How to Use Twitter In A Way That Won't Get You Kicked in the Face

Earlier this year I posted a Twitter tutorial on the Will Write For Cake blog, so some of what's here is a reposting of that information, but there are updates and additions here too. I shall not rest until all those who use Twitter in annoying ways repent!

Is that too lofty a goal? Ok, if I can just save one person from tweeting incessantly about their own book...

First I'll start out with how to start using Twitter if you're not even on yet, or if you're on but are still flailing around, unsure of what to do. If you've already been using Twitter and feel comfortable with it, you can skip ahead. It's ok, I won't be offended. Catch you on the flip side.

If you don’t have an account yet, go to twitter.com and click the yellow “Sign Up” button. Fill out the form on the next page. You can choose whatever user name you want as long as it isn’t too long (over 20 characters) and isn’t taken, but it’s best to choose something close to your real name (or the name you use as a writer), so people will recognize you. Sure, I could use my stripper name @BubblesSunnyleather, but since most people I interact with are book people, I want to use my writer name.

Kristen Lamb has written about the importance of using your own name, like in this post; bookmark the blog while you're at it so you can go back and read everything else there later.

It’s okay to use an underscore mark, like JimBob_Writer, but don’t use any other special characters or spaces. (Some people don't like names with underscores, though, since it takes more effort to type in if they're tweeting from their phones). Twitter will walk you through a set up for selecting some followers and writing you bio. Fill in a short bio and upload a small picture. Having a bio and a picture lets people know you’re a real person they might like to follow. To edit your profile later, click your user name at the top of the page, then “Settings,” then “Profile.”

Once you have your account, you can start tweeting by typing something (up to 140 characters) in the box at the top of the page, then click “Tweet” to send it. This will show up on your followers’ pages, and anyone who visits your profile will be able to see your tweets. This is kind of like a status update on Facebook--let your followers know what you’re doing, mention a book you just read, ask a question, etc.

Retweets (RTs)
Retweeting is a way to copy what someone else said while still giving credit for it. If you see a tweet that’s funny or interesting, you may want to retweet it for your followers or for anyone who didn’t see it before. Suppose my imaginary friend @HoustonAuthor tweeted this:

Just got a 6-figure book deal! And Disney bought the movie rights! Yay!

So I want to share the good news with my followers who may not know @HoustonAuthor yet, or with those who missed it when this was tweeted hours ago. I could do this automatically by clicking the “Retweet” button just below the tweet:

That will copy the exact tweet from @HoustonAuthor, but with the RT symbol and my user name:  by LynneKelly to let my followers know this is something I've retweeted.

Or I might want to add something to it. In that case, I'll copy and paste the tweet by hand, then type my own message and an “RT” before @HoustonAuthor’s name. Then my tweet would look like this:

So now I’ve added my congratulations, and my followers know that everything after the RT refers to what @HoustonAuthor said. Also, they’ll be able to click on @HoustonAuthor’s name to see her Twitter feed if they’d like to.

@Replies
An @reply is a way of saying something to a specific person, although it isn’t private. People who follow both you and the person you’re talking to will see it, as will anyone who visits your page. You can @reply someone by:
- typing @ in front of their user name
- clicking "reply" on one of their tweets
- selecting "Mention" from the tool icon in their profile

Example: @MyPretendDog You’re not sleeping on the bed, are you?

Because @ is the first character there, only people who follow both me and @mypretenddog will see that on their home pages. If I start with any other character, all my followers can see it:

.@MyPretendDog is the best dog ever.
or

I sure hope @MyPretendDog isn’t chewing on the couch.

Any of my followers can see that, because I didn’t start with the @. And @MyPretendDog will notice it when she checks her replies.

So don't do something like this:

@MyPretendDog is awesome and you should all follow her!

'Cause who's going to see that? People already following you and @MyPretendDog, because I started with the @. Put some other character in front of the @, or put the @username later in the sentence.

I could do this too as a way of passing along @HoustonAuthor’s good news. Instead of RTing her book deal tweet, I could write:

Congratulations to @HoustonAuthor on her awesome new book deal!

