Annalee Newitz 🍜Dec 10, 2022
Internet evolution:
Usenet: find your people! there are a few dozen of them on rec.arts.funny!
Listservs: find your people! there are 100 of them on this obscure list devoted to Marxist cultural criticism!
Blogs: find your people! each time one of them visits your site, your counter will increment! look! it has reached four digits!
Social media: find your people! there are several million strangers who are calling you names!
Post-social media: find your people! there are several dozen of them!
Show threadDan HonDec 10, 2022
@annaleen who needs more than a dunbar's worth of their people anyway
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐
@danhon @annaleen Anyone with anything to sell, for a start.
Dec 10, 2022 at 1:06amWeb
Show threadAnnalee Newitz 🍜Dec 10, 2022
@fraying @danhon it's true. the loss of social media is very tough for me as an author. Twitter was a reliable way to get the word out about new books. TikTok is nice, but unless you go viral it's unhelpful. And even if you DO go viral, it may not help get the word out to people who care about nerdy scifi books. :)
Show threadDan SinkerDec 10, 2022
@annaleen @fraying @danhon I feel this so hard.
Show threadDan HonDec 10, 2022

@annaleen @fraying My suspicion is that Twitter made it easier to grow/find an audience *fast* (or, rather, faster than any of the previous methods).

And given that the pace of life isn't exactly slowing down...

Then again I keep coming back to the whole "maybe going this fast wasn't a good idea, and we're not ready for it yet as a species..."

Show threadShannon ClarkDec 10, 2022

@annaleen @fraying @danhon two anecdotes while my Twitter followers fluctuated between 2500–3500 for basically my entire 15 years on the site, and my followers here are much smaller the most engagement I’ve ever had with a social media post has been here (over 1000 favorites, boosts and replies)

And sharing a link here about a sale Orbit Books is having on their debut authors for 2022 led to a lot of engagement and very likely sales

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 10, 2022
@Rycaut @annaleen @danhon a hopeful story! Thank you!
Show threadHella (old account)Dec 10, 2022

@Rycaut @annaleen @fraying @danhon

#SellingBooks might work here, too. At least it works from my #BuyingBooks perspective.

I've already found 2 #author's I haven't heard of before (who write books I am interested in). And already bought 3 books by one of this authors.

(Haven't written a #Bookwyrm post, yet)

Please use #hashtags, include #links to the bookpage (and you favourite indie ebook shop), #blurbs

Show threadmathewDec 10, 2022
@danhon @annaleen @Rycaut @fraying Same here. Fewer followers, an order of magnitude more actual engagement.
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 10, 2022
@annaleen @danhon yeah, as someone with a product to sell, it’s been a rough transition.
Show threadDoc Edward Morbius ⭕​Dec 10, 2022

@annaleen The history of book marketing (and financing and production) is its own fascinating little story.

Many of the popular magazines of the ~1880s -- 1950s were effectively book catalogues / showrooms, many offered by publishers themselves.

With the rise of radio and television, magazines became market-segmentation tools for identifying market segments (news, business/management, various hobbies and later fandoms, homemakers / families, etc.), roughly 1960s -- 1990s.

The rise of the Internet killed both models pretty effectively.

Hamilton Holt's "Commercialism and Journalism" (1909) is a fave of mine, covering part of this story (mostly news journalism, dailies, weeklies, and monthlies): https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft

@fraying @danhon

Commercialism and journalism : Holt, Hamilton, 1872-1951 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Internet Archive
Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 10, 2022
@dredmorbius @annaleen @danhon I love this - thank you. We think of community as somehow separate from commerce, but that's ahistorical and idealistic. The two have always been intertwined.
Show threadDoc Edward Morbius ⭕​Dec 11, 2022

@fraying And there's nothing authors talk about so much amongst themselves as the writing bizness itself.

There's a collection of letters I'm vaguely aware of involving Leo Tolstoy talking of Charles Dickens's apparently novel practice of serialising his novels in magazines. That's part of the financing / production bit I was alluding to above, though I left it out of that toot.

(I'm not sure where this appears, though if it rings a bell with anyone I'd hugely appreciate a pointer.)

And of course the Golden Age of the American Short Story existed mostly to sell cigarettes and booze. Which were also consumed by the authors themselves, as an early instance of the circular economy ....

@annaleen @danhon

#LeoTolstoy #CharlesDickens #writing #authors #serialisatiion

Show threadJeri DanskyDec 11, 2022

@fraying @annaleen Community & commerce have long been intertwined in my mind: both physical & online communities.

I bought Annalee's Four Lost Cities after she came to Quarantine Book Club; that's one community. I've recommended Milk Barn products because you're part of my online community & I trust you.

Now Mastodon is becoming one of my communities, too. And while I don't buy much, I've already made 3 purchases from folks here.

I hope Mastodon can evolve to support all sorts of creators.

Show threadDan HonDec 10, 2022
@fraying @annaleen ok, and "find your people" is different from "find your customers"
Show threadAmy HoyDec 10, 2022

@annaleen @fraying @danhon as someone who teaches people to find their customers, i endorse this message.

not the same at all.

Show threadDerek Powazek 🐐Dec 10, 2022
@danhon @annaleen not as different as you might think when you’re selling Patreon subscriptions or small farm support.
Show threadAnnalee Newitz 🍜Dec 10, 2022
@danhon @fraying absolutely. there is overlap, but it's not the same.