I am late to the party wheeeeee I am also late to the whole twitter thing. I knew how useful it is, but I never took the time to get into it.
I created a twitter account for my book projects. I intended to just use it to provide status updates on my progress and toss out some tidbits now and then .. get my name out there. Then I thought, "How could this be useful for someone besides me, while helping me at the same time?" So, I am also updating my feeds with progress on the loooong tedious process of getting published and sharing any wisdom gained along the way. Within 2 days, 3 publishers and 2 agents started following me, including Penguin Books. Now I have somewhat of a direct line to these people and they can see what I am doing. Like Ras said, the level of access is unprecedented. I also started following other authors, like Neil Gaimen. He is pretty active. Then there are the publishers and agents I started following. I am getting some personal insight into an industry I know almost nothing about just by watching what these people say and how they think. This is a big thing, as Erika pointed out. For example, I found out there is a general consensus that if your book opens with some "dark and stormy night" scene, or you use the first chapter to introduce all of the characters, in the trash it goes. Some feeds also constantly throw out tips and topics, and information about seminars and other author related events, some local to me. It is so much easier having it dumped on me than weeding through Google searches to find it. I am also loosely affiliated with an online game company. The artists and developers are constantly tweeting about what they are working on and giving an almost real time status on things when problems arise. The tweets about what is coming and the teasers they put out keep the players excited. Excited players spend money. Letting the players know what is going on when technical problems pop up prevents pissed-off players. People will tolerate a lot when they are kept informed. Non-pissed-off players don't take their money elsewhere. They also don't spam the forums and harass us in-game mods. A 30 second tweet by one person saves hours of work for one or more others. Twitter is like any other tool or technology; It's value depends on how you use it. Oh! Also, how many of us here get news or topics we might not have otherwise known about? How much do we benefit from having personal opinions attached to that? Twitter is kind of like a CF-Community digest, digest. That was longer than I planned. Now to lurk until I am called forth once more. On 4/4/2011 1:00 PM, G Money wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Tony Weeg<[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> I'd love to hear why. I really would. >> > > I dunno....I'm just anti-social I guess. > > Other people just don't hold much interest for me......which is probably why > I don't understand the fascination with reality TV...or even cell phones. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:335949 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
