weswrites
18 supporters
The Ultimate Writer's Guide to Twitter

The Ultimate Writer's Guide to Twitter

Apr 19, 2022

Let's talk about online etiquette, specifically Twitter etiquette. Now you're thinking "Damn it Wesley you keep milking this concept, we got it the first three times."

First, off you should trust me a bit more than that. This is the previous 3 posts combined into 1 ultimate post. That way you can slap one link to someone who is annoying you on twitter on how to behave better, rather than posting 3 different links. Also this will let me edit and modify this single post to streamline my thoughts and advice for the future rather than having to go and edit 3 different pots. This is going to be a living document so it will go through edits and changes from time to time, so if parts seem to be redundant or out-of-date, yeah I know, I'm going to fix it (eventually). I'm leaving the original posts up for prosperity and so I can look back in years to come and see how much this has changed.

So let's dive in.

Your well-being that's our primary purpose here. But the fact is that we all spent a lot of time online. You're reading this online right now. You probably got here by following a link on Twitter. You are probably going to subtweet about this later. Online is part of our lives and a lot of stress and anxiety people feel directly stems from our use of online media and specifically social media. So let's talk about how we can make that experience not suck for you.

There's a lot of subculture stuff that's unique to Twitter which is what I am going to focus on in this post. I have all but stopped using Facebook because it got to be too depressing and toxic. On my Twitter account, I have been trying to make this a place of serenity and calm. So let's talk about how you can do the same.

The first rule of having a positive Twitter experience is this: If you aren't sure how it will be received it's probably better to just stop yourself and move on. Know your audience, know yourself, and think about how you'd feel if you had someone say what you are about to say to you. In short: You're not that funny, and you aren't the exception to the rule on any of this. Unless you are a lit agent wanting to discuss a book deal. In that case, DM me all you want.


#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. 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: DMs

DMs are great. Sometimes a conversation needs to be taken off the public forum, you wanna go more in-depth on something that you don't want to be limited by a 240 character limit. Sometimes you're needing to talk some stuff out with a friend in private. I get it, I've done it. I have some wonderful conversations with people daily. But when should you DM. First off: Do not DM someone immediately after following them or they follow back.

Let me repeat that for the kids in the back staring at their phone: DO NOT DM SOMEONE YOU JUST FOLLOWED OR WHO JUST FOLLOWED YOU. IT IS CREEPY.

My biggest piece of advice is this: don't DM unless they asked for a DM for something or you've been interacting with someone for a while and are comfortable you can think about DMing them. But just because you are comfortable with DMing someone doesn't mean they will be comfortable receiving it. So step 1: Check their Profile. I promise you if someone doesn't want a DM it will say so in their bio. You should read and respect that. You might think "but if they didn't want DMs they can turn them off in the settings." Yes, but they might want to DM some people but not all of Twitter. So check their Profile. If it says "No DM" don't DM. If it's important maybe tweet at them and ask. If you think there is a reason to DM someone starts it off polite and simple. Get to the point, keep it simple and let the relationship go from there. If it cools don't push it.

#5: Crushes

This ties in a lot with DMs as you'll see. There is nothing wrong with having a crush but it's very easy to mess up. Miscommunication with someone is easy face to face; with a screen between you and someone you've never met it is even easier to screw it up. It's going to be impossible to not run into people with a lot of similar thoughts and feelings as you. You're also going to find that the writing community is full of a lot of really attractive people. Like who knew writers were all so hot? Anyways you're going to crush, accept it now. What you do need to know is how to handle it when it happens.

First: Remember these are people by in large you are never going to meet in real life. I know that internet communities, especially during a pandemic, feel very real but you are likely never going to have to meet someone you like. This might make you bold having a shield of anonymity or make you feel it's not worth pursuing.

Second: Don't be a creep, if you don't know someone that well and only have had limited interactions with them don't ask where they live, don't DM them, don't make comments unless you've got rapport with the person and know how they will react to comments. Don't assume because they welcome a comment about their looks from one person that it means it's okay for you to do it. Some people are more open to it than others, don't assume and be careful and you'll have a much nicer time.

Third: If you and someone really click and you're having fun and nobody is being hurt, that's okay. But just like in real life consent should be obtained and can be withdrawn by either part at anytime for any reason. So if someone you've been getting in the mood with says they aren't in the mood or that they don't want to keep doing that kind of activity with you, accept it and step away. Nobody owes you nothing and you don't own anyone anything.

#6: Subtweets.

