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I do have a website with a blog and Facebook page for my author pen name. Is there any marketing benefit to having a Twitter account? Though I've been used personal computers for decades, I don't understand this kind of hype.

Hi Trana, I'd be interested in hearing answers to this. I have both a Twitter and Instagram account and placed a couple books specials...haven't seen any results from either (and somehow, I have a lot of followers....lol).

At least 80% of the comments I've heard about Twitter and FB accounts belonging to authors say that they're no longer worthwhile. I can't speak from a personal viewpoint as I only use FB very, very rarely and mostly to comment on my family's posts. I can't keep up with everything and I salute anyone who can.

Hello Trana, I recently set up a Twitter account. I find it useful for now. You get to engage with new people, exchange ideas, and self-promote. In terms of sales, however, it did not create any grand effects though I can say that some people were interested in my book & bought it. It is also useful to find bloggers who are looking for guest posts & author interviews.

Thanks for your interesting comments, Gail, Anna, and Dion!

So far I have been on Twitter on and off since 2014. But I have not made any headway with my 4K+ followers. Perhaps I do it all wrong. But I know a mega-seller author from my area who has about 30K cheerleaders/followers and he swears on Twitter.

Wanjiru wrote: "So far I have been on Twitter on and off since 2014. But I have not made any headway with my 4K+ followers. Perhaps I do it all wrong. But I know a mega-seller author from my area who has about 30K..."

I appreciate your sharing this info. Thank you.

Twitter isn't necessary. You might get a sale or two if you use the one big ad person (Ask David it believe it is) but the only thing it's good for is getting your name out there and wasting more time (which I have very little of). You can have 100K followers, but only a few retweets about you. They will retweet the latest thing

The life of a tweet is about 20 min. So why are you wasting your time on something that if someone doesn't see it in 20 min, it's gone.

B.A. wrote: "Twitter isn't necessary."

Thanks for letting me know this B.A.!

I'm pretty close to just deleting my Twitter. It's very hard to make sales or spread the word about your book because there's so many people doing the same thing. I wouldn't say you definitely should NOT do Twitter, but keep your expectations low. About the only real positive is meeting a couple cool people who also write.

Let me add this to this thread. When you are marketing or trying to get your name out there, you need to concentrate on what will get you the most sales. From all the marketing gurus out there, the area where you need to concentrate is building that list and getting them to spread your name.

Another way is outreach. That is getting to know people who have big lists like bloggers, podcasters, other authors. Give them something of value and most will help you out. Make sure what you write will fit into what they are doing or writing.

Those are the areas where you need to concentrate. 90% of your sales will come from your email list. Do your best to get people who buy your book on your list. I've been getting a lot of signups from my website. (30 in the last month). That doesn't sound like a whole lot until you multiply that by 12. If you can do that or more each month, you'll be getting fans...people who came to you.

Twitter is one of those things you can put down to a minimal percentage. FB is another one. Yes, have a page. Yes, post to that page, but keep referring them back to your site to sign up for your list. Instagram, yes you can interact on there and post pictures, etc keep that to the 10-20% category. In other words, don't waste too much time on there.

The same goes for ads. Put your money where you'll get the best return. $50 on Amazon will get you more sales than $50 on FB. If you can get a Bookbub ad....that is were you'll get more sales.

The whole idea is to do what will get you the biggest returns for what you invest be it time or money.

Wanjiru wrote: "So far I have been on Twitter on and off since 2014. But I have not made any headway with my 4K+ followers. Perhaps I do it all wrong. But I know a mega-seller author from my area who has about 30K..."

I too have a twitter account but stopped using it because my niche was not active there or I just didn’t give it enough time. Presently, on Instagram and building my tribe, so no sells because my books 📚 aren’t ready yet. Also I don’t think the twitter account went well because I didn’t put much into it for the 4 months I was active. Hope this helped.

I'm surprised that every comment so far is negative on Twitter. I get a lot of traffic to my blogs and ebooks through Twitter. Currently my blog numbers for the past 30 days show I'm still getting and average of 357 pageviews/day on my writing blog and 520 pageviews/day on my Bible Prophecies Fulfilled blog (and I haven't written a post on either for a couple of years now).

Also, when my Tweets stop rolling out my book sales stop (though I don't sell a ton of books like some of you may). I do have hundreds of tweets stored for my blog posts and I use an automated service to keep them posting regularly to my 4 Twitter accounts, but I find it very worth it to keep that going. Especially since I'm working to get more books written (which I haven't done for a while) and I'm working to get my out-of-print books published again. I want to keep up those contacts so I have a (hopefully) ready audience when I roll out a new book.

I also post on Facebook. To be honest, I haven't been as active on Facebook recently since the revelations of how they censor accounts. And Twitter does the same. I don't plan to delete my accounts, but I have moved to MeWe and am building my contacts there and am formulating plans to do more on that platform as a "replacement" for Facebook.

Dianne wrote: "I'm surprised that every comment so far is negative on Twitter. I get a lot of traffic to my blogs and ebooks through Twitter. Currently my blog numbers for the past 30 days show I'm still getting ..."
Thank you for sharing that, Dianne! I'm glad to hear you get results from linking to your writing blog on Twitter. I recently started posting about the things I'm learning as I delve into self-publishing, like the most current way to get subcategories added to a book on Amazon.

Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie author, I'm struggling to figure out what KIND of posts work on Twitter.
2) Can anyone share any useful hashtags that I can use to follow the conversation in the indie author world and add them where appropriate?
Thank you!

