Twitter for Writers 101

Guest post byWillie Handler, author of two satirical novels, The Road Ahead and Loved Mars Hated The Food.

Editor’s Note: There’s a thriving writer community on Twitter. If you plan to promote yourself as an author, mastering this platform is a must. This post assumes you’re starting from zero, but feel free to skip ahead if you already grasp the basics.

What is Social Media?

• Connect with other writers,
• Learn more about writing and publishing, and
• Use social media to market my work

What is Twitter?

Connecting with Other Writers

• Following other writers
• Participating in hashtag games and chats
• Liking and retweeting their tweets
• Leaving comments on tweets posted by other writers

• Their tweets are mostly ads promoting their books or services. I don’t find self-promotion to be very interesting.
• They only retweet other people’s tweets (many of which I may already follow).
• They appear to be more interested in collecting followers than connecting with people (more about that later).
• They post a lot of political tweets. You may be interested in that, but I find politics to be very polarizing. That’s more appropriate for a personal account than a writer account.
• The account appears to be a bot (software that imitates a real person).

Tweet Content

Managing Accounts that you Follow

Learning the Writing Game

Marketing

Willie Handler is a member of the Canadian Author Association – Toronto and the Writers Community of York Region. He has published two satirical novels, The Road Ahead and Loved Mars Hated The Food.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash