Twitter twats and twots.

Now, I’m not an expert at using various social media platforms for the purposes of promoting my book. However, I’m an expert in what riles and annoys me.

When I first signed up for twitter I hadn’t a clue how it worked; it might have been an age thing, it might have been a limited knowledge of all things technical. I sat there for a while watching to see how things worked, following people who seemed to know what they were doing, until  I then tentatively started to follow suit.

What I didn’t do though was to follow people and then as soon as they followed back hit them with “a here’s my book go and buy it. It’s the best book ever and you don’t know what you’re missing” type tweet….or indeed a DM to the same effect.

What the hell do they think they are doing?

Spattered all over twitter, blogs, web-sites etc there is information regarding this practice. It universally tells you not to do this. I found this out and I know diddly-squat, so why do some cretins still do it?

All the authors on twitter have books to sell; but, be true here, who clicks on a book link from a new follower and immediately spends hard earned cash on a book that you know nothing about? Who amongst us is waiting with baited breath for that tweet to come flying into notifications so that we can find out what a total stranger has written. Of course you know it’s a bestseller and it is going to take the publishing world by storm; how do you know? Because they’ve just told you.

It gives authors a bad name. It gives the self-publishing industry a bad name. It gives book promotions a bad name. It gives YOU who do this a bad name. It is not a nice thing to do, so don’t do it!

Build your platform slowly. Interact with the people you follow. Be friendly. Let people find out a bit about you, and about your book, organically. Don’t be a pain in the arse. Above all, learn how to use social media properly.

Okay, rant over. I will now crawl back into my comfy little scribbling hole.