Does Twitter Make Sense for Most Writers?

delete-twitter

Yesterday I read “Goodbye to Twitter Village, Part II: Lessons Learned” by author Benjamin Anastas. It’s a lengthy post about why, after more than a year on Twitter, Anastas has decided it’s a waste of time.

It’s hard to disagree with much of what he says. (Perhaps this comes as a surprise to those who see me as a big advocate of writers having an online presence, building platform, etc.)

Here are some of his points that I find striking and true—each encapsulating things I’ve told authors myself, again and again:

  • “It’s all ephemera, meant for instant consumption and destined for replacement by the avalanche of tweets to follow.”
  • “If I wanted to gain an audience on Twitter—and keep as many of them as possible from un-following me—I had to offer something beyond a promotional platform for my book.”
  • “I came to Twitter because I had a book to sell, and my misgivings about the whole enterprise meant that I would never be any good at it.”
  • “I’ve come to doubt Twitter’s value as a marketing platform.”
  • “My friend A. was right when he said that you had to enjoy Twitter for it make any sense.”
  • “Tweets won’t gain you followers. Publishing in the real world will.”

It’s how Anastas ends his article that’s sparked me to post about it:

Mystery plays a big role in our love of books, and by using social media to promote yourself, you’re only demystifying your work for everyone who follows you. And that makes you lose potential readers.

It’s a perspective I find most common among the more literary authors—a desire to preserve the mystique of their work, who they are, and what they do.

I’m pretty torn on this.

On the one hand, the whole author mystique game is very peculiar to the literary community. It’s hard to find commercial or genre authors acting like a Thomas Pynchon; you won’t find them saying things like “I don’t really write for readers. I think that’s the defining characteristic of being serious as a writer.”

On the other hand, I think it’s possible to use social media and keep the mystique in play. That’s part of the artistry. Use the tools to your own ends, rather than letting the tools use you (which I believe happened to Anastas—and it happens to all of us, at one time or another).

The paradox for me: Anastas appears to have no problem with blogging. (I think—maybe that complaint is in a different post.) I didn’t follow Anastas on Twitter, but if I did, I wonder if I would know as much about him as I do now, from reading this single blog post. Blogging is as much social media as tweeting, Facebooking, and all the rest of it. Anastas has a comments section where he invites people to “fire away.” And now here I am, engaging in a dialogue in my preferred venue, because I’d like to bring his provocative perspective to a wider audience, if I can—I’d like to stir a discussion and see what you think. Because I’m still deciding.

One favor to ask: Pair Anastas’s piece with the following RSA Animate video. It’s about 10 minutes of your time, but watch it and see how the two perspectives compare. Are they compatible? And if they’re not, will writers in the future be able to take the same path Anastas has: “I’ll go back to being a writer again. Just a writer. Not a writer who’s wasting his time on social media.”

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Daniel Anuchan

While I might agree that twitter may not be the best platform for writers, I would not argue that social media in general is a waste of time for writers trying to build a following. Twitter is a nice place for me to get info from sources I don’t normally follow. Many of the blogs I subscribe to were introduced to me on twitter.

Atomic 27 Media

I think the bigger question is really if most writers want to be entrepreneurs. I think that many, even those who are successful as indie authors, still run to a publishing contract merely because there are other people who can handle their marketing and promotion, and they can concentrate on their craft.

Jane Friedman

I do think that’s part of the bigger question, yes. I believe successful indie authors are attracted to traditional publishing deals because of print distribution to bricks-and-mortar stores. They usually know the marketing and promotion side better than their NY publisher—except when it comes to physical and mass-market merchandising of books.

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JosephRatliff

If “selling your book” is your only objective with Twitter, it will be a waste of time.

“Social” media implies conversation, and if none exists on your Twitter account, most likely you’ll be ignored.

That being said, I’m running a “Twitterless” experiment of my own, and I have to say, I don’t miss it much at all.

Carmel

Maybe the word for me (instead of demystification) should be oversaturation. I don’t Twitter, but I do follow some authors and musicians on Facebook. I’m curious at first about their lives, but what I really fell in love with was their work, and that’s what I want to read and re-read.

Jane Friedman

An interesting distinction. I myself have become oversaturated by following some people and have had to unfollow. Scarcity can indeed be a virtue.

JenniferLynKing

I agree, that the world is complex and becoming harder to navigate by the day. We have to pick our values and where we want to spend our time, whether we’re writers, or other professionals. There is only so much time in the day.

Having said that, I believe social media can be a rich experience, one of networking and meeting others with similar values and backgrounds, who also enjoy learning and interacting with others. Twitter, certainly, is not a place to sell anything. It is a place to be yourself, and join in the conversations. People looking for results won’t find any tangible. It’s in the intangibles that social media may become a blessing.

