Twitter | How To Market Your Book On Twitter

Twitter can be a powerful social media tool for building awareness of you and your books. Many authors, however, don't use it well and see poor results. In this article, we'll discuss how to use Twitter effectively.

1. Gradually accumulate followers representative of your target audience

Some authors go out and follow everyone and their dog (sometimes using automated services to do so) while others only follow a few people, if anybody. While the first tactic can get you a lot of followers, it'll be dumb luck if any of them actually read books in your genre or area of expertise. If you don't bother amassing any followers, however, nobody is going to notice your posts or 'tweets.'

There are many third-party tools that make it easy to find followers who share your common interests, but we'll just use the basic Twitter page for now. Try searching for people talking about things related to your books. For example, if you're a space opera author, you might search for folks talking about science fiction or Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Folks talking about such topics are just the kinds of Twitter users or 'tweeps' you'd want following you, because they're the right audience. They're fans of the genre, and maybe they want to read your books and they just don't know it yet.

Try following people you've selected as potential fans (you can always un-follow them later if they ignore you). If you can, retweet one of their messages or send them a friendly comment on one of their recent tweets. Many folks won't automatically follow back, but this lets them know you're a human being interested in the same things as they are. You can also look at their following/followers numbers to get an idea on whether they tend to follow folks back. People who have far more followers than people they follow will probably think they're too special to bother with you (hmmphf!). Those who only follow a few people probably use Twitter mainly to interact with friends. You can try following anyway, but don't hold your breath waiting for a follow-back.

2. Tweet interesting messages, not just promotional content

Another area where authors fail is by only--or predominantly--tweeting about their books. People log onto Twitter for a social experience, not to be sold to. This doesn't mean you can't throw in a promotional link now and then, but don't hound folks every day.

Instead, use your profile space to mention your book and add a link to your author site. In your actual tweets, work on becoming someone interesting people want to follow and read about. Share links to news-worthy blog posts or sites related to your book/genre. Retweet other people's tweets. Mention funny or unique things that happen in your life. Mix it up. People want to follow people, not link-spitting machines that never let their personality--or humanity!--show.

By using those tactics, you'll have no trouble growing a list of followers who might just become buyers of your books. At the least, they can help you spread the word.

Good luck!