread about it, and one of the commentators links to this video about a Twitter employee selling admin-level access.   

On a somewhat related note, I was watching some stuff on YouTube just a few minutes ago and noticed that the videos and even the site itself were extremely laggy.  I thought maybe my computer was downloading an update or something, so I opened Task Manager to see what was up.  Nothing doing, though.  Just Firefox.

I then googled to see if YouTube was slow for anyone else, and it looks like the site is intentionally slowing everything down for those who use AdBlock.  Lots of people are upset with YouTube over this tactic.  I mentioned back when Elon first bought Twitter that his intention to monetize video for content creators would be a potential game-changer for both Twitter and YouTube.  I still think that could happen.  If YouTube continues to alienate everyone, and if Twitter (I still hate calling it X, because I think that name change was just ridiculous) can take advantage, then we might see a big sea change in the video marketplace.  And I would welcome that change, because some real competition in the video-hosting industry has been sorely needed.

[LilyBLily]

Thanks for the explanation. My ISP is so lousy I assumed it was the cause.

There's a lot of important archived music on YouTube from days long gone by and I'd hate to see it vanish--although from time to time some of it does vanish.

I use a couple of ad blockers. So I wait a few seconds. No big deal.

[writeway]

I forget about X or whatever the hell it is now. Probably have been there 3 times in months. I never did go there a lot but even less now. Supposedly Musk is going to start charging $1 or something to tweet. I admit I lurk on Absolute Write sometimes and the people pursuing trade have been freaking out about all the agents who've left because they used to do that tweet thing where you could tweet to agents and get them to look at your manuscript. A lot of book people have left X. I mostly go to Reddit these days. I pop into a few groups on FB from time to time but I like Reddit better. I've joined a few sites on Discourse but it just confuses me and is the ugliest interface I've ever seen.

[She-la-te-da]

I lurk on AW as well. I had an account there once, but they were being super sh*tty about self publishing, posting all kinds of incorrect information and basically calling people doing it stupid. I'm on some of the Reddit writing groups, mostly r/selfpublish.

As to moving off the twit's site, I don't follow anything there, don't do Threads or whatever. I see no good point to wasting my time there. I'm trying to break myself of even checking out most writing things, because I get so frustrated with the flood of noob questions that a quick web search can answer (or Dog help us, reading the KDP Help link). I end up not writing, because I get kind of down about it, because why do I think I can sell books? Argh.

[Bill Hiatt]

I think we all have times when we get down. If you aren't in a bad financial situation, but you like to write, just write for yourself and see what happens. If you're not writing, then the not-selling part becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm a prawn, so I see each sale as a win. Will I ever be more? Maybe not, but I don't regret producing any of the books I've written.

[Matthew]

I'm trying to break myself of even checking out most writing things, because I get so frustrated with the flood of noob questions that a quick web search can answer (or Dog help us, reading the KDP Help link).

Don't forget: reading a book! (Shocking the number of questions I've seen like: "How do I format dialog?") I'm mostly the same. Well I check here a lot still, but not much else. The only other form of social media I'm really involved with now is a private group that's more focused on accountability.

I know this topic has been brought up elsewhere, but this is also a good example of why owning your own website can be important.

[Bill Hiatt]

If you can get traffic to your own website, yes. It's the only place you can present your own pitch in your own way.

[PJ Post]

If you can get traffic to your own website, yes. It's the only place you can present your own pitch in your own way.

Sorry to contradict you, but the internet is full of attention channels that can be used to reach potential fans, like tons and tons - however you want to pitch them.

Having an author site projects credibility, but that's about it. At least initially. Down the road, I still agree on exploring the retail potential.

[TimothyEllis]

Sorry to contradict you, but the internet is full of attention channels that can be used to reach potential fans, like tons and tons - however you want to pitch them.

All of them have rules.

The ones which are any good have self-promotion rules or outright ban it.

Most author posts about their own books are seen as spam.

[Bill Hiatt]

Sorry to contradict you, but the internet is full of attention channels that can be used to reach potential fans, like tons and tons - however you want to pitch them.

Having an author site projects credibility, but that's about it. At least initially. Down the road, I still agree on exploring the retail potential.

You often contradict me, but that's part of what makes a good conversation. Opposing views must clash on the way to greater understanding.

If you're talking about social media, as Timothy says, sites have their own rules and make content more or less visible based on their own imperatives. That doesn't mean they're worthless, but they are constraining (and increasingly mired in privacy concerns and other issues). If you can get someone to your website (big if), you control the focus and make visible exactly what you want.

[Lorri Moulton]

We send everyone to our website.  They can see our books first, then go to retailers if they choose.  Or they can go to our store.  Or they can simply browse around and see if anything else appeals to them.

Since our brand is a bookshop, it wouldn't be very 'on brand' to send them directly to retailers at the back of the book.  Maybe more profitable in the short run, but we're more focused on a long term strategy.

[PJ Post]

If you can get someone to your website (big if), you control the focus and make visible exactly what you want.

My point is that it's not the only place to do it.

For example, Public Relations, which is the parent of social media, is an entire industry devoted to having other people and companies pitch for you - and to do it exactly how you want it done. And for the record, having other people pitch for you always has better results - always. Think of Oprah's Book Club.¹


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¹There are tons of little folks just like Oprah out there, smaller scale, but they can still help us get rich. Instead of getting just one of them to promote us, we get hundreds. We have to think outside the box.