Definition of Subtweet: when you make a tweet or post to reference a person or group without actually naming the person or group. For example, someone told you off for being creepy on their post. You tweet out: "Some people need to just learn to take a joke and not be so serious about life" You didn't say who you were subtweeting about, but you're obviously referencing an incident.

As a hint in that situation above you'd be the ass so can we just not? If you're subtweeting about say current events and are like "Oh look another failure of blah blah blah government agency" fine, it's referencing something current, people can go look it up, you're not likely to lose any followers over it. If you are subtweeting about an individual person to be passive-aggressive then why? At that point you've had a disagreement, you're wanting a fight or sympathy but you don't want to call them out specifically to have plausibility deniability or something? It sounds like you've already decided you're not a fan of that person. That's okay you don't have to like everyone. They don't have to like you. But if you are subtweeting about someone who you know will see it you're inviting a fight. Now you've got a fight where everyone who knows is getting mad and in the end, you'll probably all just end up muting or blocking each other.

So what should you do instead? Well, this might be a good time to step away from Twitter for a while. Go outside, do some breathing and meditation exercises calm down from the fight. There are 2 things to know about social media fights: Nobody will ever change their mind fighting, nobody will care in like 3 days max. So step back and think about how important it is to you really. If you're still mad at the person that's okay, mute them, if it's bad enough, block them. Move on. Maybe you just need a break from that particular person for a while and then you can come back to them when things are a bit better for you and them and talk about something else. That's okay. We can all use breaks so take 'em.

Basically: stop being mean and looking for a fight. If you wanna fight with someone for the sake of fighting go troll Ben Shapiro's Twitter page for a while or a Fox News political article comment section. You can find assholes who are willing to fight with you all day who deserve it. Don't take it out on friends.

#7: Calling out people

This is different from subtweeting because subtweeting is when you don't explicitly say who you are tweeting about. Calling people out can be useful, but I'm learning (I wish I had thought of this months ago but this is a process) that there are ways to call people out and ways to not. A lot of it is because of twitter's algorithms. For example the other day there was a post that got a lot of attention because it came from a fairly large account that said women can't be vulgar and there were a lot of sexist responses. Because I just said don't subtweet so if you really want to see it click here but I recommend you don't. You'll be happier in life and if you go there you'll just give him views. That's the trouble. If you like, quote tweet, retweet, anything you're giving them platform. Views, that's what it's about. Twitter is in the business of making sure people stay on their site and interact. So it's in their interest to show off posts and accounts that people are interacting with. So if you quote tweet that to call the guy out for being a patriarchal asshole you're just going to give him more views and interactions and Twitter will show most of his crap to us. Sure you can block but interacting with the tweet encourages more of the same tweets. Everyone is here for attention remember. So how do we combat this without subtweeting to show which assholes need to be cut out from our community for a better experience?

Screenshots. Take a screenshot of the tweet that annoys you with the user name and profile picture clearly visible. Do it on your phone, open snippet tool if you're on windows if you're on mac...do ...whatever it is mac does. Take a screenshot and then tweet that out with your displeasure. You're letting your followers know you think someone has posted something is wrong, they can see the evidence and it doesn't provide any additional assistance to that person's algorithm boost. So call out the sexist racist pedophiles. Make them scurry and run back into their dark places. Make sure the community knows about creeps and assholes, but take a screenshot, don't quote tweet.

Final note on this: if someone who you know to usually be a pretty rational person says something a bit off or weird maybe confirm they meant what they said first. If it's someone you've never interacted with before, they're being creepy and shouldn't tell stupid jokes as a first interaction. But don't just assume someone is malicious. they might be having a bad day or don't realize what they just said was wrong. It's okay to ask "Hey did you really mean that because that's not a nice outlook" or "Hey I don't really want that language on my post, could you be more careful in the future." or maybe this is a good time for a DM, IF they are a usual for your posts.

#8: Fighting

Okay, you're fighting with your now-former friend, or jaded Twitter fling, or some creeper who commented on your picture saying he wants to see more of your body and you've never seen this weirdo before. You decided to let 'em have it, let them know how much you hate them. I get that, I've done it. But remember a few things. First if it's a creep you're giving them attention and that's what they really want anyway. They want you talking to them and making them feel important, you're just going to be mad and they get what they want. you block them, they just find a new victim. Block, call out if needed, move on.

If you're fighting with someone who is a mutual or used to be a mutual but you have a lot of shared mutual friends maybe consider what it does to your other friends. Especially if you start fighting in someone else's post where a lot of people are tagged. Everyone's going to feel awkward and gross and they might want to help but don't know how to. If you can't get along with someone that's okay, but before you yell, maybe just mute or block them. You're saving yourself a few extra steps and anger.