Interacting with other people is the best part of Twitter, so you want to know if people are talking to you or about you so you can reply back. You don’t want to ignore people, do you?
 At the top of the page is this bar:

By clicking on the “@Mentions” tab, you’ll see the tweets of people who mentioned you. [Update: the "Mentions" tab is not called "@Connect," but it works the same way.] When @MyPretendDog checks her replies, she’ll see the tweets that include her user name, like this one:

LynneKelly 
I sure hope @MyPretendDog isn’t chewing on the couch.

Then @MyPretendDog will probably want to answer me back:

Even if I’m not on Twitter at the moment to see it on my main page, I’ll see it whenever I check my replies. But remember, it’s not private--anyone following both of us can see that conversation. Suppose I had a cat who followed @MyPretendDog and me. @ThePretendCat noticed our conversation, and tweeted this:

@LynneKelly Hey, @MyPretendDog is sleeping on your bed. Shall I bite her for you?

Both @MyPretendDog and I will see that on our pages and under our Mentions tab, since both our user names are there.

I see quite a few Twitter feeds of people who never interact with anyone. That's ignoring the "social" part of "social media." Would you stand around at a cocktail party just talking about yourself, while ignoring people who are talking to you? No. So don't be a pinhead by doing it on Twitter.

Check your retweets now and then too--if people RT you automatically by just clicking the “Retweet” button under your tweet, you may not see that in your replies. It’s good to thank people who’ve shared one of your tweets, and checking your RTs will show you who’s done that. Click the “Retweets” tab, then “Your tweets, retweeted."

That will bring up a list of your tweets that someone else RTed. Click on the arrow on the right side of the tweet to see who RTed that. Then you can click on each of their names and send them a message if you want. @HoustonAuthor may write something like:

Thanks for the RTs about the book deal! @LynneKelly @Mydog @OtherHoustonAuthor

But what if you want to say something to a person but don’t want the whole world to see it? That’s when you use the direct message, or DM.
Again, there’s more than one way to do this. You can type by hand:

But it’s easier to click the “Message” tab on a follower’s profile:

Once you're on your Messages page, click “New Message.” Type who you want to send a DM to, then type your message in the window.

More and more lately I'm seeing people use DMs to thank people for following them, often with a link to their website or Facebook fan page. Usually it's an automatic thing they've set up to send a message to new followers. I don't know anyone who isn't annoyed by that. Don't do it.

On your Twitter page you’ll see the tweets of people you’re following. Now you know how to tweet, RT, DM, and reply, but if you’re not following anyone your page will be blank. So how do you get followers, and who do you follow? 
If you know someone’s user name, you can go to their profile by adding it to the Twitter address in the address bar, like this: www.twitter.com/PersonIWantToFollow. From there you'll click on the green "Follow" button.

For suggestions, click the “Who to Follow” tab at the top of the page. Twitter will suggest people you might like to follow, based on who you’ve followed so far. There will also be a “Who to Follow” section on the side of your page that Twitter will update with suggestions. You can also search for someone by typing a name in the search box at the top of the page.

Another good way to find people is by checking out others’ “Following” and “Followers” lists. Find out who they like to follow and who’s following them. Once you follow someone, they may decide to follow you back. You'll do the same for your new followers--check your list now and then and see if you'd like to follow back the people who are following you. If you're not interested in following them back, you don't have to do anything, but if they're so creepy you don't even want them following you, hit "Block."

For an easy way to find editors and agents to follow, go to my profile at http://twitter.com/lynnekelly then click "Lists," and select the Editors-Agents list. You'll see the recent tweets from the people on that list, but on the right side of the page, click "Following" to see everyone I've added to it. (A lot of other writers or publishing people you will have similar lists.) Then check who those people are following--you'll find more people you want to follow.

It's not okay to pitch your novel or query an agent or editor via Twitter, but following them is a great way to find out what's going on in the publishing industry and with their own work; they might tweet "Finally getting to my January queries" or "I wish someone would send me a good mermaid erotica manuscript," for example. And if an agent tweets, "If I get one more manuscript about woodland creatures or wizards I'm going to throw my computer out the window," then you know to send your novel about a squirrel who goes to wizard school to someone else. Of course they also tweet about things that aren't work-related, like what's going on with their kids or pets or where they like to shop. They start to seem like real people, almost.

