Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

Found this article this morning on Twitter: http://www.derekhaines.ch/justpublish...

I'm actually surprised that they don't do this already. I haven't seen one in a while, but I used to get email notifications with my Twitter stats. At the time I only had about 200 followers, but it was showing that my 'most popular' tweet went to all of seven people. I remember that the ratio was a lot smaller than that of Facebook.
Now, I know the only people looking at my tweets are the same group of about forty folks who I have set to alert me when they tweet.

I'd seen something about this a while back. I know I'm still gaining traffic, and I'm still seeing new listings by followers. However, I have been using many of the FB groups for content, so very little is related to my own work. Mostly, I've been trying to drive folks to my blog. Guess it's time to restructure... again.

Though everywhere I've read has stressed that social media is not a sales platform... at least not directly. Getting to know people, and using it to socialize is what everyone's been pushing.

Guess Twitter got tired of seeing all the authors and other companies out there screaming "buy now, buy from me". Shame really, because it's going to crimp the socializing big time.

K. wrote: "Guess Twitter got tired of seeing all the authors and other companies out there screaming "buy now, buy from me". Shame really, because it's going to crimp the socializing big time.
..."

I never could get used to the short space allowed to write anything. I can understand they want people to keep it short, but there's short and short. The format might be the main cause of the problem. How can you socialize when you write a few words and you're already in the minus? On the other hand, they made advertising with a link super easy.

Sorry but they had it coming. :/

That's why I pointed people at my blog. From there, if they really wanted to talk with me, I also had that linked out to FB. Kind of round about, not sure if it works. I do respond to comments on my blog, but no one is talking there either.

G.G. wrote: "I never could get used to the short space allowed to write anything. I can understand they want people to keep it short, but there's short and short. The format might be the main cause of the problem. How can you socialize when you write a few words and you're already in the minus?"

You type it in another program, take a screenshot and twitter a picture of the screenshot. Seriously, I've seen that happening.

If they let you post a pic or video...I can't see the point of the severe character limit.

Micah wrote: "You type it in another program, take a screenshot and twitter a picture of the screenshot. Seriously, I've seen that happening..."

haha Some serious Twitterlings then, because it seems like a lot of work just to chat though.

This isn't good. Twitter is a big chat room. Filtering streams is going to kill the spontaneous conversation it's good for. I'm bad at twitter, but...

I don't like Twitter. I'd drop it in a heartbeat, and this looks like a good excuse.

Micah wrote: "You type it in another program, take a screenshot and twitter a picture of the screenshot. Seriously, I've seen that happening."

So one uses Twitter to sent people an image of your message? As opposed to just ... sending a message? That makes sense in a horrifying way.

I've never been on Twitter (or FB, for that matter). My feeling is that people who enjoy Twitter are unlikely to buy our books. (We do have some empirical support for that opinion.)

How long has it been around? It's always puzzled me how some people talk like there was no life before Twitter.

Since about 2007ish. I've only figured out how to make it useful in the last few months.

The way I see it, it's just like any other social media. The majority of users are posting their own 'look at me!' content, whether that's selfies, buzzfeed quiz results, or live tweeting their favorite TV show. Amidst all of that is us, the authors, artists, small business owners, etc who are basically the Twitter commercials. Sure, I post things that I find funny or just some random nonsense instead of just spamming my books (exception being this weekend), but anyone who finds me knows I'm a commercial. It's right there in my profile.
Mostly, I use it to keep up with other authors and exchange the occasional witty remark.

Christina wrote: "Since about 2007ish..."

I didn't know it had been that long. When I was first told of it, I thought my informant was joking. (I don't recall when that was -- 2011, maybe?)

I love Twitter. I mostly use it to keep track of the space industry. Every now and again I post questions relating to my books, or chip into debate about the future of space saying "in my books, they..." I get rational responses from scientists and engineers who know a lot more about the field than I do. Then every few days I tweet a little card describing one of my books, 1024 x 512 with the cover and blurb. Like this . I don't know if it sells any books, though.

I enjoy the interaction - I think the character limit is a good discipline, makes you present a single idea and not ramble on.

I read some more. It looks like they're going to change it from most recent to top news...and not give an option to change back to most recent. Grrrr. It drives me crazy enough when Facebook changes me to top news randomly.

I wonder how that will effect lists and notifications? I rarely look at my main feed.

Shouldn't affect your notifications - those are directed at you. Not so sure about the lists, though. I've got a couple of lists that I check, but I'm not following the people on them. Mostly it's publishers, or big name authors whose work I like.

If it changes the hashtag lists, I'm in trouble.

Richard - I've been working with someone on FB, and they've given me some good advice. Your card is a bit crowded on the text, so you lose the call to action. May want to distill it down a bit more.

Thanks, K. I'll take a look.

I still haven't figured out hashtags. I read a short article on it once and zoned out while reading it. Maybe they DO matter?

Rob, I'll admit I'm guilty of the twitter to blog link drive. I've been working with so many other authors doing interviews and such that it's hard NOT to promote them. However, I don't use the same article repetitively.

I'm slowly building up a repertoire of non-link content, and once I have enough that I can vary it, I'll start adding it in, so the links aren't the only thing. However, it's going to take time. At least I'm not one of the worst spammer types screaming "buy my book!" right? I'm just the persistent pest saying "Go read about [insert name/subject] on my blog."

I do notice you tweet rather a lot, K. Do you have any stats indicating that this leads to click-throughs or sales?

Richard wrote: "Thanks, K. I'll take a look."

Welcome Richard. I promise, I'm not trying to nitpick. I'll even go cut the switch if'n ya want to swat the over reach.

I've been watching my blog stats and my hootsuite analytics. Right now I'm seeing between 3 and 10 responses from Hoostuite, and my daily visits have bumped to a fairly steady 20 or so per day.

I haven't gone fishing for new followers recently, which is probably why I'm not seeing too big an increase in views. I know when I drop my book promos through for a day I'll see a spike of views, but not many new downloads. Those usually come a few days later.

I'm still playing with the blurbs, trying to make them more enticing. Also playing with the promo adds.

It's been interesting experience to learn how to write strong ads, and I'm nowhere near an expert at it. But, Twitter is a great place to learn.

I'm also trying to follow a couple of authors who've had some big review numbers come in - I just don't have the back list of non-link tweet material they do built up... yet. My schedule is 1 tweet every hour, theirs is about 1 tweet every 5 minutes.

Okay, I got thinking about this last night and how it sounds like an April Fool joke, so I went looking for more information. I can't tell when that blog post was written, but the two linked articles were from September and August of last year. I couldn't find anything newer than that. There have been several major updates to the Twitter app since then, many of the recent ones had major issues that disrupted my experience. However...
They haven't yet filtered. Instead, sponsored posts sit smack in the middle of the feed regardless of what time it is or what just got tweeted. To me, this is the more logical way of bringing in the revenue they need to 'impress' investors.
What I can't wrap my head around is who on Earth are the thousands of people who RT that Oreo cookies now make peanut butter flavored. Seriously. To me that's like DVRing just the commercials and inviting people over for 'movie night.'

I haven't tried using my personal Twitter account to sell my books--yet. Mostly I've been using it to update on my life, share nerdy and feminist links (I <3 The Mary Sue!), and make terrible jokes.

I'm planning on creating a Twitter account for the Coalition of Self-Rescuing Princesses (the protagonists in my book) as a means of generating interest in my book. The tricky part will be figuring out tweeting as individual characters vs. as the group. That, and attracting followers. I only have 14 followers for my author's account, so I get the feeling this is going to be an uphill battle.