Twitter writers | Guy Portman's Blog

Twitter Authors (Part 2)

Apr 19 2013

In last week’s Blog Post I evaluated how effective it is in a congested market place for authors to be sending out blanket promotional book Tweets, especially if those Tweets are only being read, if at all, by other authors. Today’s post, a continuation on this theme, will take the form of making generalisations about the actual composition of these Tweets and commenting on their effectiveness.

The following is a simple breakdown of some of the types of Tweets that authors use to promote their book/s, along with some commentary on how effective I perceive the given method to be.

Hyperactive Hash-tagging # – I discuss authors’ embrace of the # so often in my blog posts that it is evident that I am becoming somewhat obsessed by the subject. Authors often utilise this useful Twitter feature so that people searching under that #-tagged term will come across their book. In most instances one or two #’s are inserted, but there have been instances of up to nine recorded in a single Tweet.

Comment – The # symbol is an invaluable feature when used wisely, but surely I am not alone when I ask myself if there is any value in instances like #Book or #Fiction. Do potential readers really search under this term, see your book and then go ‘Yes please’ before pressing the buy button. Surely not. And then there’s the list, e.g. #paranormal #erotica #vampires #darkness #night #mystical etc etc. One might argue that a Tweet gives an author a short window of opportunity to showcase their writing and that a long list of # tagged items is hardly an imaginative or intriguing use of syntax.

Grandiose Claim – This is when authors Tweet statements like, ‘Award Winning’ and ‘BEST SELLER!’. In many instances the author embraces capitalisation and exclamation marks in these Tweets.

Comment: Why not. After all no-one else is going to sing your praises and in many instances these Tweets seem perfectly valid. Take the self-published Only The Innocent by Rachel Abbott for example. The book was selling several thousand copies a day for months on end. However there is nothing in this world if not by comparison and it is evident that the same applies in the Twitter sphere. For examples abound when the BEST SELLER! label on closer inspection transpires to be merely a best-seller in a very small category on Amazon. Does a book ranked number 4 out of a total of 5 books in the Transgendered Retro Vampire category really justify a best-seller claim?

Aggressive Pitches – e.g. BEST BOOK SINCE THE BIBLE – BUY NOW!!! (link) or less imaginatively – GET YOUR COPY NOW! or something of that nature. This method is also often combined with the ‘Grandiose Claim’ method (see above).

Comment: The best adverts on the television are well thought out, directed at the right audience and above all memorable. However even these adverts don’t always persuade us to buy the product. So what are the chances of an unknown author successfully selling books by demanding potential readers to buy with no pitch whatsoever. Not great one would imagine.

Dialogue – This is what Twitter was set up for after all, as a way to converse with our fellow humanity without even having to move from the comfort of our desk or to get out of our pyjamas.

Comment: Personally, with the exception of a couple of instances I have only sold books on Twitter through the ‘Dialogue’ method. As it is only when people get to know the author that they become interested enough to buy the author’s book/s. It seems apparent from liaising with other authors who have successfully used Social Media that this is generally how they have also sold books through this medium, unless of course they were already famous to begin with.

What happens when Adrian, an actuary, has his banal and predictable existence turned upside down by sinister forces that he can neither understand nor control? How will he react to a revelation that leaves his life in turmoil? Will he surrender or strive for redemption in an altered world, where rationality, scientific logic and algorithms no longer provide the answers?

‘An insightful and humorous tale of the unexpected’ – Reader

‘A sardonic delight. If Thackeray had lived in the 21st century, then he might have written Charles Middleworth.’ – Reader

Charles Middleworth is available through most regional Amazons on Kindle (£1.96/$3.17) and in paperback.

United Kingdom – www.amazon.co.uk

USA – www.amazon.com

Twitter Authors

Apr 12 2013

Today during an idle hour spent on Twitter, I noted that a higher percentage than ever of my Twitter feed consisted of book promotion Tweets. As an author myself this comes as no real surprise, as many authors follow me and vice versa. But the question must be asked, is it really effective in a congested market place to be sending out blanket promotional book Tweets, especially if those Tweets are only being read, if at all, by other authors. I have already devoted previous posts to how authors use Twitter, but today I’ll be making generalisations about the actual composition of the Tweets and commenting on their effectiveness.

Of course there are famous authors who have embraced Twitter, Brett Easton Ellis being a prominent example. These authors can Tweet about anything, even their choice of sandwich filling at lunch, as whatever they Tweet their Twitter disciples will lap up eagerly. Some of these followers may even find themselves wondering if the sandwich filling related Tweet is perhaps a comment about post-modernism or global warming. And then there are the rest of us authors, myself included, struggling for visibility in the book promotion saturated world that is Twitter.

The following is a simple breakdown of the types of Tweets that authors use to promote their book/s, along with some commentary on how effective I perceive the given method to be.

Repetitive Repetition – The practice of sending out book promotion Tweets 24/7, 7 days a week. In severe instances several hundred times per day. The rationale being that if you drive the message home and do it often enough, people will buy your books.

Comment: There may be instances where this method has worked, but more often than not it appears to be akin to a dog chasing its own tail – just because it keeps doing it doesn’t mean it will ever catch it.

The Spin Dryer – An author sends out their book promotion Tweet/s along with Tweets promoting other authors’ books. This in turn leads to those authors RT’ing that author’s book promotion Tweet and so the cycle continues, with the book promotion Tweet getting exposure to a wider and wider audience, as it continues to be RT’d.

Comment: As one requires exposure to become well known, it is evident that this method is a logical way of putting your product in front of as many of Twitter’s 140m users as possible. However in the majority of cases these book promotion Tweets appear to be RT’d by other authors, whose Followers also consist largely of authors, not the target readership for the given book. Another case of the dog chasing its own tail perhaps.

The Sandwich – This is the method in which an author sandwiches their promotional Tweet/s between non-promotional Tweets (i.e. quotes/links etc) as if it were a slice of cheese or ham.

Comment: If new/non-famous authors are to be welcomed in the Twitter sphere they need to be accepted as communicative/interesting people and not merely narcissists, who discuss only their own work. Thus the sandwiching method is embraced by nearly all authors on Twitter though there are some exceptions.

The Snippet – This is a much practiced method in which authors utilise the 140 character limit to insert quotes from their books.

Comment: These can be memorable and in some instances amusing, but there are many examples where they are not. Here is a slightly altered one that I read last month – ‘… and he reached into the drawer, took out a red pen, took off the top and begun writing on the piece of paper on the desk.’ And one is left asking, Why?

I also use this method to promote my book, Charles Middleworth, a humorous tale of the unexpected. Here are two examples from Charles Middleworth:

‘Well if being related by internet marriage is family, I suppose we are.’

And

‘…her skills more akin to the baking of macaroons than solving the complexities of the universe.’

Click here to read part 2.