Jane Friedman

Yes, looking for results (as a reason for participating in the first place) often has the unintended effect of poisoning the entire effort.

Whenever I address the issue of social media at conferences, I like to help writers feel like they’re “off the hook” (they don’t have to use Twitter, FB, etc), to get them back to a beginner’s state of mind, then show them how to approach these mediums with a sense of play and experimentation. In other words, let’s learn how to have fun, and forget about taking our medicine.

Kathy Smiley

If you walk into a bar full of people who want to listen to you, drop a backpack full of your books on a table and shout “hey, everyone, I’m selling my book today!”, you might receive a decent response. If you do it the next day, the response will be less positive. If you’re still doing it in two weeks, people will begin to actively avoid you.

It is a myth that you can sell on social media… a huge social blunder. If you’re not willing to be social, to engage your readers in dialogue, to share your thoughts, and yes, even the dreaded “what I had for dinner last night” posts, you’re in the wrong place. Social media is NOT the same as advertising. It’s also not free, it’s quite expensive – it requires you to spend your time, time you could be spending writing.

I follow a lot of authors. I have a lot of author friends. I buy books based on the recommendations of my friends. I have never purchased a single book because of what an author posted. If you want to sell books, make friends. That is the power of social media.

Jane Friedman

I like to say that social media is rarely about the hard sell, only the soft sell (and sometimes not even that). Professional marketers know that a sale rarely happens at the first stage of interaction/engagement. Rather, awareness builds over time. So social media is excellent about building awareness that may end up leading to a sale. But it’s a long-term game, not a short-term exercise.

Social media also is a great tool for building relationships/communities that then may become important later on, when you need help spreading the word about something specific.

M.K. Tod

Manuel Lima suggests that the web of life is a networked structure. While Benjamin Anastas rejects one element of social media (and hence one connection of the networked infrastructure available to authors), perhaps he’s merely being selective in his use of the networked world of engagement. If his blog is useful, others in the twitter sphere will bring his ideas forward. From my vantage point, Twitter seems full of writers screeching through megaphones like circus barkers and people whose only reason to follow is so you will follow back. I’m not ready to give up yet but I’m tempted!

Jane Friedman

Yes, I do think he’s being selective, which is necessary and smart. On the other hand, his closing statement gives him away (I think): ”I’ll go back to being a writer again. Just a writer. Not a writer who’s wasting his time on social media.”

Perhaps his view of social media is narrow (it encompasses Twitter, FB, Pinterest, etc), and doesn’t include things like blogging. In that case, he’s open to being more than “just a writer.” He’s engaging with a readership (or taking time away from writing).

Robert Fleck

I think this is exactly right. He’s misunderstanding what social media is. As long as he’s blogging, he hasn’t given up social media, only selected that part where he’s comfortable.

I like the metaphor that Twitter is like a cocktail party, Facebook (and somewhat Google+) is a dinner party, and blogging is a quiet evening conversation by the fire. People find the place in that where they’re comfortable and that’s good.

The advantage of having so many options is that people can choose the ways to interact that work for them. No writer should feel that just because another writer credits Twitter or Facebook or their blog for success in the business that it is the required way to reach success. It’s one person’s path. Not every person’s path. That’s something that we lose sight of more and more, it seems to me.

Jane Friedman

Well said.

M.K. Tod

One further thought is to find ways through social media to interact beyond the realm of other writers. On Twitter I keep looking for where readers are ‘hanging out’ but many of the folks who find me are other writers. Goodreads is an obvious choice but some of the small book blogs are great too.

Pamela Mason

I do the same thing – try to reach beyond other writers on social media – and I’m starting to think that readers are reading books and living life face to face – not tethered to a network socializing and trying to build a writing profession.
Thing is, unless he has a devoted following, where is he going to promote his blogs?

Steve Weddle

He tried using twitter because he wanted to sell books there. It didn’t work for him, so he left. Seems fairly straightforward.

As folks here have suggested, if you’re being social in your use of social media, you’ll probably have a better time of it. Of course, you still have those writers who seem more social and engaged, only to post “Oh, golly. Thanks so much to @REVIEWERPERSON for this great review of my book. LINK” and other #humblebrags, but that’s a different post, I’d imagine.

And thanks for the WIll Self link. Hadn’t seen that.

Julia Gabriel

I don’t think he really understood how Twitter works. If you’re just posting random thoughts (or book promos), that’s like standing on a street corner in Times Square and shouting at people. But if you take the time to meet and make friends with people on Twitter (and it does take time, just like making friends in the real world does) it can be valuable and enjoyable. You won’t sell huge numbers of books but you can sell some. You can get interviews and guest blogging invites from people you meet on Twitter. And you can just plain meet interesting people who may or may not prove valuable to your career in the future.

Twitter isn’t marketing — it’s networking. If you don’t enjoy networking offline, you probably won’t enjoy Twitter either.