How to Manage Twitter for Authors

Welcome to Twitter Tuesdays where I feature tips on how to use Twitter for authors by authors, like the tips that will be in my upcoming book, The Writer’s Guide To Twitter for Fiction Authors. This week we have a personal story on how Twitter helped author, Alica Mckenna Johnson, build her author platform, and how she uses tools, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. Thanks Alica! Follow her on Twitter.

PS. Meanwhile enjoy other writing resources, my bestselling guides, Overcome Writer’s Block: 10 Writing Sparks to Ignite Your Creativity and The Writer’s Adventure Guide: 12 Stages to Writing Your Book.

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When I first joined Twitter it was just for fun, no deep purpose, no networking, just seeing what wickedly snarky thing my sister was saying about her work, and being utterly delighted when I found George Takei to follow. OH MY!

Then I finished my novel and after an hour of celebration I realized that I needed to take the next steps, editing — ACK, deciding how to publish my book — heads self-pub or tails traditional, and then promoting myself: who’s going to care about me?

So I took several classes, including one with Beth 🙂 [thanks Alica!] and began taking small baby steps towards building a social media network.

My daily Twitter feed slowly became less snark from my sister and laughing with celebrities (who are delighted that I personally am following them) to being filled wth fellow writers celebrating, commiserating, and sharing.

At first I was thrilled. I was doing it! I was building a social networking empire! Woo-hoo! And then I was getting so many tweets a day that I couldn’t keep up and hadn’t seen anything my sister had posted in days.

I felt overwhelmed and couldn’t figure out how other authors got anything done. Then in the midst of my despair, some told me to download Tweetdeck, and another person suggested Hootsuite. I won’t claim to be an expert or even fairly good with either. But I found them to be invaluable. For me Tweetdeck works better for me. But in truth I use both, Hootsuite at work where I can’t download anything into my computer, and Tweetdeck at home.

I spent an hour sorting all the people I follow into lists and making columns and now I can easily take care of all my Twitter fun. I see the blog posts for other writers and the posts from my sister. I comment and make new friends, and while I don’t have a social media empire, I’m having fun seeing what people are up to, in small 140-character snapshots of their lives.

I also post about my day, blog updates, and hopefully soon book release excitement. Twitter can look intimidating, but with a little planning and with Tweetdeck or Hootsuite it can also be a lot of fun and a great way to expand your network and promote yourself. I hope to tweet with you there at http://twitter.com/#!/alicamj

Alica McKenna Johnson writes about snarky girls, kind boys, and the adults trying to keep them alive. After day dreaming for the first thirty years of life, Alica finally began writing her stories down, much to the delight of her readers. As Alica sits in her armchair at home dreaming of traveling the world, her diverse characters explore for her listening to music, seeing the sights, and eating exotic foods.

Phoenix Child, a YA urban fantasy and Alica’s debut novel will be out this fall.

You can find out more about Alica at:

http://alicamckennajohnson.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1214620857

http://twitter.com/#!/alicamj

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More Twitter Tips for Authors next Tuesday, and more to come in my forthcoming ebook, The Writer’s Guide to Twitter for Fiction Authors. Meanwhile enjoy other writing resources, my bestselling guides, Overcome Writer’s Block: 10 Writing Sparks to Ignite Your Creativity and The Writer’s Adventure Guide: 12 Stages to Writing Your Book.