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How to find potential readers on Twitter
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Interesting idea. Thanks. Will need to look into it. Was at a loss on how to use twitter as a novelist.
Hi Laura, Thanks so much for the great tips! :)
This is hilarious -- I created an account on Twitter this morning to try marketing this way. I made a total of four tweets and now my account is suspended. I have no idea what I did to warrant a suspension and sent them an appeal.I looked up the terms you suggested and a few more and sent the following tweet:
@_____ if you like hot contemporary western romance check out my Texas Trouble series at amazon.com/author/beckymcgraw
Guess I'm just a Twitter lawbreaker (lol) or something (Bad girls, bad girls, whatcha gonna do?).
Maybe Pinterest and Facebook are the way to go for me, but thank you so much for the information. <3
By the way, even though you are responding to indivisuals(sic), your post is seen by others on twitter.No it's not.
If you start a tweet with the "@_____" as Becky tried, then the only people who will see it are the person you send it to, and people who follow both that person and follow you.
Many users will put at least a punctuation point before the twitter userhandle so that at least all of their followers can see a tweet.
I'm brand new and have no followers yet, I simply replied to a tweet from the person who posted it.Oh and by the way, I didn't start it with "@____". I hit reply then added my post behind their handle. (If that's what you were saying haha)
Andrew wrote: "By the way, even though you are responding to indivisuals(sic), your post is seen by others on twitter.Just to add to this, the only way ANYONE sees it but yourself, your own followers and the ONE person you sent this to, is if the receiver retweets it to their followers.
The most successful way to get yourself out there is through retweets, I've found. This is just what I've observed, not necessarily what's happened to me yet, ha ha.
i have to say that i think there really may be only two ways to sell books via twitter: 1. the books are free
2. your name is Margaret Atwood (or Alice Munro..umm, so that's 3 ways, then).
I agree with Beverly. I've sold (that I know of) 1 book through Twitter. I have a good number of followers, and have built some relationships there (which is weird because I really don't like Twitter and was very resistant to joining). But I don't think you sell books there. I unfollow people who do nothing but hawk their books, and if you just post writing stuff, you get followers but that doesn't seem to convert to buyers. Or else I'm just not good at it yet!
i was probably feeling terrifically cynical when i wrote the post above, for which i apologize. i do have links that have had hundreds of hits from twitter. i'm just not sure if that led to anyone actually buying my book. i did post a link to my latest interview, my first on a UK site (i'm Canadian but imagine most of my ebook purchasers are American), and have had 350+ clicks since Sept. 7th. but no sales in the UK. here's the link: http://bit.ly/RIywv6
i also get some traction from putting relatively provocative points from my blog posts on twitter. still, i don't think that really resulted in many sales. yet. here's a post from my blog:
http://beverlyakerman.blogspot.ca/201...
The Meaning of Children
Twitter is a branding and communications forum, not a sales venue. I've been tweeting for about a year now, but I'm not expecting more than increasing my visibility and establishing my brand. I also try not to mention my own work (unless there is news to speak of) more than once every couple of days. It's slow going, but according to the marketing reasearch, that's how it works. One thing I've read on a couple of different marketing sites is to NOT use an alias. You are setting up your name (or your pen name, if you use one) as a brand, so don;t use a "handle" as a twitter name. Use your brand. Make it easy for readers to understand the connection. Make it memorable.
Richard wrote: "Twitter is a branding and communications forum, not a sales venue. I've been tweeting for about a year now, but I'm not expecting more than increasing my visibility and establishing my brand. I als..."This is my feeling on Twitter, too. I post when I have new blogs, and I did put on that my book is free this weekend, but otherwise don't put much about the books. I keep it to writing stuff, with a very few personal things (like when my son got his drivers license last week). People respond to the writing process posts, and I do get traffic to my blog, so someone's paying attention anyway! I NEVER put politics or religion on there, and never anything really personal. As you say, it's your brand. This is chatting wtih friends on FB.
I almost always put in politics or any particular annoyances dujour. I figure that, like my books, who I am may not be for everybody, but at least, over time, readers will get an honest overview and have more to help make a decision. I also tweet some writing links, but it had better be very special or useful and not just one more service offering for yet another "expert" in the Indie field. My God, they are as numerous as blades of grass.
Richard wrote: "I almost always put in politics or any particular annoyances dujour. I figure that, like my books, who I am may not be for everybody, but at least, over time, readers will get an honest overview an..."haha, yes, everyone's an expert, and writes a book to prove it! Well, whatever the market will bear... I figure it's just going to be a long, slow build up to get my name and books out there, but with the ebook, they'll be around forever, so there's no rush! (Not that a rush of sales wouldn't be nice, but I'm a realist.)
i regularly tweet information about my books. links to stories available free online, snippets from some of the wonderful comments from readers & reviewers...and also my blog posts on many things. i don't shy away from politics: gun control, abortion, womens' issues have always been at the forefront of my concerns. they're who i am and what my writing is about. my ideas and opinions are probably the only thing i AM an expert about.
Beverly wrote: "i regularly tweet information about my books. links to stories available free online, snippets from some of the wonderful comments from readers & reviewers...and also my blog posts on many things. ..."If those things were in my writing I probably would, but I write historically based treasure hunt a/a and Christian historical romance. That's what's pubbed so far, anyway. Have a YA dystopian thing in the works. So it's not relevant for me. I can see that it would be for other types of writing, though.
I'm so new to this whole Twitter thing, that I'm treading lightly. I always tweet my blog posts, and that's gotten me a few followers, but as a business development manager for a marketing company, my gut tells me Richard is right. Twitter is about branding and getting my name out there, rather than about sales volumes.
The way to find potential readers on twitter is as follows:Join twitter to meet people and spend time chatting with them about mutually interesting topics and make frequent tweets about amusing things and with links to things people will enjoy - such as news items and information. Also blog posts are good.
Once you have a community of people who you know well and understand their interests you will know whether they are likely to be interested in your book or not. This can take a couple of years.
Then you can talk about your book and link to it now and then and people will be interested and a fair proportion will buy it if it is up to standard.
If you join twitter and the only tweets you make are to strangers suggesting your products or books and especially if you cut and paste the same comment frequently to a number of different tweeters - you will be a spammer and your account will be blocked.
People are wary of clicking on links from strangers in any case as they could lead to viruses or porn sites etc. So it is a waste of time doing this.
There is no short cut and no fast track. Real relationships lead to online success. You can't fake sincerity and trustworthiness and you can't short cut to it either.
wasn't there some wag who said "once you can fake sincerity, you've got it made?"
Twitter: Go to search box and write book suggestions or kindle suggestion and you will see a list of people that request these. You are allowed to respond to them with your suggestion.
It is helpful to also search for your genre, like romance suggestion and do the same.
Don't do it every hour and every day. I like to go once every one or two weeks and contact up to 10 people.
By the way, even though you are responding to indivisuals, your post is seen by others on twitter.
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Have a great day.