Drowning in Tweets: A struggling author tries to understand Twitter

A guest post by Scott D. Southard

I dream the same dream as thousands of other people.

Yes, I am one of thousands (probably a lot more) and we are all part of the same collective consciousness, wired into the same hopes of finding writing success. And while we all know in our hearts there are not enough readers on this planet for all of us to succeed, we all keep dreaming together, sharing the same hopes, avoiding expressing the same fears.

It is all a beautifully sad thought, like a fleeting, quiet, and hopeful melody lost in a romantic symphony.

– At the time of this writing, I have 2,370 followers on Twitter –

I need to begin by blaming my brother (@AESPiano).

I had just reached more than 100 followers on my blog and he thought it was ridiculous that I had more blog followers than Twitter followers. He first reached out to his followers to find me and follow me, and then he tried to convince me to do some outreach myself, claiming that it would help my writing career.

Frankly, I didn’t see it, but I decided to do some investigating out of curiosity. I found a fellow writer who was following me and started to scroll through her followers, looking for other writers, and following the ones I felt might be interesting.

My obsession began, like a new sport being discovered. By the end of the first week, I had a 1,000 followers.

Tweet indeed.

– 2,372 –

I have to be honest here: My first reaction to experiencing the writing world around Twitter was despair. Not a surprising emotion, as you scroll through writer tweets after writer tweets, each trying to convince you to check out their book, read a sample and buy, buy, buy.

Some are outright pitches (comparing their book to other works, sales, a random positive review), some contain maybe one or two sentences to try and catch your eye (but out of context, rarely work or are trying to be too profound). There are bargain hunters (“My book is only 99 cents today!”), and others are nothing more than a title and a link. It reminds me of the last gasp of a swimmer lost at sea, about to go down for the third time.

My immediate vision was of a street of fishmongers back in Victorian times. Each of us shouting “I have the best fish,” but no customers in sight. So all we are doing is shouting at each other until we are hoarse. Not a fair comparison I know now, but it was honestly the first image I had. What can I say? I am shouting “Fresh Fish! I got the best fresh fish! Who wants a halibut?” just like everyone else.

(I have two, by the way, that are particularly tasty. They are called A Jane Austen Daydream and Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare… Sorry, force of habit).

– 2,380 –

During my first week, I did an experiment. You will see tweets with people offering services to promote books. One offered to promote my book to 50,000 people via Twitter and Facebook for only $35 or so.

I thought, “What the heck?” I did it, and considered the investment part of my education into the possibilities of Twitter.

On their Facebook page, the company used the wrong cover for my book. I kid you not. Instead of my slick 1950s sci-fi cover (this is for My Problem With Doors), they used the cover for… wait for it… The Christmas Cookie Club.

Wow.

I mean… wow.

I pointed it out , they corrected it. But what I soon realized was they were just adding my book to the “noise” of the market. And it wasn’t cutting through. Since then, I hadn’t seen anything in my numbers to justify the expense in the future.

So what is the lesson?  Basically, it is not easy to cut through the congestion of Twitter. You need a unique hook that is all your own. But what that is or how it is done, everyone has to find for themselves. Personally, I am still looking.

– 2,384 –

I see Twitter different now.

Twitter, in my opinion, is the great melting pot for writers.

We are all equal here. You want to call yourself a writer or an author, feel free. Everyone is welcome.

This is all a new thing for the world of writing, an environment that has spent over a hundred years finding the right spot, right genre and right amount of success for everyone entering it. (And if you didn’t fit the mold, you didn’t play the game). On Twitter, the literary snobbery gets left at the door.

Those old rules are gone. Established writers are no different from the indie and the self-published writers. We all market ourselves and our books there, and what our numbers come down to is how aggressive we want to be to get the word out.

As a lover of literature, I can’t wait to see what the writing world looks like a decade from now because of this. Honestly, I have no idea how it will turn out and what will remain at the end of it.

– 2,386 –

One of the things I love about finding writers on Twitter is a game I made up. I call it “Guess the Genre.”

Rules: I give myself two points if I guess the genre of the writer correctly before I look at their bio. I take away one point if I guess incorrectly.

To be honest, I am usually correct. For example:

  • Horror/Paranormal writers are in the shadows, trying to look scary.
  • Romance writers usually have covers of their books, and each looks like something from a harlequin shelf. There is a fascination with abs. How the heroes have time to woo with all of the work needed to keep those abs up to snuff is beyond me.
  • Crime/Thriller writers are against a wall, looking as though they were trapped into having their picture taken.
  • Children’s authors look like the nicest people on the planet. They are smiling and usually outdoors someplace with a lot of sun.

Someone told me during my first week that I looked like a cowboy in my picture. Personally, I don’t know many cowboys that wear a tie and a vest, but that is pretty badass in my opinion. So I will take that compliment. But if you played the “Guess the Genre” with me, and you thought Western, you would be wrong.

Sorry. I’m post-Modern literature with hints of fantastical elements.

– 2,390 –

Another thing I have noticed about Twitter writers is that so many are writing a series.

My initial snob response to that is to blame TV, but that is not fair. P.G. Wodehouse, one of my favorite humorists of the last century, wrote a series of comedy novels (Jeeves and Wooster, check them out). And of course, there is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. The big difference to me is it seems that with the success of Harry Potter, the idea of a series has moved from the world of pulp fiction to the mainstream.

