I realize that we all dislike the new Twitter owner who says stupid things, but I think need to spell this out a bit more for folks as the Uncanny Magazine publisher: the death of Twitter would decimate the science fiction and fantasy short story ecosystem.
Twitter is by far the most important tool all of us have to reach the readers of our online magazines. This is where folks discover the online stories. This is also where folks discover the ways to financially support the magazines (Patreon, Subscriptions, Crowdfunding).
None of the Twitter alternatives have anywhere near the reach to the readers that Twitter has, and they are unlikely to suddenly build to that level. This is a very thin-margin industry. If there is a mass exodus of the SF/F community, I guarantee multiple to mags will close.
One last thing! None of us chose Twitter as the short fiction ecosystem center anymore than book publishers wanted Amazon to be the ecosystem for book sales. This is where the readers who will pay money can be reached. Trust us, we have tried all of the other ways to reach folks.
If you want to see why I think @UncannyMagazine and online magazines are important, I think that the Uncanny issue that dropped on Tuesday really demonstrates why SF/F magazines are vital to our community. uncannymagazine.com
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Because the authors/social media thing is going around, I’m in complete agreement that book authors don’t need social media. This is very different for online short stories, though. There is a definite correlation between number of readers & an author’s social media presence.
This also then has a strong correlation to award nominations that are determined greatly by the online fandom community. This has been the case for at least a decade.
I think a lot about two specific authors we’ve published. Author X & Y were in the same workshop class, premiered around the same time, and each has won an award. Author X has no social media accounts, & their award was a juried award that was also their only nomination.
So @lynnemthomas and I have fallen down this rabbit hole of amazing Pre-Code Hollywood films that are wonderfully naughty, often quite feminist, extremely popular at the time, and basically unseen from 1935 until this century. Why were they unseen?
Because right-wing groups, mostly Catholic and antisemitic, pressured government bodies to censor Hollywood, as they felt these films were destroying the morals of Depression-era America. (The groups often dog whistled that this was part of a plot by Jewish Hollywood execs.)
Some of these groups even told Catholics that going to particular movies was a mortal sin. Hollywood was eventually forced to respond by enforcing their own Hays Code— a ludicrous list of things movies can’t show. This list was problematic to say the least.