#9: Interaction

How to interact with people. Well, the best thing to do is like and comment on stuff you like or feel needs a comment. Retweet it if you think other people would like it. Quote Tweet if you want. People get happy when they see interaction. It's why we're addicted to social media, we want to be validated by our peers. We want people to interact with us and know that other people think like us and we're not alone in our thoughts. So do it. If you see one of your favorite people posting, interact with it it will make them feel better. If you see something you don't like, you don't have to interact with it, interaction on a bad post just encourages more bad posts. I want to build a more positive world, and the first place that can start is by choosing what we are going to interact with. Supply and demand is basic economic concept. If there's no demand for hate-filled tweets that make us angry, the supply will dry up.

"But Wesley the Algorithm doesn't show me my friends and just strangers and my really cool writing post got buried."

I know. So how do you fix that? Interact yourself. Go like other people's things, comment on their stuff giving your thoughts and insight. If you go in positive and helpful without being an asshole people are more LIKELY to come to see what you're about on your profile and like your stuff.

Now note how I capitalized likely in that last sentence. There's a reason for that. Do you know why? Because not everyone is going to come to interact with you more. Nobody is required to. Just because you are nice, positive, and interacting with other people doesn't mean they have to come to interact with you. That's true in all aspects of life. Being nice and being positive is something you should do because you want to do it for the benefit of feeling better for yourself. Not because you expect anyone to reward you for it. If you expect accolades and rewards for being nice then you're never going to be nice, it will always be a poisoned fruit. Okay, tangent over.

Now interacting isn't going to solve all your problems and you might still miss people's posts that you want to see. So Lists are your solution. First off you can make them public if you want or private so don't feel lie you have to broadcast to the world that you're making a list of exclusive people I don't say this to be snooty but some people have anxiety about social interactions and privacy is good for reducing anxiety for many people. But make a list of people you like to interact with regularly, people who post the content you want to see and support. You can pin that list so it shows up as its own tab in the app or in the list menu. You can go in check the tweets from those people and go back to the normal feed whenever you want. This gives you the chance to make sure you don't miss tweets from important people in your social media use and gives you a chance to help elevate their chances of seeing your stuff as you interact more with them.

Also last thing: if you notice you don't see someone's posts you can always just go to their profile and look to see what they're up to.

#10: Getting off social media

Take breaks from social media. It's not the end of the world if you miss something, like as not you don't even remember what you were talking about on Twitter last week. So take a break. I know that people say "oh my interactions drop well I am offline for long periods". Stop, you build up your interactions once, you can do it again. If your mental health needs a break from social media then your mental health is always more important. So don't feel bad about doing what's best for you. You'll survive.

#11: Supporting each other.

The first thing that a lot of writers are coming on Twitter for is to support other writers and get support themselves. Other writers are not your competition, nobody is going to read a book and say "Yes books have reached their zenith here, no other book should ever be read again." The more writers are successful the more people are reading. The more people are reading the more they are buying books. So support each other. You don't have to know all of the details of what's going on with someone, if you see they are posting something down, say something nice and don't expect anything back. and if you're feeling down reach out, people are friendly around here.

Speaking of supporting each other:

#12: Selling and Buying Books

Okay, so we all know that we're here to write stories and try and spread outreach to get someone to read and love our writing and maybe making some money someday out of word crafting. So you're going to see a ton of ads for people selling books. There's nothing wrong with that. Buy the books you are interested in. Let people know when you're book is on sale. Do not feel obligated to buy any books you are no interested or expect other people to buy your books immediately. Also, be aware of how often you post. Accounts that only post their ads seem to never interact with other people and aren't likely to engage with you or support you. There's a lot about the algorithms of Twitter as well that you might see your book ads get buried in everything else. If you want to see a great article that talks more about why you're screwing up your marketing for self-publishing books see my friend Scout's article here:
3 Reasons You’re Not Making Money From Self-Publishing Books

#13: Writer's Lifts

Going to be real here you're better off not doing these big chain #writerslift threads where you do a lot of following for follow on large comment threads of people. You'll get followers no doubt, and you're going to be following a lot of people. But you're going to notice that a lot of people will follow until you follow back and then unfollow. I guess they think it makes them look important or cool? If that's a game you wanna play fine, but you're going to miss out on a lot. Writer lift accounts also tend to just do writers lifts and never interact outside of that, so if you actually want to connect this is not the place for you. If you wanna run your follower count up fast with no hope of interactions, this is the thing to do. Oh also remember how I said that accounts that only post book ads don't get interactions and their posts tend to get lost? Doing the writer's lifts will tell the algorithm to only show you more writer's lifts posts so you won't see anything genuine.