(Oh, did I mention I am writing a series? No, this is not a joke. I wrote the first draft of the first book last year, but it needs work. It will be part of a dark teenage fantasy. So there you go…)

– 2,404 –

One of the things I have grown to love on Twitter is the interaction with fellow writers. It is a great feeling when another writer tells you they like your recent blog post, retweet something you wrote, or compliment your writing. Twitter, when done right, is wonderful for the ego – and writers need egos. (If you don’t feel like you are doing something important, you won’t finish a sentence.)

And while there are a lot out there who are only interested in pushing their books (which is fine, and good luck and cheers to them), there are others actually interested in you and your thoughts. Which has led to some nice interactions for me.

It is that feeling we are all in this together. And, yes, while we all know the literary marketplace is congested, and few of us will find the success we all dream about in our collective consciousness, we are still in it together.

What can I say?

If you follow me, I will follow you back.

*

Scott D. Southard is the author of four novels published in the last few years, A Jane Austen Daydream, Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare, My Problem With Doors and Megan. You can find them via his Amazon author page or  on Google eBooks. He is also an editor with rebeccatdickson.com. Got a manuscript that needs a special touch? Contact us and ask for Scott.

Write the Way You Want to Write

A guest post by Douglas R

WHY do we live, behave and even make art as though we shouldn’t be ourselves? I saw a tweet recently, “4 Tips to Write like Nicholas Sparks.” But YOU are supposed to write like YOU.

If there’s one dogma I have, it’s this: Nobody invented creativity. You can mold whatever you want. You can visualize and create anything you want.

Planes don’t need to have wings. Do you know why planes have wings? Because birds have wings. If someone can visualize a plane without wings, then they have the talent to make one.

My point? You don’t have to do it that way because someone else did.

No Rules

There are no rules. In fact, following rules only makes your work look like someone else’s.

We subconsciously follow writing rules, but we don’t need to. There will only ever be one Charles Dickens.

And maybe your work won’t be called “literature” because your writing style is different. Maybe you won’t be nominated for national literary awards. So what? Being true to yourself and your voice is worth ten Nobel Prizes.

Contemporary writing is now called “popular fiction”. I call it pop fiction, and it’s more popular these days anyway. People love natural writing. It’s engaging and conversational.

Write with gusto. Fill your words with passion – your way.

My family drama series, My Mom’s a Supermodel, was inspired by a television series like How I Met Your Mother and iCarly. I decided to write it much like the shows I liked, and I did it in my own style.

The book is written in a crisp and controversial style—including the All Rights Reserved page. I have my signature style all over the book. The prologue also jumps in before the contents page to stir up the reader.

You can make your book as appealing as you like. Soak it with your personality.

My Mom’s a Supermodel is written in first-person and present tense. There it is again. Do you hear people blabbing about the limitations of writing this way? If you’re planning to write your book this way, don’t listen to anything anyone says about the limitations. Just write your book the way you want. It’s your creation. There are no rules before you and there will be no rules after you, except your own.

You can never run out of ideas

Some people complete their story and start to worry about having anything more to write. As though they’ve used up all the creativity in the world.

That’s a virus. It’s worse than the flu because it keeps us in a state of fear. We need to be in a state of creativity, abundance and more possibility.

The abundance of stories is infinite. No number in the universe exists to tally to the amount of possibilities.

You can imagine anything: uncountable crazy, funny, mysterious, hilarious, amazing and explosive stories. The only objective is to believe you are can write the most amazing story. And when the idea comes, grasp it and go write that brilliance.

To the core, writing is an expression of who we are. No one can declare who you are but YOU. No one can write your story the way you can. They may plagiarize your idea, but it won’t have the true soul to it. Writing comes from the desire to express and create. A non-physical spirit that manifests itself in words and pages. It’s the same force that lures artists to paint. That makes us design the things we want.

What if you don’t even know what you want to express?

It’s okay to not know what we want to write about. This summer I canceled three stories (a sum of 80,000 words – a full length novel). But I have no regrets. If I don’t feel like I’m writing what I really want to say, I stop.

Discover what you really want to write about. Be honest to yourself. You will eventually find it.

Have faith, enjoy what you do. Let go.

My Mom’s a Supermodel, my family drama of a novel, is a funny rule-breaking book.

If TV can have twenty episodes in one season, how about twenty episodes in one book?

Be brave enough to step out of line. Be bold and write in the most daring way possible. You already know how you really want to write your story. Let no idea hold you back.

Make love with art.

MMASSynopsis

The addictive-style of TV series comes to books for the first time with My Mom’s a Supermodel, featuring 19 episodes of Alex and his family. They arm-wrestle their English teacher, fall into swimming pools with crocodiles and fight the girl with the red beard. With a record like that, who’s to say they won’t burn down the candy shop?

But with a longing for his real family, Alex wants to find his real mother. My Mom’s a Supermodel is free today (October 14, 2013) on Amazon. Grab your copy here and find out if Alex’s mom really is a supermodel.

 About the author

Douglas R is a self-published fiction writer, and a traditionally published author of Tunnels, a book about truth, love and a secret power that could change a man’s life—so long he doesn’t die in the first chapter. Follow his email list, Stories with Douglas R, and get Tunnels free, as well as a free copy of My Mom’s a Supermodel, plus future stories and updates including a top-secret ebook he is working on to inspire your dreams.