I just set up my Twitter account yesterday actually and followed a few authors I like. How do you get people to follow you though? I can retweet something but that doesn't mean anyone's gonna see it if no one's following me, right? (I have not got a clue how Twitter works btw, beyond the whole "everything has to be 120 characters")
In a step sideways.. in para normal romance you often have the concept of fated mates. IE an absolute of understanding who goes together. so the girl discovered the monsters are after her.. they [ yes.. sometimes that triangle isn't an obstacle ] just have to convince her, she is going to like being caught. Or that they will have to survive if they want to be together. You might think if this is fantasy.. the readers might gain some special fate based foreshadowing, the characters don't share. if you feel they need more certainty earlier.
Actually, it's 280 characters now. Some users will auto-follow you if you follow them - not any famous authors, but you can look at replies on their tweets to find other people you might want to follow. Also, give me your Twitter handle and I'll follow you for starters. You can look at who I follow and who follows me for ideas as well, since most of them are writing/publishing peeps. I've also had luck gaining followers by participating in Q&A chats like #Storycrafter which is run by Faye Kirwin (https://twitter.com/writerology) and Romance Writers Chat (https://rwchat.com/). Storycrafter is multi-genre, and I'll bet there's Fantasy ones out there as well. I'll answer the questions and sometimes when I'm particularly witty I'll get a new follower out of it. The thing about Twitter is that it's organic - you don't gain followers overnight, but if you keep following publishing folks (writers, editors, publishers, review blogs, etc.) and participate by replying and retweeting (especially when adding your own comments to the re-tweet), you'll start slowly but surely adding followers of your own.
It's Iris_Kayan I just followed you too! How often would you say I need to be active to be effective? Twice a week? Three times a week? I don't naturally go on Twitter and I'd be on it specifically for writing, so I wouldn't be doing it every day and may need to schedule in some time for it, so just wondering how much is enough.
I just followed you as well. Hmmm...based on the people I follow who are moderately active, I'd say 2-3 times a week would be just fine.
It depends which market you're talking about. You have mainstream, where the conventions are followed, or you have niche markets. Both are trade publishing. I use niche with mine, where my mc's don't meet on the first few chapters etc. In one, they didn't meet until the 6th chapter. This one was rejected by one trade publisher, accepted by a niche, and went on to win an honorable mention award at the Rainbow Awards. I edit mainstream mm romance for publishers (Dreamspinner Press etc), but write darker, niche mm romance. Some reaers will stay firmly mainstream, but the majority I know dabble in both. Ether way, it's got to be a damn good story to get noticed.
I think you might have been one of my editors, unless there's another Jack at DSP. I asked the main editor to pass on my thanks because you (or the other Jack) was great!
DSP are awesome to edit with, and have the best authors on the mm market. I've been a contract editor with them for roughly 6-7 years now, working with senior editors like Tricia Kristufek, Ginnifer Eastwick etc. I'm bound by an editor contract not to mention publically which scripts I edit, rightly so -- but it doesn't stop me fangirling madly from the sidelines when I meet a talented DSP author out in the wild!! In fact, it gets so hard to not go nuts and shout out: frickin' awesome work!!