I think it's best to have a mix of social media sites in the bag. I've sold books and picked up readers on Twitter. It's not going to change your whole world over night and you've got to keep up on it to make any headway, but I'd say it's worth having. I've picked up readers on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ too, but not nearly as many. Also, I tend to make more solid connections on Twitter than on any of the others.

Debra wrote: "Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie author, I'm struggling to figure..."

Would someone tell me what a hashtag is and how to use them (insert laughing emoji - I'm on Twitter, yet shamefully admit I don't know how to 'use' hashtags)

Gail wrote: "Debra wrote: "Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie author, I'm strugg..."

Well damn, if you are getting traction without hashtags, then you are doing many things right! I think I just gotta post more.

I deleted my Twitter years ago. But when I had a Twitter I quickly figured out it wasn't good as a marketing tool for sales. It became for a while a social media tool for my reviews on tv shows, particularly tv series and I was able to gain followers (total over 1,900).

And my consistent interaction with my followers and vice versa kept me with a steady following, but only with this shared interest of tv certain shows my followers and I liked to comment on and discuss with each other.

And when I finally became bored with this method that totally had taken on a life of its own to the point that if I missed a day or even a week talking about these shows with them (even when my computer was down) I was quickly unfollowed or some followers would stop engaging with me or I had to build the engagement back up with them and get a consistency with this sameness for re-follow or re-engagement to flow steady again. It was pointless and monotonous.

And I saw no need to keep my Twitter account any longer. I also came to the same conclusion about my Facebook account and deleted it this past summer. The weight has been lifted and my social media is more manageable and better suited for me now. I still have my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ blog and a few social media sites that I'm keeping up with and have been beneficial to me. Taking this inventory was the best thing for me.

Dianne wrote: "I'm surprised that every comment so far is negative on Twitter. I get a lot of traffic to my blogs and ebooks through Twitter. Currently my blog numbers for the past 30 days show I'm still getting ..."

I didn’t know you could link your blog to Twitter. Can you tell me how, if it’s not to much or tell me where I can go to do it?

I'm on Twitter but use it mostly to connect with people who have an interest in the era I write historical fiction about. I believe I do get some sales from it, plus I learn stuff from other people with the same interest. It's great as a tool to connect with people who might be interested in your book!

At the same time I will say that my Twitter feed is filled with book ads, most of which I ignore. I really question the value of Twitter as an advertising medium, even though it costs nothing to post a Tweet about your book. You get what you pay for?

Hi Lyvita. My blog is not linked to my Twitter. I simply post Tweets that link to my blog. Here's how I do it: Go to your blog and pick an "evergreen" post (one that won't go out of date). Create a Tweet for it including these 3 parts: a message, a hashtag, and a link to that blog post. Your message can be a great sentence out of your blog post, the blog post title, or a description of the post you make up, or whatever. Put a hashtag in front of a key word that will attract the readers you want or add a hashtag-word at the end like #writers. Then put the link to your blog post at the end. Once you have your Tweet all ready, don't post it yet! Copy the whole thing and paste it into an Excel or other spreadsheet. Put it in column 2 and make a note to yourself in column 1 about which blog post it links to or whatever. Once you have your Tweet safely stored and saved, then go back and post your Tweet. Next time just copy/paste it to Twitter. Saves a lot of time.

If you'll store your Tweets as you create them, you won't have to keep creating them each time. You'll build up a database of Tweets you can copy/paste. Then use Buffer.com or Hootsuite.com to schedule them to go out.

Authors can create one or more Tweets for each book that link to a buy page. Store them too. I use Buffer for my book Tweets and have 3 Tweets a day post. Then I just visit Buffer every few days to reload. You can have 10 queued per account on the free Buffer account there. If you have more than one Twitter handle, open a different Buffer account foe each one with a different email. You can have 30 Tweets queued on the free Hootsuite and can connect more than one Twitter account there.

As others mentioned, Tweets go by fast and don't last long. Use this to your advantage by re-using Tweets to your products. Few, if anyone, will notice the repeats.

I hope that helps you, Lyvita.

Debra wrote: "Dianne wrote: "I'm surprised that every comment so far is negative on Twitter. I get a lot of traffic to my blogs and ebooks through Twitter. Currently my blog numbers for the past 30 days show I'm..."

That's great, Debra. I hope you're posting that info on more than Twitter so it sticks around so we can find and read it. :-)

Gail wrote: "Debra wrote: "Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie author, I'm strugg..."

Hi Gail. Not a dumb question -- thanks for asking. A #hashtag is the number sign (shift 3 on your keyboard), also known as the pound sign ($1.00/# = a dollar a pound of potatoes), also known as the hashtag. When you put a hashtag in front of a word with no space or punctuation, it makes that word "searchable." Some say it "curates" that word. In other words, if you do #Romance, then people searching for romance novels who search the word romance will see posts where there's a hashtag in front of that word. In other words, it helps you get more views from people searching for what you have.

Use a hashtag in the text you write or add one at the end of your message. Pick a key word in your post and put a hashtag in front of it. You can have more than one in a post.

Hashtags have become pretty standard across all social media platforms -- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, MeWe, etc. Look for them and you'll see them a lot. #Smile!

E.M. wrote: "I think it's best to have a mix of social media sites in the bag. I've sold books and picked up readers on Twitter. It's not going to change your whole world over night and you've got to keep up on..."

I agree wholeheartedly, E.M.

Dianne wrote: "Debra wrote: "Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie author, I'm strugg..."

No links. Thanks.

Dwayne wrote: "Dianne wrote: "Debra wrote: "Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie aut..."

Whoops. I forgot. So sorry, Dwayne.