My Resistance to Twitter is Getting Weaker

While I’m still skeptical about Twitter’s ability to sell any books for publishers, I can’t really deny that Twitter is supporting the “cult of personality” type following that authors now enjoy. It seems like an author’s book doesn’t matter as much as their online presence and persona. If publishers could make money every time someone read the Twitter or Facebook posts of their authors, perhaps they wouldn’t be so worried about financial problems.

But, since everyone’s following the authors anyway, here’s a list of the most popular:

50 Best Book People to Follow on Twitter

There are some great authors on this list, including Neil Gaiman, Eoin Colfer, and J.K Rowling, as well as some publishers, book reviewers, and publishing news sites.

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Twitter? Still Skeptical

I have to admit I’ve been very reluctant to join Twitter. It seems silly to post about everything and anything, in short spurts. As this blog shows, I usually have more than a couple sentences worth of whatever to say. But apparently, I’m wrong to doubt the effectiveness of Twitter  – it’s a great way to network according to Publishing Trends’ article “Twitter isn’t Stupid – But Publishers Need to Be Smart About Using It. Here’s How.”

According to the article, publishers need to develop a very personal presence on Twitter. People don’t want to hear about books, they want to hear about people. That makes sense to me, since I would never want to check a site that just talks about how great their books are. Also, a lot of people who watch/read Twitter also read blogs or write their own blogs. So why don’t I?

But this use of Twitter actually corresponds to my earlier post about publisher branding. I think if publishers can use Twitter effectively, people will begin to follow the publisher and then recognize the publisher’s books and buy them! Plus, even just stimulating conversation about the books is a good thing. So, I guess maybe sometime soon I’ll bite the bullet and join Twitter.

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