Look for businesses you like and follow them, too--they may tweet about specials or coupons, and a lot of companies are using Twitter as one more way to provide customer service. Check out the feeds of Overstock.com or Zappo's, for example. Notice how often they're responding to customers. They're watching for people who mention them, offering help to those who complain and saying thanks to those who compliment them.

You don’t have to use lists, but they’re a good way to organize your followers, especially if you’re following a lot of people. When you’re on someone’s page, click on the little arrow button to add them to a list you’ve made:

That way, you can quickly check the tweets only of the people on a certain list, like "My favorite funny people,” "Authors I like," "Friends from prison," or whatever you want to make a list for. Click on a list to weed out everybody else on the page. For more about using lists, see "How to Follow a Buttload of People If You Want to."

Hashtags
By typing a hashtag (#) in front of a word or phrase, people can click on that word or phrase to follow a conversation about that topic, or see what others are saying about it. Good examples are the Tuesday evening #kidlitchat and Wednesday evening #YAlitchat. People interested in children’s and young adult literature discuss that night’s topic by adding #kidlitchat or #YAlitchat to their tweets. When you click on a hashtag like #kidlitchat, a page comes up showing all the tweets with that hashtag, whether you’re following the participants or not. Even if you can’t participate in real-time, you can bring it up later to read the conversation. Either click on the hashtag in someone’s tweet or type it in the search box at the top of the page.

A popular hashtag on Fridays is #FF, for "Follow Friday," used for suggesting other users to follow. Check out the follow recommendations from people you like following, and you may find some new ones to add to your follow list.

Under "trending topics" on the right side of your home page, Twitter lists the popular topics people are talking about, and those are often hashtag phrases.

A Bit About Marketing
There were some questions about using Twitter to market yourself, but really, the best way to market yourself is to NOT actively market yourself, if that makes sense. Or at least not to look like you are. It's not interesting to follow people who tweet about their own book (or themselves in general) over and over.

Back to the cocktail party example: If someone were standing around saying, "Visit my website. Check out my book. I wrote a book; here's where you can find it. Hi, have you seen my website? Check out my book," would you be interested in looking for their book? No, you'd be interested in stabbing them with an olive fork. So don't do that on Twitter. It's a way to get quickly unfollowed and possibly reported for spam, if you're sending unsolicited @replies to people to tell them about your book.

Users who have a lot of followers are those who interact with others and are funny, helpful, supportive, entertaining, or otherwise interesting. For users who tweet about all kinds of stuff and interact with their followers, I celebrate with them when they tweet, "Hey, I just got a book deal!" because I feel like I already know them. And I'll probably look for that book when it comes out. I'll give a couple popular authors on Twitter as examples (please share your favorites in the comments--there are so many great authors on Twitter.

Look how many followers Maureen Johnson has. She didn't get many by talking about her books. Notice how many of her tweets show her interacting with those followers. (When she has a phrase in quotes with someone's user name, that's her way of RTing a question or comment to her, then she'll type her answer after that.) Whenever she does mention a new release or other good news about her books, it doesn't bother anyone because that's not what her twitter feed is about. It's about her being herself and having fun talking to people about whatever's going on with her (or her weird neighbors). I'm not saying you have to tweet as much as she does--she's obviously a vampire who needs no sleep, or she has a well-trained army of monkeys to do her work for her. Tweet as little or as much as you're comfortable with, but remember to be yourself and get to know people.

Libba Bray is another great example of a funny/interesting/nice/wacky person to follow. You'll notice she too has a good balance of tweets, retweets, and replies in her feed. (She'd probably say that she's not well-balanced otherwise.)

Follow Cynthia Leitich Smith because she knows everyone and everything. Great links to author/agent/editor interviews and articles about the publishing industry, and she's super-supportive of other authors.

The Writer's Digest article listed below goes more in depth into social networking and book sales.

You can do everything on Twitter straight from the web page, but there are applications you can download to make it easier to organize and follow. Tweetdeck, for example (downloaded from tweetdeck.com) organizes your lists, replies, and hashtags you’re following into columns, automatically shortens web page addresses, and makes it easy to add pictures to your tweets.

