Twitter suppressing writers like me

<screaming into my pillow>

There appears to be some chicanery going on over on Twitter that could be a huge problem for aspiring writers like me.

I launched this Substack on November 1st. Every time I have posted here since then, the post has gone out to you incredibly kind Substack subscribers directly in an email and has been available on my feed here.

In parallel, I have posted a link on my various social media feeds. Post.news, Instagram, Twitter, Mastodon…

As a result, much to my delight, virtually every post led to at least some new subscribers. Mostly free. Some paid. I have been thankful beyond words for each. The paid support has been particularly crucial. It literally pays my bills. I’m all in on trying to be a writer. Whatever income this generates is my only income.

That’s a bit terrifying.

However, in the early going, my little system seemed to be working at least well enough to keep me from lying in bed at night slightly panicked about whether I can really do this. I am still a long way from this being sustainable but I was making at least some progress from post to post.

As Elon’s grip on Twitter has tightened though, I’ve noticed a deterioration that began as just a general reduction in activity around my tweets and has now become a four-alarm problem.

Last night, after I posted my entry on The Pitch here Substack, I posted a link to it on Twitter and Instagram.

In the 16 hours since, it received a tiny, tiny number of views. The result was so striking, I wondered if it had somehow fallen into a crack in the system that kept it from actually hitting timelines.

So, I did a little test and posted a message a little while ago talking about the post but excluding the link to Substack.

It has been seen more in the last 40 minutes than my prior post has been seen TOTAL… in almost a day.

Fuck.

This is a huge problem.

The gritty reality of trying to make a go of this is that very kind people - you all - subscribe to my feed here… but like all subscriptions, some drop off. So, I am challenged to find new subscribers just to not go backwards… and then find more to try to eke out a living that doesn’t leave me having dry heaves worrying about the future.

Twitter suppressing my ability to do that is a crisis.

A month ago, I was awash in a glow of cautious optimism. I was even starting to have crazy fantasies of doing wild things like actually getting my early cataracts fixed. Now, I have an increasing anxiousness over what appears to be a worsening and potentially fatal issue.

For the last couple days, I have been thinking about whether I should very begrudgingly surrender to Musk’s extortion and pay to be verified. I loathe that idea. Fuck him. Fuck that.

However, since I am just being honest here in this stream-of-consciousness upchuck of my personal angst, I am starting to wrestle with the very uncomfortable issue of whether I am doing myself material harm to the point of failing at this over not wanting to pay an $8 a month ransom.

For now, I just can’t do it. Instead, I am going to try to figure out some alternate set of work-arounds to get in front of people. I don’t know what those are though… but I know they will all likely be labor-intensive, time-consuming, expensive, and less effective than just being able to reach the people who actually follow me on Twitter.

That is 50 shades of shitty.

There is no point to this entry other than just allowing me to vomit up something that has become an acute problem resulting in mounting stress.

I’m sorry for burdening y’all with that.

If nothing else, you’re truly riding along with me on this little journey throughout both its highs and lows; joys and terrors.

At the moment, there are more of the latter than the former.

Boy, that sucks.

Who knows, maybe there is some solution to be found that will have me back to worrying only about writing things I am proud of rather than whether they will die on the vine.

Tomorrow, I’ll be a problem-solver. I’ll shunt aside the fear and get to work on just another problem that is certainly not my first and won’t be my last.

For today though, I’m just a worrier with a revving hypervigilance about things I can’t control but can be harmed by.

And I am just so damned tired of that.