An Author’s Friendly Guide to Twitter

Twitter is a bit like getting published; it can be hellish at first, time consuming and bewildering, but if you persevere, the benefits can be huge. I make no secret of the fact that I love Twitter, nor of the fact that when I first tried it over a year ago I absolutely hated it. It was an awful experience, and one that I hear repeated again and again.

Before I stopped building my copywriting business to focus on the creative writing (you can read about why in my guest post on Pam Slim’s site) I started a series of posts about Twitter, and I felt it was time to bring those posts over here instead and pick up the series once more.

The Author’s Friendly Guide to Twitter, Part 1: The Very Basics (Good for those of you who are wondering how twitter works, and perhaps have signed up but not done much with your account.)

The Author’s Friendly Guide to Twitter, Part 2: Getting Started (For those of you who either haven’t signed up yet, or have signed up but not get everything sorted in your profile, and what to do afterwards.)

The Author’s Friendly Guide to Twitter, Part 3: Finding (real) people (So once you’re ready, how do you find nice people who aren’t just trying to sell stuff all the time?)

More coming soon!

But is Twitter useful for writers?

If you doubt whether Twitter is useful for writers, trust me when I tell you it can be wonderful. It led to my publishing deal, formed friendships with people I have subsequently met in the real world and is one of the biggest sources of traffic to this site. Hopefully this series will help you get to grips with it, but first:

DON’T PANIC

Everything is going to be okay. I’m not going to bamboozle you with jargon, or try and convince you that Twitter is ‘amazingandwhyhaven’tyougot20,000followersalready?’ like some people said to me about two years before I even went near it.

No siree Bob, none of that stuff and nonsense here. This is a relaxed, gentle guide for people who:

  • Have heard of something called Twitter but not dared go there
  • Signed up, spent twenty minutes saying “What the hell is all the fuss about?” and never went back
  • Are some days/weeks/months in and still feeling out of their depth
  • Are so convinced that Twitter is a complete waste of time they don’t want to risk getting sucked in

That’s all fine. If you’re a twitter expert you can hang out with me in the comments and put me straight if I make a mistake!

Over this series on Twitter, I’ll be covering:

The basic anatomy of Twitter
How to get started
How to find people to follow
Twitter etiquette
Programs that people use to make Twitter easier to interact with
How to get the best experience from Twitter
How Twitter can be useful to you as a writer

If there’s anything else you’d like me to cover, let me know in the comments.