Here is my ongoing guide to Twitter, it's usage, interactions, and overall observations as I learn more about this platform from the perspective of a writer. These are mainly aimed at the writing community but I think there's stuff in here that can benefit anyone. You can find Parts 1 and Parts 2 by clicking on those links to read my earlier observations, especially with important things like what not to do with DMs.
Alright let's break it down.
#1: Using Twitter to get the most out of it.
Alright so Twitter is all based on algorithm and engagement. Simply put, the more engagement your post gets, the more it will be engaged with and show up in the algorithm. But there are things that are going to prevent your posts from showing up. Unfortunately those are things like links to external sites (like BMAC) and often images.
But not all images are created equally. If you take pictures of yourself those tend to do better than random meme images. People also seem to like videos, especially art, but don’t think that’s going to be instant guaranteed success. Sometimes you have to just get lucky, sometimes the timing is just off. My best recommendation is to engage with other people and post a variety of things, don’t stick to one “thing”.
Okay but there’s plenty of articles and engagement theories for the algorithm, but how do you see the stuff you wanna see?
A few strategies: the first is to create lists. Lists allows you to create a twitter feed like your normal one but you only see content from the people on the list. This way if you are wanting to follow a specific group of people, or say have a list of your favorite publishing house to quickly see any updates without scrolling through everything else. You can make the list private so nobody, including the people on the list know. This allows you to set up a list without having to deal with social drama if you don’t want to include an account. The major drawback I’ve found to lists is it still shows everything people on the list retweet, not quote tweets just regular retweets. This isn’t wholly bad but if you’re just wanting to see the content the account is putting out it can still get in the way.
Second: just go to the person’s profile. I often find that some of the people whose content I enjoy the most I won’t see on my main feed for days at a time. Easiest way is to just pop over to their account and see what they have been up to.
The third thing is if it’s someone whose content you want to see whenever they post or maybe you’re waiting for an account to make an announcement, you can turn on notifications. This makes it so whenever that account makes a post, rt, qrt you get it in your notifications center on twitter. The major hurdle here is you see every reply comment they make so if they are in a back and forth convo your notifications can keep going off. Also once again there’s no way to turn off retweet notifications so you’ll get a lot of notifications for information you might not care about. Now how do you turn this on? Easily start by going to twitter.com/wesrants. Below the banner photo on the right side are 4 buttons, The follow button, a bell with a +, an envelope and an ellipsis button. Well you are on @wesrants simply click that bell with a + and you’ll be notified of all my great content and smart insights.
#2 Writers and Artists deserve respect.
I write these mainly for the writing community but often other people start following writers out of interest. Many of us are multi-talented doing art, podcasts, music, short stories, poems, not just novel writing. This is fantastic and many of us are here to build some support in getting people interested in our creative endeavors. Unfortunately many creative endeavors require money. Even if you don’t have to buy supplies you need to pay bills and taking time out of your day to create something is labor. Oftentimes we’ve seen people saying they support artists and want their content but don’t want to pay for it. Here’s where it stands, if you like someone’s work and want to have it and they are asking for monetary compensation don’t be mean about it. By giving a creator money you are helping make sure they make more of the same content you enjoy. If you can’t afford it right now then wait until you can, because the artist likely can’t afford to give away stuff. If they do give you something for free, be appreciative and maybe try to set aside some money to buy some of theirs in the future.
The point is: artists, writers, musicians, whatever, deserve respect and monetary compensation if they do work for you because exposure is something that usually needs medical assistance, not something you can live off of.. This happens at all levels, from small artists from friends up to big movie studios in Hollywood short changing A list actors. If you don’t like their content, you don’t have to pay and consume it.
#3 Remaining Professional
I ran into this a few months ago where I forgot that though I am on a social media site that the people in the writing community are oftentimes putting on a brand to push their art. It’s easy to get very friendly with users on Twitter. The writing community is great, often very supportive and uplifting when we are having bad days, or sharing in our triumphs when we hit a new milestone.
This can lead to some issues if you misinterpret a relationship you have with someone else and they don’t see it the same way. I won’t go into my exact scenario because I want to preserve some privacy, and also it was rather me being dumb and I have enough ego to not want to admit to being that dumb.
The short version is I had some news and messaged someone who I thought I had been fairly close friends with. Due to the nature of the business I should not have approached them with this particular news and it led to a disagreement. The situation was on me, but was I hurt? Yes. It doesn’t change the fact that I could have avoided that and maintained friendly terms with this person if I had remembered that writing, especially when you are dealing with publishers from the big five down to a small indie press, or self publishing writers, its something people are trying to make into a career.
I’m not saying you can’t be friends, I’ve made a lot of great friends on Twitter, but remember to maintain yourself and think before you speak, especially in DMs or you might lose some people you care about.
#4 Indie Publishers
The next thing I want to do was highlight some indie publishing companies I’ve run across on Twitter that are doing good work, and have been doing write (pun intended) by their authors. You probably already know these, and it is by no means a complete list because I am bad at this and didn’t really put together as much as I should have. If you have suggestions of a publishing house I should add please let me know I’ll be happy to update this.
Lost Boys Press: These guys are fantastic. They have been open just over a year and printed out a few anthologies that have highlighted several great indie writers. The books written by Ashley and Chad they’ve published will do insane emotional things to you. On top of their mission to “deliver incredible stories that celebrate the indie spirit,” they do a lot of outreach and interaction with the community, encouraging writers, and are by and large just nice people. Give ‘em a follow, and watch for their submission opportunities for their future anthologies.
Quill & Crow: Do you like gothic anything? Are you haunted by the heart pounding under your floorboards? If so you should probably check out these wonderfully dark books, short stories, their monthly magazine, and their podcast. There’s a lot of content coming out of this house, so if horror and the macabre are your thing, this is the place for you.
Literary Wanderlust: They’ve been around for seven years as a royalty paying, traditional publisher. They work at fairly standard rates for authors, and they generally publish in a variety of genres, and they accept unsolicited submissions. So if you are looking to support an indie house but don’t know what you want to read, they might have something for you. If you have a well-written book you’d like published, you might see if they are the right fit for you.
Smashbear Publishing: Fantasy, horror, paranormal romance, urban fantasy. If your heart lies with the fantastical and magical, give their catalogue a look. They have open submissions without needing an agent. I’ve heard nothing but good things. What really sold me on them was that they are working with an author in the community who had been previously sucked in by a vanity press. He’s so far had a fantastic experience with them and the bonus is we get to see more of his quality writing delivered to us and him not getting cheated.
There are a few other publishing houses I might add to this later on but they are newer houses and I want to see how they do with the community.
#5 Websites with writing resources
Just going to point to a few off twitter websites that you might find useful or will see links from often if you hang around the community long enough.
Buy Me A Coffee: obviously this one because you’re on their platform right now reading this. It’s a great way for someone to share content, especially writers, and easily get tips for their work. I’ve been using them for over half a year and haven’t had a single issue with getting paid. There’s some UI stuff of course, but overall it’s a quick painless way to get your content out there and have it stored somewhere for the future.
Ko-Fi: honestly it's basically the same as Buy Me A Coffee. The difference being... being... which ever one you like more I guess?
Patreon: Much like Buy Me A Coffee but way more advanced this is a great place if you are wanting to set up subscription offerings for regularly released content. If you are a lazy person like me who can’t maintain consistent content releases, this might not have the benefits you are hoping for.
Medium: An online publishing platform it makes it easy to create and publish blog posts and articles you write. You get paid for publishing stories to their member-only content based on how long a member is reading your member’s only article. You do have the option to make a post free and available to everyone should you wish.
Link Tree: It’s really handle to put in your twitter bio to give links out to your blogs, amazon writer’s page, goodreads page, website, social media account, and omg why do we have to have so many websites no wonder we’re all going mad with overload and the constant hustle of our dark dystop — krsksk
Wordpress: Lots of writers use wordpress for their own personal site as it’s fairly easy to use. There is an issue of there being wordpress.com and wordpress.org so make sure you are signing up for the right one for your needs.
Twitch: People stream stuff, you can subscribe and give them money for doing so.
Youtube: You should know what Youtube is.
Alright that about wraps up this guide. If I’ve missed anything let me know, I’ll be happy to add in more content. Make sure to visit the rest of my content and extras here on buy me a coffee, follow me on twitter @wesrants, and visit my sad horribly put together, deeply neglected website: weswritesfantasy.com
Stay hydrated, keep dreaming.