Do you keep hearing how great Twitter is for book promotion? Have you tried and failed to become rich and famous (or at least occasionally paid and mid-list) with social media, but it’s just not working out? It could be you just haven’t found your Tweeting grove. Let’s look at a few reasons you might not be selling many books on Twitter…
Warning: It should be obvious once you start reading, but the following post is written with my tongue drilling a hole in my cheek. There may be some truth between the lines, or there may not be… I’ll leave it for you to decide!
- Not Tweeting About Books Enough — Posting links to your books (at every single location they are available) ten times a day is not enough. Bump it up to 20 immediately. 50 is better! Your followers won’t mind. Really.
- Not Messaging Enough — It’s great that you promptly assault each new follower with a direct-message plea to buy your book and/or visit your website, but, really, just once? Are you an underachiever or what? Message every follower daily!
- Blurbs for Links Not Enticing Enough — Under no circumstances should you save people time by saying exactly what the link you’re posting is about. Be creative. You’re a writer, aren’t you? Entice your followers with vagueness and obfuscation. They love it!
- Not Enough Hashtags — If you’re #using #less #than #two #hashtags #per #tweet it’s not enough. Everyone who types something remotely related to books should find your tweet. Bonus points if you get rid of your blurbs altogether and post just a link with ten hashtag keywords.
- Not Enough Followers — You may think you’re hot stuff because you have 5,000 followers, but there are people out there with 100,000! That kind of makes you look like an underachiever, now, doesn’t it? Go build up your army. It doesn’t matter if the people following you don’t speak your language, don’t read books, and are only following you because they want you to follow them back. Bodies, man, you need bodies!
- Not Enough Funky Symbols in Your Tweets — Seriously, people, if you write fantasy and aren’t tweeting ascii swords in every other post, you’re losing out on impressing the tweeples with your elite skillz. No, ascii art didn’t go out of style in the 90s. Really. oxx)=———-
Okay, because I feel the need to add something useful here, I’ll repeat what I’ve mentioned in other posts: Twitter isn’t a great place to sell books directly, though, of course, you can still talk yours up from time to time. You might get lucky, but, for the most part, people are there to chat, not whip out their credit cards. The best use of your Twitter time is probably to make friends with fellow authors and bloggers, people who might be willing to review your books, to allow you to host giveaways on their sites, or to let you guest post for them.
Thoughts?
Absolutely. On all points.
Wow, I’ve been doing it all wrong! Let me jump on your advice! (Don’t fret, I too, am kidding.) Well, except for the last paragraph, that was useful. Good post, thank you much.
Yup. I reckon I’m followed by maybe three people who have bought my book (but they are also web friends) and by zero people who might buy my book. Perhaps you have to be a famous author to be followed by fans?
But I’ve picked up some useful information from other people’s tweets.
As for tweet repetition…”Listen very carefully, I will say ziss only once…” is my motto.
Personally, I only manage an occasional book plug on Twitter. Always as an afterthought. My Facebook status gets automatically tweeted so I rarely have to bother with it. I was never able to get into the Twitter revolution. I’m a Twitter failure.