Caveat: Dave Westfall does individual posts using the #writerslifts this is the majority of what he does but he does interact with other people and is a pretty nice guy, and he calls out larger accounts and brand new accounts.

#14 "Tag x number of other people in this post"

This is a bit different than writer's lifts because they aren't using the hashtag and can be anything from a writing submission to someone just saying "here are some facts about me, if I tag you tell some stuff about you and tag some more". These are a little bit less harmful than the writer's lifts but you need to be careful especially with who you tag. *stares at vaguely @RTSlaywood* as it can lead to unexpected consequences. This can be nice if you want to see a lot of notifications of replies and likes and feel involved, but it can be overwhelming, which can be a good opportunity to use the Mute Conversation option on a post.

#15 Getting Overwhelmed

Social media is a social activity. You interact with people and that's exhausting. As writing itself is a pretty solitary act, so many writers are used to having a lot periods of quiet. You're going to find out that Twitter can be over stimulating. There is always something going on, a new fight over something, some drama happening, a new Don't Make it Weird episode podcast. There's stuff going on constantly. You don't have to be involved in everything, trust me things come and go, what might seem like a huge deal one day will be forgotten about the next day, or next week. If you are feeling like it's consuming your attention step back, take a breath, do some writing, you can leave Twitter alone. It'll be there when you get back.

#16 Bios and Pinned Tweets

Read them. They are going to tell you a lot about who you are following and how they might interact with you. If their pin tweet is a #Pitmad expect them to be interested in engaging and talking a lot about writing - but don't like a Pitmad Tweet unless you're an agent! If they are pinning their book to buy expect them to be wanting to sell their book. If their Bio says "Don't DM with out permission" it means DON'T DM WITHOUT PERMISSION! Bios will also often include pronouns, if you see this use those pronouns when talking to or about that person, don't assume based on name. Read the bio, check back if you don't remember, it's okay to double check before looking like a jerk.

Pinned Tweet Exchanges: there's nothing wrong with this but if you're just retweeting a pinned tweet and not opening the link you're not really helping out that much. Personally I look at a select couple of follower's pinned tweets every now and again and like and retweet but I don't do it all at once. Part of this is algorithm and avoiding twitter spam protection. The other thing is if you are just retweeting a lot without posting your own content a lot of people might mute you or turn off retweeting for you and so your retweet doesn't help the person you think you are helping.

#17 Pitch Events

Pitch Events are pretty big and there's a lot of them. #PitMad was the biggest, but there's also #PitDark #Pitchdis #WMPitch and a whole lot more I am forgetting or not aware of. Here's the thing, you're going to see these pit events all over the place if you're in deep with the writing community. #PitMad used to get trending all across twitter even for non-writing community people. #Pitmad is no longer an active event, and we might see others shuttering their doors, or new ones pop up and being created. Each of these event has their own rules and requirements. some will say don't retweet only quote retweet (QRT). most say don't like a tweet pitching, just comment. The best thing to do is google and check the rules, if you're helping out other writers by retweeting or commenting make sure you know how to do this before interacting with a post so you don't like a PitMad post and give your writer friend a heart attack and then a lot of sadness that you aren't in fact an agent wanting their book. If you are participating to pitch your own book make sure to research how the event works, how to pitch your book, which hashtags to use, how to respond if an agent likes your pitch. There are a lot of pitch groups that will form up before a pitch event to offer advice and feedback on your pitch tweets. They are a lot of fun and can be very hectic so make sure you know what you are getting in to before you dive in.

#18 Erotica and Romance Writers

First off let's clear something up: Writing Erotica is just as valid in literature as anything else, if you seem to think erotica is lesser than you might want to rethink what the purpose of writing is, gatekeeping isn't cool in any community but especially not a writing community.

Notice how I've talked about creeps today and not being creepy towards your Twitter Crush? I want to do a special call out for our wonderful writers who are doing Erotica and Romance writing because I've noticed a lot of them deal with weirdos more than say me as a fantasy writing guy.

A lot of Writing Twitter is branding, branding as the type of person you want to be, branding your based on your genre. A lot of my branding is wellness, positivity, and telling a good story because a lot of what I write is with the aim of telling you a good story that will generally have elements resembling a good moral if you want to look into that.

Erotica and Romance writers have a brand of digging into your sexuality and making you feel those more primal urges. A lot of writers of this sort actually will have multiple twitter accounts if they are writing erotica under a pen name for discretion and security and also so they can write say YA books for kids under another name without worrying about kids buying the wrong book.

