Tweedly-deedly deet, tweet, tweet!

In pursuit of readers, I try to be out on the social network, working it every day. Facebook, Twitter, Kindle Boards, Amazon discussions, Scribd, I'll go any where I can find people. The trick is, of course, to not look desperate. You don't get readers that way, any better than you catch a spouse.

So you talk about your personal life, and ask people about theirs. You recommend and encourage other writers. You post something interesting you saw somewhere else, or ask a dumb question. And every so often, you say, "hey, I got a book here you might like."

The tool I have the worst time with is Twitter. I spend some weeks with multiple daily Tweets, then I kind of fall off the map for awhile. It's been a hard groove to get into; however, I have learned some Twitter-Tips I'd like to pass along.

1. Don't over-tweet. If you're tweeting once an hour, I'm okay with that. Even a few times within a single hour is okay. But when I see multiple tweets in a row from the same person, I'm convinced they must have gone off their meds. If you do this, call your doctor immediately. I worry about you.

2. Say something interesting. I don't want to know that you just brushed your teeth, or that you hate your job, or you bought new shoes. I'd want to know if you bought new shoes for me. I also don't care what you just had for lunch, unless you say it in the most amusing way.

3. If you feel the need to tweet and can't think of anything interesting, find an interesting tweet from someone else and re-tweet that. In the Twitterverse, it's not plagiarism, it's a trend.

4. Don't just constantly tell me to buy your book or your product or sign up for your service. The only personality I get from you when you do this is that used car salesman with the plaid jacket and the slicked-back hair. It's like staring at frickin' billboard.

5. DON'T TWEET IN ALL CAPS. IT'S ANNOYING (see this for why - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vRiA91O14U&feature=related). I can read you perfectly clearly when you use lower case. If you use caps all the time, how am I supposed to tell when you're excited about something?


6. Reply to people's Tweets. If you just keep typing those tweets without any interaction, it's like, hmm, like that other activity people do alone that gives them intensely personal pleasure. You know - eating chocolate.

7. Follow folks. I mean, come on, Mr. Look-I-Tweet-But-I-Don't-Read Celebrity. If you want me to read your brilliance, have the decency to follow me back. It's not like I'm gonna stalk you. I've got a few more things on my to-do list first.

8. #Don't #put #a #hashtag #in #front #of #every #word #just #in #case #one #of #those #words #is #the #trend #for #the #day. Gah.

9. Don't put the hashtag trend word in every Tweet, even if the Tweet has nothing to do with the subject. That's needy.

10. Do give your followers a shout-out on #FollowFriday, #WriterWednesday, whatever #MM stands for, etc. 

Those are ten that came to mind pretty easily. Did I miss any? If I did, just Tweet me - http://www.twitter.com/GeeCarl 

Why buy the cow?

If you're a writer and you haven't checked out Scribd.com, do so as soon as your tush hits the chair and you read this blog. Because, of course, the first thing you do when you fire up the laptop is check for a new edition of my blog, right?

Okay, I couldn't type that with a straight face.

Anyway, Scribd is an online resource for posting your writing and gaining a readership. When I first tried it, I wasn't that convinced. I started by posting a few chapters of Hit or Missus, my as-yet-unpublished follow up to Freezer Burn. I thought, well, let's see if I can get anyone's interest, or even critiques of what I've got going. For those of you who are saying, wait, what publisher will want your material after you've published it online?

First of all, I won't put the whole thing on Scribd. Second, if I can show a publisher that I've got this audience anxiously waiting for the end of the story, how is that going to hurt me?

The results were slow at first, and then picked up to a nice, if moderate pace. I find that I have to re-readcast my work every once in awhile to re-generate interest.

The real interest came when I posted a few files of What Would Erma Do? I began with a simple teaser, then posted the first chapter, and finally an excerpt dealing with a topic I had addressed recently. My audience increased immediately to over a thousand reads. It seems like one more way to reach readers via the Internet.

The reason I'm telling you all this is that one of the items I've read is a paper by Jacqui Murray called How to Publish Your Blog on Kindle. Apparently, people give Amazon a link to feed their blogs to a subscription service for the Kindle. Readers can subscribe for a nominal fee.

Pay for a blog? Are they nuts?

I can't honestly figure out why anyone would buy a subscription to what they can get for free, unless, as Jacqui points out, they don't always have access to a computer but do carry a Kindle or an iPad and must have your blog right now. Seems like a pretty flimsy excuse, but she's making a little money off her blog. Not enough to buy the private island with a jet, but a few bucks every month.

You know me - I figured, why not? My blog is now available for the low, low fee of $1.99 a month, delivered to your device automatically. FYI, Amazon set the subscription price. Some blogs are $0.99, some are $1.99, and a few are higher. I don't know how they figure the rate, but I get a cut of it.

I'll let you know how the experiment progresses.