See these excellent articles for more information:

Nathan Bransford's post about how to use Twitter
Twitter Tips For Writers
Mom, This Is How Twitter Works (Not Just For Moms!)
Don't Tweet That: How Not To Be A Twitter Dork (includes easy fixes)
Jay Kristoff's Ten Reasons You Can Follow THIS

Still have questions? Send me an @reply on Twitter. Like this:

Collective Nouns That Aren't Real But Should Be

You've probably heard of a murder of crows and a pod of whales, but maybe you didn't know about a huddle of penguins or a congress of baboons. And unless you were playing along with #collectivenouns this week on Twitter, there are even more obscure group names you didn't know. Here's a recap with some favorites:

You might call them a "herd of hippos," but that's wrong:

In the wild you might see a "colony of rabbits," but under your couch...

There were some literary submissions:

And speaking of homonyms:

Writing is a lonely profession, but if you find yourself in a group:

And here are the group names for a few other professions (including one of my own contributions):

There were a couple of squees:

And of course zombie groups:

There were a lot more, of course, but it's still not an exhaustive list. What are some of your favorite collective nouns-- real or made up?

"An unproductivity of people who sit around thinking of collective nouns," for example.

That's What (S)he said: Weekly Round-Up

The other day I wrote about several recent and upcoming elephant books for kids. Thankfully, you can never have too many elephant books, and none of them look similar to my own book. But maybe you've had that problem--you had a great idea for a book, then discover that someone else (or a few someone elses) wrote a book a lot like it. Now what? See Jen Nadol's guest post on the Cynsations blog, "Oh No! Someone Used My Idea!"

A trending topic on Twitter that's funny for some reason we can't explain and might have stolen some of my productivity this week is #replacebooktitleswithbacon. Some favorites: Are You There, God? It's Me, Bacon, How Stella Got Her Bacon Back, and Something Bacon This Way Comes.

One thing that keeps me reading a book is wondering how in the world the character is going to make it through his predicament. Are the stakes high enough in your own book? Not until the reader can't see a way out. Kara Lennox has a great article, "Is Your Black Moment Enough?" on Anna DeStefano's blog.

If you're interested in author marketing, be sure to bookmark Kristen Lamb's blog. We authors are really good at networking with each other, but it's harder to reach out to our readers online. "The Secret to Selling Books Part I--Let's Get Sticky", shows how we can better connect with our audience.

Here's a video I just saw today, but I have a feeling it'll go viral. Perfectly captures the emotional stages a writer goes through when writing a novel. I especially love the editing stage:


What happens to an elephant who survives a land mine explosion? If she knows the right people, she gets a giant prosthetic leg! Edited to add: Just saw that there's a documentary being made about the hospital that cares for this elephant and others injured by land mines. Learn more and see the trailer on the Eyes of Thailand website.

In other animal news, how can you not love a girl who punches a bear in the face to save her dog?

Have a fun and safe holiday weekend! Watch out for bears. But if you do see one, you know what to do now.

That's What (S)he said: Weekly Round-Up

Hi everyone! Here are a few favorite links from the week:

Agent Rachelle Gardner has an excellent blog, and she recently asked her clients to participate in a "Parade of Blogs," in which they each post on a particular topic. See the list of links for the first Parade of Blogs topic, "How does an author go about building a platform and marketing books?" There's so much good information there, it's one to bookmark for later revisits.

I love Twitter, but I have a few pet peeves about how it's used sometimes. Like the ones listed here in "My Top 5 Twitter Turn-Offs." Add "people who follow and unfollow the same day," and you've got my list.

And how's this for a rejection? Ever get your submission blown up?

Kate Hart's Field Trip Friday, Twitter Version includes some of the week's best tweets about publishing, writing, the SCBWI conference, and other entertaining things, like the #kidsbookorADULTbook fun some of us had on Monday.

The inspiring and entertaining article about THE HELP author Kathryn Sockett's rejections has been making the rounds all over the place, but check it out if you haven't seen it yet.

And my exciting news of the week-- I found out that CHAINED has release date! Because it's up on Amazon!

Here's how it felt to see that:

That's What (S)he said: Weekly Round-Up

Hi everyone! Here are a few sharable things I found around the interwebs this week:

This looks like something fun for writers on an agent search: Deana Barnhart is hosting a month-long Get An Agent Blogfest. See the weekly plan and more details here.

