The Trouble With Twitter
Should authors tweet? Not everyone thinks so. In fact, some people think they should not. And they think it very strongly.
In The Telegraph, novelist Matt Haig (The Bradley, Runaway Troll) argues in favor of beating the Twitter bushes on behalf of your own books:
The internet is the best thing that has ever happened for writers.
Not everyone agrees with this.
Some people wish writers would stay the hell off Twitter and stick to writing their books.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the way authors use the internet. One successful writer, Mohsin Hamid (@mohsin_hamid), has been branded a "monster" for retweeting praise of his books during his latest book tour.
Personally, I thought this was a bit harsh. But I would think that because I am also a "monster". In the sense that if you say something really nice on Twitter about my books or comment on this article, there is a chance I'll retweet it (@matthaig1).The full piece is here.
Haig’s new novel, The Humans, will be published by Canongate in May. One can safely assume you’ll hear a tweet or two about it from him on Twitter.
Meanwhile, moving forward on a theme, The Telegraph also looks at the 10 most “Prolific Author on Twitter.” Come see who joins Neil Gaiman, Ian Rankin and Margaret Atwood as the chattiest authors… in 140 characters or less.
posted by Linda L. Richards at 1:15 PM
4 Comments:
Of course authors should Tweet. The question is, HOW should they tweet? Now that takes some careful navigation, and Twitter moves so fast it's hard to do it right.
Think if Barbara Cartland had been on Twitter . . .
It's a lonely life as an author. Twitter makes it less so.
I agree they should tweet and why not share rave reviews about their book. My dilemma is when to log out of twitter and return to writing, but I've made some brilliant connections by staying on a few minutes longer. I'm sure there will be plenty of supportive retweets of Matt Haig's book when it is launched!
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