Rayne Hall - Twitter for Writers

TWITTER FOR WRITERS

Copyright Rayne Hall 2014

All Rights Reserved

Cover art and design by Erica Syverson

Scimitar Press (June 2014 Edition)

Introduction

Writers need different things from Twitter than normal people.

As a writer, youll use Twitter to meet colleagues, connect with readers, invite reviews, carry out research, improve your writing, develop networks, gain insight, conduct market studies, build your platform, create buzz for your stories, and sell your work.

Twitter is perfect for writers. Its easy to learn, gives you full control of your network, takes less time than other social media, and doesnt bombard you with flashing pop-ups or distracting invitations to play Candy Crush.

You can use Twitter as a professional tool without wasting your precious writing time but be warned, Twitter can be addictive. In this book, Ill show you how to use Twitter efficiently and to get the greatest benefits in the shortest time.

At the time of writing, I have over 52,000 followers, mostly weird and wonderful writers, and fans of my fiction. Most are real, engaged people who read my tweets and interact, not fake followers and automated accounts. Theyre also the kind of people who are interested in my books. Some authors have more followers than I but few have the same quality. The quality of my Twitter platform astonishes marketing experts who sometimes ask me how I do it.

Building this platform took only two years, largely by trial and error, finding out what worked and what did not. By adopting the successful strategies and skipping the mistakes, you can reach similar results even faster.

In this book, Ill show you step by step how you can achieve Twitter success.

Ive invented two fictitious writers Suzie who writes vampire romance novels, and Franco who has published a non-fiction book about dog training as examples. Adapt my suggestions to suit you. Youre the CEO of your Twitter; Im only the consultant.

You may be new to Twitter, just trying the first steps. Or you may have used Twitter for a while, but arent really getting anywhere and want to try another approach. You may even be a veteran, looking for advanced techniques to build a platform and promote your books.

For most chapters, Ive used this structure: The Basics What Not To Do Advanced Strategies - Mistakes Ive Made and Learnt From. Read the sections that are relevant for your level and for what you want to achieve. If youre a Twitter novice, stick to The Basics and dont let the Advanced Strategies overwhelm you. As a seasoned Twitter user, you can skip The Basics and try the Advanced Strategies. If you want a laugh, read the sections about my mistakes.

You can also dip into and out of this book to get the guidance you want right now. The early chapters give the practical essentials; the middle chapters are for when you want to achieve something specific, such as holding a TwitterParty and finding reviewers for your book, while the chapters near the end are more entertaining.

Like everything on the internet, Twitter keeps changing. Much of what I taught in a Twitter for Writers class a year ago is already out of date. By the time you read this book, some details may no longer apply, but the foundation is here for you to build on.

The cartoon illustrations are by several artists, mostly by Hanna-Riikka who you can follow on Twitter (@DoNichiArt). While youre at it, you can follow me, too (@RayneHall). Tweet me that youre reading this book, and Ill follow you back.

See you on Twitter,

Rayne

CHAPTER 1: CREATING YOUR PROFILE

Go to Twitter.com. If you have an account, log in, and improve it with these tips.

If you're new, create an account. For this, you'll need to provide some personal details and an email address. Youll be asked to follow some big organisations and famous people before youre allowed to proceed. Just click some at random. You can unfollow them later.

THE BASICS

Don't worry about getting things perfect at this stage. If you change your mind about something, you can make changes.

Full Name and User Name

Both your Full Name and your User Name show up frequently and play an important part in your branding and promotion.

I recommend you use your pen name (the author name of your books) for both. This will help a lot with book marketing, search engine optimisation and such. You may not care about those things yet, but one day they may become tremendously important. Securing your pen name as your User Name now will help you sell books in the future.

For the Full Name, use it exactly as you use it for your books. Let's say you write under the pen name Suzie Scrybe. Then you would use Suzie Scrybe as your Full Name on Twitter not Suzie Z. Scrybe, S. Scrybe or Miss Scrybe.

For the User Name, pick your pen name as well. However, this time you cant use spaces. Suzie Scrybe is @SuzieScrybe. On Twitter, your user name is always preceded by the @ symbol.

If your pen name is already taken (that's quite possible), see if you can add punctuation marks. For example, Suzies user name may be @Suzie_Scrybe or @SuzieScrybe_. You could also add a word, for example @SuzieScrybeBook.

Long pen names are problematic, because Twitter allows only 15 letters for a user name. If you write under the name Clarabella Dorothea Watkins-Himmelreich, you may have to limit your user name to @Himmelreich.

Password

Pick something other people cant guess not the title of your book. The ideal Password is long and includes punctuation marks and numbers, for example ))King989Arthur(( or ^&3Little^&3Dipper. Dont use the same Password you use for online banking or other social media.

Write it down somewhere you can access it, but not where hackers can. Change it several times a year.

If you ever suspect your account has been hacked, change the Password at once.

Profile Picture

Your Profile Picture is called an avatar ('avi' for short). Upload one as soon as you create your account. Unless you have a picture, other Twitter users will hold you in contempt or suspect you to be not a real person but a robot. If you dont have a picture thats quite right, upload whatever you have at hand now. You can change it later.

The most effective avatar is a portrait of yourself.

If you don't like to display your photo, use a drawing or painting. Go to OCAL (Open Clipart Library) search woman face or man face, pick one that looks a bit like you, download it, and upload it as your Twitter profile picture. OCAL pictures are copyright-free. The drawback is that someone else could be using the same picture.

You could also get an artist to paint an artist's impression of you. This can be realistic or a cartoon. Use intense colours, not pastels. Perhaps someone in your family or circle of friends can do it for you for free. Or you can hire a cartoonist or illustrator, either a hobbyist, an aspiring professional or a professional. Expect to pay between $5 and $50. You can then use the same picture for other purposes, such as your Facebook profile and your Amazon Author Central page.

Don't use a full-body picture, or a picture showing you with hubby, pet or other people. The profile pic will be displayed so small, anything more than the head doesn't work.