Using Twitter

Today is Twitter Thursday. Yes this blog post has Twitter as the main theme. 

I was sceptical about Twitter but I am beginning to change my mind. If you regard Twitter as a tool and use it as such then it can be a very useful tool in the marketing tool box.

I use Twitter to find information to share with you...tricky huh. I follow leaders in the fields that I am interested in. They tweet their blog post titles and if I see anything of interest I go and have a look.

My own blog posts get posted to Twitter for my followers. Anything that goes up on my Amplify page also gets posted to Twitter.

I don’t use Twitter to talk about myself or what I’m doing...I find Twitter streams on professional sites can be full of silly minutiae of some people’s lives and that detracts from the professional image that these sites want to portray. If you have a personal blog then it is appropriate to put a twitter stream in there.

So from the Twitter feed today....

Tony Eldridge of Blogmarketing tips for authors has an interview with Melissa Giovagnoli where she shares 3 internet marketing tips. and it is no surprise that Melissa mentions Twitter and what you can do with it.

 Now Tony is the Twitter King and he has previously posted a great article from Penny Sansevieri which had a huge list of twitter tips for author marketing.

Margaret Atwood is a fan of Twitter and she recently wrote a very funny article for the Guardian newspaper about how she came to be involved...of course there are a few digs at her publishers on why she chose to do her own website. Margaret is all about communication.

So what's it all about, this Twitter? Is it signalling, like telegraphs? Is it Zen poetry? Is it jokes scribbled on the washroom wall? Is it John Hearts Mary carved on a tree? Let's just say it's communication, and communication is something human beings like to do.

Gail Carson Levine author of numerous best selling children’s books has a great  blog which I pop in to from time to time...this week she is looking at ideas and where they come from if you are stuck.

I found this a great read and very pertinent to me as I am writing a chapter for a fun project that several writers are involved with...It is just early stages but the possibilities of sending characters on a wild goose chase and also authors as they have to follow on in their own chapters is irresistible and Gail’s blog post fits right into this spirit.

People have built on stories forever. Shakespeare did it. The playwright George Bernard Shaw did it. I do it (to put myself in exalted company) when I adapt fairy tales for my own use.

Over on my Amplify page there is a link to an article about using book trailers to grab agents attention.

A link to a report on a Publishers Weekly panel where they looked at what teens are reading now...fat vampires?

And a link to a comprehensive article on the recent Bologna book fair - what publishers want and what is selling.

Spinning Gold News...Adele Broadbent is launching her book (which was picked up at the Spinning Gold conference) next month.

Tonight Mandy Hager, who launched her first book in her trilogy, The Crossing, at Spinning Gold, launches the second book at The Children’s Book Shop Kilbirnie Wellington.

And in pure gossip Spinning Gold number 2 may be held in Auckland...

Just finally Justine Larbalesteir is having a moment about why reviewers are saying a book obviously set in NZ is Australian and rightly so...the comments are interesting and thought provoking...my favourite was the comment that had one poor US citizen confused -isn’t New Zealand Middle Earth ?

maureen
pic is alien twitter bird...yes i know geek strikes again

Awards... Lets Amplify...OK?

Awards...who needs ‘em....

Um, well lots of us do... so we know what to read...or who to envy...who to celebrate with....

As I have said before, we need to do more celebrating of our amazing children’s writers in this country. Yesterday, the shortlist for the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2010 came out.

Once again I wish there was a longer short list...because I know many great Kiwi writers who published great books last year and deserved to be on it and were not. Sigh.(drowning sorrows with wine...)

I was also interested to see the make up of the Young Adult Short List...how would you choose from that stellar bunch? I’ve said it before, but we have amazing Children’s and Young Adult writers living in this country... (and Lia was born here.)

The other thing that caught my eye was the Aussie publishers who made sure that their Kiwi born writers books were submitted to the awards...coz they should be, as Elizabeth Knox pointed out last year when her Aussie published book wasn’t submitted. (They won’t make that mistake again...)

I note that the mistake I saw yesterday, on the booksellers website, that had Cowshed Christmas written by Gavin Bishop and illustrated by Joy Cowley has been fixed up...and that all the illustrators have equal billing with the author on the website today.

In the Picture Book category, another strong showing which has TVNZ slavering...Novice up against heavyweight authors...yes but what about Kyle I think...is he up against himself or Katerina Mataira’s translation of his words and if it wins who gets the award...the translator or the author? (and what does it all mean then...)

The Non fiction section has the usual spread of very different ages and stages of information. What a job to try to compare such a wide ranging group with each other. (In the ring today we have Willie against Ben and Mark...)

Oh plenty to ponder and discuss and gossip about...

Congratulations to everyone. A special wave out to all my friends who are spread out across the list, I bask in your reflected glory and wine drinking has commenced to toast you all...(like I needed an excuse. I foresee a tipsy weekend is ahead of me what with commiserations, congratulations and a birthday.)

In my continuing exploration of Social Media as it applies to marketing I have been thinking about this cool site that Jon Bard of CBI mentioned. Amplify is the place you always wanted to store those blog clippings, interesting news etc etc that you keep to yourself, because it would just be too hard to post the links to the six different social media sites you belong to....

Aha...Amplify does it for you. Clip once...click the social media links and you are done!

Best of all you can add your take on what you clip...so all your many followers can see and engage in conversation about it or not...so many possibilities...

And finally a very very good article on the future in Digital Publishing...we don’t know where we are going but we are going somewhere...

Unlike the author in this video....Did any one of our finalists have this conversation with their editors???

enjoy

maureen

RIP Jo Nobel