Is Tweeting a Must for Authors?

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Dear Elle…

Instagram and Facebook are great for spreading awareness of your books and yourself. If you’re using them effectively—engaging others, cheering their news while sharing your own, spending quality time there rather than just bull-horning your books—you’re already doing your promo efforts a solid. You’ll increase your discoverability by doing the same on Twitter, so if you can add it without up-ending your promo/writing/life balance, do so. Are you unpublished? If so, know this: Writers do land agents via Twitter events (#PitMad; #PitchWars). Yes, really! Bonus: Twitter etiquette says we can tweet more frequently than we can post on Facebook. As with all promo efforts, strategize first. What do you want from Twitter? What kind of tweets will you post and retweet to achieve that? What can you do besides be a tweeting billboard for yourself (which people hate)? When will you log in and engage others? “Social” media is about relationships, after all. My trick: I’ve set a phone reminder that blasts the word “Amplify!” at me three times a week to remind me to take a moment to tweet someone else’s good news or books on DearEditor.com’s Twitter and Facebook. It’s my goal with DearEditor.com to support writers by sharing info and by amplifying their voices … and it just makes me feel good. That’s the final item: What’ll make it fun for you? If it’s a chore, you won’t stick with it.

Happy writing!
The Editor

11 Comments

    • Great information. I signed up for Twitter, but never figured out how to use it–I will now. On Facebook, when I see someone with a newly published book, I always share their good news. I believe it gives hope to those who haven’t been published, and keeps them trying.

  1. “As with all promo efforts, strategize first.” Great advice and will save time, too. Also, I love that you remind yourself to “Amplify!” Great suggestions.

    • Glad the reminder idea resonates with you. With so much swirling in our lives, it’s easy to get tunnel vision—even blocking things that are very important to you. Reminders work as good Pause and Reset buttons for me.

  2. So how do people know about your books if you don’t post about them? What’s the fine line between informing and promotion? If the author of the book doesn’t say anything, who will?

    • Definitely promote your books — this just has you mixing it in so it’s not ALL about you. People get put off by the latter on social media. Socia media is seen as a place for engagement first, promotion second.

    • Go to some of your favorite authors’ feeds and scroll down to see how they’re doing it. AAfter you’ve looked at a few with this in mind, you’ll have some sense about the kind of balance you’d like to strike. Ask yourself which ones make you want to follow them, which means you’ll see their future posts about their future books. That would be a successful balance, and my mind.

  3. Thanks for all of the great info you give to us all!!! Marketing yourself and your intellectual property, ie: books, art, photography, etc, takes so much time. Knowing which social media will be the most effective platform is challenging and as you stated, can actually backfire if not used correctly.
    Thank you again for all you do!

    • Yes, it takes time … and there’s so much guesswork at the beginning, when you’re deciding what path to take. I know it can be overwhelming. I hope this is helpful to writers’ decision-making process. Thank you for your kind words!

  4. I believe if your writing is of such a caliber, agents will hunt you down, lasso you and do their best to leave a brand. And I have found social media a lot of fun, a way to share what you do, and an awareness of your ability to write, but I have also found it to be full of bitter, sad individuals who are proud of their constitution.. I have backed away. I am in a course that demands social media, so I will probably have to go back, but I am not looking forward to it.

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