Entering the Twitterverse!
I did it.
I broke down and made a twitter account.
Once I made the decision to self-publish on Kindle, got a couple of books on gaining success as an “indie” writer and both recommended getting a Twitter account to help promote myself. I did, and it did help. I have sales on Amazon UK because of my Twitter presence. Yay me! And while I could go on and on about what Twitter has done to help my writing career… okay… not too much at this point, but it is opening doors… what I really want to talk about is the community I’ve discovered there.
Now I’ve been a part of several insular communities in my life, Renaissance Faire, SCA, Ballroom Dancing, Swing Dancing, Gaming, World of Warcraft, RoTC, among others. I’ve never experienced the breadth of warmth and acceptance as I have from the Independent Writers Community that I discovered through Twitter. At every turn the people have been supportive, offered advice, and been patient with my questions. Indie bestsellers have taken the time to correspond with me. People with thousands of followers have taken time out of their personal writing and promoting to repost my links to my book. Granted, they’re just clicking a button, button, but they are also paying close enough attention to what’s going on in the various indie writer lists to retweet my tweets.
I know that some people cry out against Twitter, just as they do about Facebook and the Internet. There was even a conversation about it over on my Facebook page a few days ago about all the teenage girls posting about Justin Beiber and such. I ahve only had one day where I saw Justin Beiber posts, and the individuals responsible were quickly un-followed on my list. No offence to young Mr. Beiber, and I don’t think he’ll take any. I’m sure he’s very comfortable with me being outside his target audience. Really, the quality of the internet comes down to the same thing as it does in real life: It all depends on the company you decide to keep.
Now the Independent Writer Community was around before I showed up, and I’m sure they didn’t sit around thinking, “that Gallowglas guy is going to start publishing on Kindle, so we better be ready for him,” but none the less, I’m very happy they have accepted into their fold.
Thank you all!
