Before you rush off to start posting announcements about your books and signings, however, be aware that unless you’re a Stephenie Meyer or Meg Cabot or other Big Name Author, just having a twitterfeed with pure promotional announcements (this includes links to your blog) is going to be pretty boring to most people.

Some people may follow your feed for information, similar to following an RSS feed. In my opinion, however, setting up an announcements-only feed is like providing an RSS feed. Communication is one way only. Twitter accounts maintained by organizations or groups can get away with this but whenever I see a single author Twitter account that ONLY consists of promo tweets, then I have no inclination to follow them.

Why? Because that's not why I'm on Twitter. If I wanted to just follow your announcements, I'll add your RSS feed to Google Reader. Twitter is all about community and interaction. An author who only tweets about himself or herself often comes across as self-centered ("It's all about ME ME ME. I don't care what YOU have to say.")

"But what about my FANS?" you may ask. "They'll be interested in what I have to say."

True, but then again your current fan base is probably already following your blog. Twitter can be a good way of finding new readers in addition to keeping your current fans interested.

Unless you’re a BNA (Big Name Author), having a Twitterfeed packed with day-to-day details about what you had for lunch or how bored you are is also not going to appeal to the masses.

With an awareness of Twitter etiquette and the community, however, there are many ways you can promote yourself on Twitter as an author in addition to what you post, including chats, book parties, live interviews, contests, and other events. Including some personal info in your regular posts is not a bad thing, as long as you don’t go overboard.

More about these topics in a future post.

Last updated on July 2, 2010 by Debbie Ridpath Ohi