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Meg Waite Clayton

Author of the international bestsellers The Postmistress of Paris, The Last Train to London, and 6 other novels

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March 10, 2013 By Meg Waite Clayton

11 Twitter Tips for Authors + Others

What makes people follow, favorite, click, and retweet? And does that have anything to do with who buys what books? Today, I came across a Stanford study, Who Gives a Tweet, that provides some answers to what kinds of tweets people like. My take-away from the four-page, fairly technical report:

The Wednesday Daughters novel cover
I’m testing the boundaries of this self-promotion thing. What do you think?

1. Funny is good.
2. Informative is even better.
3. People like to be asked, so polish up that question mark.
4. No one likes a whiner. Well, almost no one. And no one likes a bore. Not even those few folks who don’t mind whiners.
5. Surprisingly, people like a self-promoter. (I confess, I did consider omitting this.)
6. And they like random thoughts.
7. #Don’t #overuse #hashtags.
8. @mention @your own risk.*
Elsewhere I found three other helpful hints:
9. Tweets on weekends and afternoons get more response than at other times (although afternoon Pacific time is, of course, evening on the East Coast, and even later in Britain, and this is a global thing, right?)
10. Links imbedded in the middle get more clicks that those else-tweet, and
11. A tweet including a request to be retweeted … is more likely to be.
How does that translate into selling books? Well, your guess is as good as mine. But I go by the theory that anyone who has connected with me and, hopefully, found my tweets informative (if somewhat self-promoting), is more likely to read something with my name on it.
If you found this helpful, please do use the twitter link below! – Meg

*From the Stanford study, since I’ve gotten some questions about this one: “Twitter-specific syntax was a common source of complaint, particularly the overuse of hashtags and @mentions … Users also disliked tweets mentioning someone rather than just @replying or Direct Messaging them.”
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Filed Under: Book Marketing Tips, Meg's Posts

Meg Waite Clayton


Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of eight novels, including the Good Morning America Buzz pick and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice THE POSTMISTRESS OF PARIS, the National Jewish Book Award finalist THE LAST TRAIN TO LONDON, the Langum-Prize honored THE RACE FOR PARIS, and THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS, one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time. Her novels have been published in 23 languages. She has also written more than 100 pieces for major newspapers, magazines, and public radio, mentors in the OpEd Project, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the California bar. megwaiteclayton.com

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