Twitter Karma

During the last two months or so, I've become a bit of a twitter junkie.  I already had a twitter account, which I used to follow various celebrities, artists or comedians that I was interested in.  Then I read a book that I downloaded from Amazon onto kindle by an independent fantasy author, M R Mathias, called 'The First Steps.'  It was very reasonably priced.  So, as I was new to self-publishing, I thought that I'd get some information from someone who had been self-publishing for a while and had some advice to offer.


One of the things that the author suggested was signing up to The Independent Author Network.  I looked into this and saw that the criteria for becoming a member involved having a minimum of 100 followers on twitter.  At that time, I wasn't a tweeter, just a follower to a select few.  So, I could not see how I was going to be able to gather that many followers when I had about nine at the time (all of whom were close friends or family).


I started becoming more active on twitter by following like-minded users.  I searched using the hash tags for writing, writer, kindle, etc and soon came across kindred spirits to connect with.  As well as following, I also posted tweets with links to my blog and Amazon.  It became clear that I needed to keep up with my end on the posting front, but I couldn't in good conscience persist with the same thing over and over again.  I understand that tweets can quickly get drowned out amongst the mass and it's worth re-posting links with a view to promoting yourself.  But, it can amount to spam if you're not careful or discreet, which some may not think twice about.  I, however, would prefer not to annoy those that have been decent enough to reciprocate my 'follow.'  Maybe that's where I'm going wrong.  Maybe those who are achieving success are those that aren't too polite to refrain from spamming.  They do say that nice guys finish last, don't they?


This made me realise that I couldn't rest on my laurels.  I needed new things to tweet about and this motivated me to produce a couple of flash fiction shorts, which I have posted to my blog, and to keep up with my blog posts.  Like I said earlier, I then became an avid twitter user and now have over 700 followers.  But, I've since learned that it's not all about gathering followers.  I've enjoyed connecting with others who have mutual agendas, interests, passions and aspirations.  I'm still not getting the sales that I would have hoped for and didn't expect immediate success.  It's been successful in other ways - it's been satisfying.


This past weekend saw my first two sales of 'The Ellroy Deflection' outside of the UK courtesy of @KateSpencer2go (Kate Spencer) and @ReneeMJ (Rennee Miller) after they followed me back.


If you're reading this and want to follow me on Twitter - my ID is @DK_Thomas 


Also, my Author Page on The Indepedent Author Network can be accessed here