Erin KissaneApr 6, 2023
It’s great to see mastodon showing up meaningfully for things like the Texas Observer, but it seems—from my subjective POV—super uneven. Making a really strong case for the best parts of, for example, bookworld/literary twitter to put down stronger roots here is going to take active support and community-building, especially when most journalists are still not active here (and are frequently reviled for being journalists at all).
Show threadErin KissaneApr 6, 2023

Right now, a lot of fedi advocates are asking authors and artists to leave the social media sites that have allowed them to get by, but without doing much/anything to support those newcomers once they arrive here—even leaving aside the old-guard pushback against “self promotion.”

And idk, “staying on twitter for your work makes you the object of my disgust,” is maybe not the persuasive tool a lot of people here seem to believe it is. 🤷🏻

Show threadErin KissaneApr 6, 2023
Please definitely post here with your favorite counterexamples and thriving zones, I want to be wrong in my cranky feelings!
Show threadCoolBlenderKittenApr 8, 2023
@kissane
Actually two things: I feel @Curator does a great job with giving people space for self promoting, telling them to boost themselves and all that. It's a lovely and thriving community here.
The second thing is: on Twitter, people did not just start out there and immediately made their living - it took time to build up a stable community and so on. It's the same way here.
Many people say, engagement here is much better than on Twitter, I feel so, too.
Oh, and a third thing 😋
Show threadMastodon•ART 🎨 Curator

@CoolBlenderKitten @kissane <3

Yeah, I'm often reminding new users on .art to put their shop links in their bios and/or in a pinned toot at the top of their feed, and to share their shop links liberally. People come to fedi because they're tired of corporate-owned social media and capitalism, they're eager to support independent creators. There are also hashtags made especially for using when you're posting work for sale so that other people can browse those tags for things to buy.

Apr 8, 2023 at 8:01amWeb
Show threadMastodon•ART 🎨 CuratorApr 8, 2023
@CoolBlenderKitten @kissane If anyone's telling you (or if you see in general) that promoting yourself isn't encouraged on fedi and it's counter-fedi-culture to do that, they're the ones in the wrong. I've been here since 2016 and it has always been hugely supportive of independent creators. I've made more sales through masto than I ever did through 3k Twitter followers, 5k Facebook and 20k Insta, even when I only had a few hundred followers on masto.