Twitter Tips for Authors

Twitter can be a powerful tool for writers, not just to sell books and interact with readers but also to network with fellow authors.

My top 20 Twitter tips for authors

If you aren’t using Twitter yet or aren’t sure you are making the most of it, here are my top 20 Twitter tips for authors:

1. Make your Twitter handle your author name or something as close to it as possible, not something generic that has no connection to your writing, e.g., flowergirl1234.

2. When you fill out your profile, make sure it includes a hashtag that is a keyword for your genre so your profile shows up in searches for that hashtag. Also include a link to your website.

3. Use a headshot of you that fits your brand as your profile picture, not your book cover or a picture of your dog. If you don’t want to use a photo for privacy reasons, create an avatar version of you.

4. Use Canva to create a Twitter header that showcases your books or your latest release. If you don’t have a book cover yet, choose a header image that fits your brand and your genre, e.g., a howling wolf if you write shape-shifter romance or a taped-off crime scene if you write mysteries. 

5. Follow popular authors, reviewers, publishers, and book bloggers in your genre.

6. Create Twitter lists of authors, reviewers, publishers, and other important people so you can find content to retweet quickly.

7. Check out the lists of other people in your genre and follow some of the relevant people on their lists.

8. Use Twitter to network and cross-promote with fellow authors in your genre. Promote other authors by retweeting their tweets about new releases, sales, or giveaways, and they might return the favor once you are promoting something. Also check out my blog post on how to cross-promote your books with fellow authors.

9. Use hashtags so people other than your followers will find your tweets. Find out the most popular hashtags for your genre & subgenre, e.g., #Romance, #UrbanFantasy, as well as book-related hashtags such as #BookLoversDay and #ReadABookDay. However, don’t go overboard. Two hashtags per tweet work best.

10. Use threads if you have something to say that is longer than 280 characters or if you have several tweets that belong together. For example, I created a thread of daily tweets about my Pride Month reads.

11. Be a fan of your genre. Share what you are reading and tag the author.

12. Include images with your tweet whenever possible. Images attract attention more than text-only tweets. Make sure the image is the right size for Twitter, not one you created for other social media.

13. Interact with your followers. Ask them questions. Reply to mentions. Retweet shout-outs for your books. Don’t just like tweets—talk to people.

14. Tag people you talk about in your tweets.

15. Be careful about how you tag people in your tweets. If you place the @twitterhandle of the person you mention at the very beginning of the tweet, you are creating a reply. Only people who follow you AND the person you tagged can see your tweet, which limits its reach. Either place the @twitterhandle in the middle of the tweet or place a period before the .@twitterhandle.

16. Most people don’t hang out on Twitter for hours, plus your audience lives in different time zones, so it’s okay to tweet about something important several times.

17. Don’t spam your followers with constant “buy my book” tweets. Of course, let them know when you have a new book out, but otherwise, make sure that you tweet about something interesting to your audience.

18. Pin an important tweet to the top of your feed, e.g., your latest release or your newsletter signup. It’s the first thing people see when they go to your profile. Make sure you replace the pinned tweet regularly. If your pinned tweet is a year old, it gives the impression that you don’t have anything interesting going on.

19. Participate in tag games, where you tweet about a particular topic, e.g., “Five things from my WIP,” and then tag a certain number of authors to do the same.

20. Add your Twitter link to your website and your newsletter.

I hope my tips will help you make the best of Twitter whether you are promoting your books, interacting with readers, or networking with fellow authors!