With the rapidly changing dynamic of the publishing industry, the online presence of authors and their books is becoming increasingly significant. The immediacy that online sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as blogs and book-related social networking sites like GoodReads and LibraryThing, provide for authors to publicize and sell their work is incredibly efficient. The opportunities these sites provide are growing daily and creative angles are being discovered and utilized much more frequently and with more successful results.

Twitter’s ability to create trends using the hashtag symbol, unite groups with the creation of lists and allow for direct contact between reader and author is an incredibly useful tool for book promotion. The built-in audience that author’s have to promote their work immediately through Twitter is becoming a much used resource in marketing strategies.

Publishers, publicists and authors are running contests on Twitter where people who Retweet certain postings are instantly entered to win giveaways including copies of books, bookmarks, and gift baskets of book-related items. These retweets are a great way of bringing more attention to a company or author’s specific Twitter feed and results in more followers and more exposure for the books they are promoting.

In order for Twitter to be effective as a promotional tool you must have a significant number of followers and the only way to increase your following is to post frequently, follow people and retweet posts you find interesting. Providing interesting links to articles on your Twitter feed is a great way to encourage other Twitter users to retweet your postings and bring new eyes to your profile.

Twitter parties are a relatively new strategy but are proving fruitful in both generating more followers and increasing your book’s exposure on Twitter. For example, young adult author Lisi Harrison is hosting a Twitter party for her newest release, A Tale of Two Pretties. She is cross promoting the Twitter party on her highly trafficked blog as well as through her publishers site.

Twitter is a helpful and useful platform to bring people with similar interests together and Twitter parties are simply a way for these people to interact at a specified time, thus creating a more immediate virtual connection.

Writer Rachel Aydt recently interviewed me for a piece in Publishing Perspectives on Twitter and its power to bring readers and writers together. Her article beautifully examines the changing world of publishing and the growing online community.

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