Why Do Some Writers Post Nothing But Ads on Twitter?

What bugs me to death is when I follow some Twitter accounts of other writers and they post only ads for their own books. UGH! Do they not have a life?  Don’t they have any wise or creative moments they want to share with other writers?

I think some author’s only sign up for Twitter just so they have a place to “sell” their work.

Twitter is in a way about networking as well as sharing and author’s who sharing their life as well as their work seem to have the right idea on how to use Twitter correctly. Thank god for the MUTE button. I want to be nice and follow back after they follow me, but when every tweet is just you selling your books and I get 19 different tweets in less than 30 minutes, I am gonna mute your ass. Sorry. That is not how to handle a twitter account. Or maybe it is?

I look at people like this because there are a lot of authors who run their accounts just like this with tens of thousands of followers, though they also follow tens of thousands of people. This just means if you are following over 50K people there is no way you are looking for “friends” or “networking” with people or other authors. You either never look at your timeline at what others are saying or you mute everyone that is not a friend. Probably the first one.

But…take a look at the other side of this. You go to Amazon and look at the writer’s work… 120 reviews on one book, 50 on another. All seem to be verified purchased reviews. And for those purchases, there are probably another 3x or more sales without reviews. So the author follows everyone which grabs follow backs *proven to work*, and tweets nothing but books and book sales. For that, she gets sales and reviews and makes money. Sounds like a decent plan.

Now, I don’t do this and maybe I should. Maybe I should make more of an effort to self-promote my works in order to make more money to pay for the editing of my upcoming books. I just don’t think that one’s twitter account should be nothing but ads and sales. Even as a fan of an author, I want to know the joys and the pain of daily writing. I want hints about upcoming books. I’d like to know how the red-headed barista became the inspiration for a side character that could get their own series in the future. These are the reasons I think fans or twitter followers actually follow people.

Shouldn’t there be a happy medium somewhere?