by I haven’t really made an effort to gather Twitter followers, because there’s only so much effort one can put into getting people to read you, listen to you, link to you, like you, follow you, etc. Either they come across you and like what they see or read or they don’t. Period.
I have a book coming out however, so I have to give it a little more thought. The first thing I notice is how many people have thousands of Twitter followers and I have, well, a few hundred. SO embarrassing. If anyone has advice about how to get more followers I’d love to hear it.
I started trying to change the look of my Twitter page, but I’m having technical difficulties. Of course. Moan, groan, nothing is ever easy, blah-blah-blah.
Some performers at Union Square. I was sitting on the steps behind them so I couldn’t hear what they were saying to the gathering crowd. It seemed like they were basically saying or doing (and wearing) anything to get people to watch. Given the topic of this post, featuring them seems appropriate.
If there are really popular blogs in your field, you can ask to guest blog, or become a dedicated Commentor, or start send galleys so they can blog about the book.
What more can you do, really?
ONE way you can increase your number of Twitter followers is to BUY them. I just did a Google search and the first site that came up was IntertwitterDOTcom. No, it’s not completely honest (I guess these followers are not real people) & I have no idea how common a practice it is.
Every so often I’ll check out someone’s Tweets but to be honest I rarely find much that holds my attention. Every week or so, Heather “Dooce” Armstrong posts the funniest Tweets she’s read that week – usually a good collection of pithy comments. I have a couple of friends who are pretty prolific Tweeters but they often just read like one side of a not-very-exciting conversation.
Admittedly, I don’t know how these things work but could you have a book giveaway (one of yours, obviously!) draw for people who sign up to follow you on Twitter over a pre-determined period?
I’ve often wondered why the good old fashioned literary feud seems to have gone out of style. Remember when the war between Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal was news? I miss those days. I was only 15 when that on-air kerfuffle happened and it thrilled me.
I’d follow the Tweets of the writer who called out Salman Rushdie.
Right now the only feud worth its name is between Bike Snob NYC and Martin Amis, and Martin Amis doesn’t even know it.
Oh, there’s a great feud between Jay Mcinerney and the now dead David Foster Wallace. But speaking of tweets, you should take a look at Mcinerney’s about DFW!
Nora, I like the idea of a book give away, thank you!!