I love book trailers, and I'm sure I'll want to make my own when my publication date gets closer. Author Lena Coakely did a helpful two-part post about making a trailer for her novel, WITCHLANDERS. Here's part 1 and part 2.

Speaking of book trailers, author A.C. Gaughen launched her new website this week when she released the trailer for her debut novel SCARLET. It's gorgeous!

Another of my Apocalypsie-sisters, Lenore Appelhans, has donated a 10,000-word critique for a young adult novel to TLC auctions. There's still time to bid till tomorrow evening!

I'm not sure why I've just recently discovered Blake Snyder's Save the Cat!. It's not a new book, but for some reason I keep hearing about it lately. I think it was Nikki Loftin who told me that it's one of those books that makes you say, "Damn, I wish I had this three books ago." It offers do-able plotting for those of us who don't like to plot. I plan to use it to back up and plot out the YA novel I'm revising now, and will use it to plot the next book before I start writing it. I was going to fill in the "Beat Sheet" from the book (showing the different turns in a story) while watching E.T. to help me become more familiar with it, and I thought, "This is hard. I wonder if someone else has done it." Yes, someone has. I was thrilled to find these videos on the Mediajuice Saves the Cat! Blog. They put together video clips from several popular movies, indicating each beat along the way. Here's a post from another fan who doesn't like to plot--Charissa Weaks' Favorite Post Friday about Save the Cat!.

I just got onto Google+, but like most people on it, I'm still kind of flailing around not knowing what to do with it yet. Here's a post with some great tips by Debbie Ridpath Ohi (who somehow has it figured out already) about why she's loving Google+.

This week's book recommendation: THE REVENANT by Sonia Gensler, a young adult historical fiction with a ghost story that will keep you turning the pages.

And these friends are adorable, but I can't decide whether this bird is really brave or really dumb.



Have a great week!

That's What (S)he said: Weekly Round-Up

I was planning on doing a post this week about all the awesome book covers that Apocalypsies members have been able to share lately, but Kimberly Sabatini did it so well that I'll just point everyone to her post! It's so exciting to see everyone's covers. (And I just got my first email from my editor last week about what kinds of book covers I like, so hopefully I'll see some cover art soon!)

I've done a couple of posts about Twitter--a tweetorial and one about lists--but I'm always finding things I didn't know. Galleycat had an article this week about the best times to post on Twitter, and I found some of it surprising, like that weekends are a good time to tweet. I don't usually tweet much on the weekends because it seems like Twitter's pretty slow then.

And in "News I find really weird and amusing," Anthony Weiner isn't the only one getting in trouble for sexting lately--even the Amish are getting in on the action. I can't help wondering what would bring about the shunning first--sending the naughty messages or sending them via cell phone. Am I wrong to be sort of impressed that an Amish guy figured out how to obtain and use a camera phone? Now I'm dying to see a bumper sticker that reads, "If this buggy's a-rockin', don't ye come a-knockin'."

Speaking of bumper stickers, I saw this one a few days ago:

Well, good to know they're not eating a cheeseburger inside the giant SUV.

And speaking of cows, here's a really smart one leading a bovine Great Escape:



For my weekly posts I'll start including some book recommendations. It seems like every day lately I've been reading a real book, an e-book, and listening to an audiobook in the car. Earlier this year I wrote about wanting to listen to more audiobooks, and I've found that they're a great way for me to catch up on some books I hadn't read when they were first released. (I'm not cleaning my house more often like I'd predicted, though.) Now I'm listening to Pretties, the second book in Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. Last week I listened to Elizabeth Scott's Something, Maybe, and loved that one too--nicely flawed characters in a story I didn't want to end. Loaded on the Kindle app on the iPhone now is P.J. Hoover's fabulous novel Solstice, (Persephone in a global warming crisis). Favorites I've read in book form lately are Ashes by Ilsa Bick and The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab (who should give workshops on how to pick the best words to create the perfect image.) Those books aren't out just yet, but look for them when they're released later this year.

And how do you like my adorable new blog banner? The custom banner was an item I won in the Help Write Now auction, from Jessica of Urraca Studios. I keep looking at it like it's a new baby.

Have a great week, everyone!

Twitter Lists: How To Follow a Buttload of People If You Want To

Hi people! It's been a couple weeks since I've blogged because I've been in a bit of a revision cave-- but now the edits are done! Got the email today letting me know that CHAINED is off to the copyeditor. I'm also recovering from revision arm (like tennis elbow, but dorkier), so I'm limiting my computer time for now, but wanted to take a break from the heating pad and the happy dance to do a blog post about Twitter lists.

Before that, I'll point you to this Twitter tutorial I did in case you're fairly new to Twitter or haven't used it much and would like some help getting started.

I follow a bunch of people on Twitter, and some folks wonder how I follow so many. I've even had a problem lately with Twitter capping the limit-- I can't have more than 2000 people until I get over 2000 followers myself. But I'm able to organize my followers and actually follow a lot more than 2000 by using Twitter lists.

Of course I don't see every tweet of all those 2000+ people, but I like to follow back most people who follow me if they're writers, book people, otherwise funny or entertaining, and not naked or creepy.

But that means the list gets pretty long. If you find your following list is getting too unwieldy, break it up into smaller lists if you haven't yet. At the top of your page, click the "Lists" tab:

From there you can create a new list and decide whether you want it to be public or private. If you don't mind everyone seeing who's on your list and following along too, make it public, but if you have something like "My favorite people" or "People I follow but don't like very much," for example, you can opt to make those private to avoid any hurt feelings. Look at all the people you're following and click the little person-looking icon to add them to a list (or more than one list).

Now, when you select that list from the drop-down menu, only the tweets of the people on that list will show up.

You can also add someone to a list from their profile. Again, click on the little person, then "Add to list:"

You can add someone to a list whether you're following them or not; this is what will allow you to "follow" more people than you're officially following. They won't show up in your regular timeline, but their tweets will show up on that list just like anyone else's.

One thing I did when I found I was getting close to Twitter's new 2000-follower limit was to unfollow all the celebrities I'd been following in order to save space. I didn't want to unfollow my writer friends or people I know in real life, but it's not like Neil Patrick Harris would be offended that I unfollowed him. When I unfollowed them, I added them to a new "celebs" list I created. I did the same thing for news organizations: unfollowed, then put them on a list.

Since I use Tweetdeck, I can add a new column for each list (by clicking the plus sign at the top left). So now I always see the columns for the people I follow:

And, if I scroll across the page, I see the columns of people I'm not following but have on lists:

The users there show up just the same as the users I'm really following. (That last one is my "People I want to follow" list, where I add people I do want to follow when I'm able to.)

You can add as many columns as you want to make your following list more manageable or to thwart Twitter's follow limit. Mwoohoohoohahaha!

For more cool Twitter things, see this article, 6 Little Know, Highly Useful Features of Twitter.com. I thought I was so Twitter-smart, but I only knew the one about changing your Twitter name.

Now I'd better sign off before I add blogger injury to my revision arm.

Running Around the Internet Like One of Those Leash Kids

At the beginning of the month I received my edit letter for the Book That Comes Out Next Year (and by "edit letter" I mean "the full manuscript with a bunch of writing in the margins and sticky notes throughout.") I've looked at the first few pages, but I'll get the bends if I dive into it too quickly, so for now it's sitting on my desk until we get used to one another. Plus, I need to wrap up the revisions for Book I Want To Submit To Agent Soon. Once I've sent that in, I can give my full attention to Book One.

Naturally, with two books to revise, I've been playing around on the Internet a lot. Besides the posts I've done here, I've been showing up in a few other places around the web lately.

When I read about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival last month, I knew I wanted to send in a video, and right away I thought of the comic potential of a conversation based on the 2007 winner, The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. See the post on James Kennedy's blog to find out more about the controversy behind the book, if you're not familiar with it. The video even has a mention of Snooki, in keeping with my unintentional Snookipalooza this month.

And over on the Will Write For Cake blog, I wrote a long Twitter tutorial post that should help if you're wanting to get started on Twitter or if you've already been using it but feel like you're still flailing and lost.

And I have a shiny new website! I meant just to reserve the domain name for now, but I started clicking on templates and couldn't stop myself. 

I'd better go for now. The edit letter is doing that Fatal Attraction "I'm not going to be ignored" bit. It thinks it's so funny.