If you notice an Erotica writer is posting about sexuality and you want to interact that's fine, but remember this isn't an invitation to assume they want to have sex with you. This does not mean you should go onto their comments or in their DMs and tell them how sexy you think they are or send them pictures of your body parts, or anyone else's body parts, without their consent. They are writers and human beings first, not something for your to objectify and make them feel uncomfortable. Respect and Consent are the two sexiest things, keep that in mind, be nice and you won't run into trouble.

Also just so it's doubly clear: even if they aren't a romance or erotica writer, don't send pictures of your body to anyone without consent, come on it's 2022 and the internet is full of porn, unless they ask you aren't going to show them anything they want to see or haven't seen already. Don't flatter yourself.

#20 Drama

Okay let's talk about drama because it happens. Some of you might think: "oh well most of the drama happens because of creeps" actually no. Most creeps say something, get blasted across twitter, and some blocks happen and that's the end of it. Drama in Writing Twitter usually happens because we're a bunch of strong personality types with hypersensitive emotions, and let's face it some fairly large egos that get easy bruised. We're like actors but with typing not talking. Here's what I'm going to say about drama with other writers: you are not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and not everyone is going to like you. The writing community is huge, you don't have to get along with everyone or every clique in the community. Find the people you like and be nice, that's really it. Most writers are struggling in some way and might overreact or get triggered over things you are unaware of. The best option is to be nice and apologize if you're called out for making a social fubar (for non-Americans F.U.B.A.R. is an acronym for "Fucked up beyond all recognition") and realign your goals.

Also if someone offends you let them know, but I recommend trying to be nice about it. I've done a lot of fighting on social media since the dawn of the internet before it was even called social media. In the end it probably doesn't matter. A lot of times there's things going on in the other person's life you won't know about that could be affecting the course of conversation. I would say step back from them, and if reconciliation is not possible mute them. If you come back after awhile and they are having a negative effect on your mental health, go for the block, that's okay.

#21 #VSS and other Writing Prompts

Okay VSS is short for Very Short Story. The idea here is to write a short story in the span of a single tweet and include the word provided in the prompt somewhere in your story. So if the word of the day is say #euneirophrenia so you'd tweet something like:

Light hit her eyes, aware of the world around her still she lingered on the threshold of sleep enjoying the #euneirophrenia of both realms of reality. She wanted to drag those dreams into her waking realm, but the Sandman did not give up easily. Someday she'd beat him. #vssdreams

The idea here is to try and write something and work in a word or theme to create something new and think about how to craft stories. I don't do them everyday but sometimes it's fun to exercise and do something fast to get your creative energies flowing.

#22 Some Cool Stuff to Look Into

Okay Wesley you've been typing away for several thousand words who are some people or events you recommend?

Alright here's a list of a handful (but not all) of my favorite people and events to follow on twitter in no particular order to get you started. If you feel I've missed something or someone important please let me know and I'll add them in, this isn't a purposeful exclusion but some people I don't know if they want the extra attention or some podcasts I don't know enough about to give my recommendation yet, so if I didn't call you out here and you feel you should have been message me and we'll talk.

NaNoWriMo - National novel writing month takes place in November with the goal of writing 50k words in a single month (that's about 1667 words a day). It's a challenge and is hard to do, but I recommend giving it a shot. They also run events throughout the year to help keep you on pace with your writing goals

Don't Make it Weird - A weekly podcast (it's better on their youtube channel) of everyone's favorite golden retriever turned human @Danqwritesthing and his delightfully dreamy diamond of desire co-host @DinasaurusD it drops around 12am EST on Mondays. Note: not kid friendly, so listen to it when you have some privacy.

Forgot My Dice - This is a more general nerdy podcast that drops every other Tuesday (usually). Robert and Jonathon have been doing this for almost 7 years and they talk about just about everything you can image if it's nerdy. RPGs, Movies, Books, Video Games. It's a positive fun broadcast that will have a little something for everyone. Note: This is usually family friendly so you can listen to it whenever.

ReadGala - A bi-annual pitch event conceived by your own humble author of this guide the goal is to connect readers with published stories. It functions like other pitevents in that the creator or marketing team for a published book pitches it in a single tweet. Readers are encouraged to buy the book if it catches their interest and comment in the post to let the author know their concept excited them into buying the book.

#23 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. 

#24 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 content they produce.

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. Also please check out my own Pitch Event: #ReadGala

Stay hydrated, keep dreaming.

Enjoy this post?

Buy weswrites a beer

More from weswrites