Got two minutes? Then check out this week’s quick tip ~ 14 ways to get noticed on Twitter

Hello and welcome…I am a freelance editor and an editor for The Wild Rose Press, as well as an author. I often struggle with my own writing, and I have found that sometimes, a little reminder of ways to improve the process can be helpful, so, I like to share these moments of brilliance with others :). But, in this busy world of ours, who has time for pages and pages of writing tips? That’s why I’ve condensed mine down to quick flashes you can read in (approximately) two minutes. Enjoy…

Disclaimer: All of my tips are suggestions, and are only my opinion. And, for the most part, there are exceptions when going against my advice will make your story read better. Take what works, leave the rest.

I thought I would take a break from the writing tips and share some handy Twitter tips I’ve learned along the way. Twitter is one of the most popular and easiest/quickets social media formats. But, with the countless tweets going out every second of every day, it’s difficult to get noticed. Repetition is the key. You might have to send out 20 tweets to get one of them noticed. You don’t want to ‘spam’ and constantly toot your own horn, but there are other ways to increase your odds of getting noticed, and I have listed some tips below to help make that happen, and to help make your Twitter Life a little simpler…

1. Add fun little pics/symbols to your tweet. Copy and paste from here: http://www.symbols-n-emoticons.com/2013/05/new-symbols-for-facebook-comments.html
2. When you would like to ask others to tweet for you, rather than composing a tweet for them to copy and paste, provide them a direct link to your tweet that they can simply RT (retweet). The more RT’s your tweet gets, the more noticeable it will be. Here is how: Go to the three dots … (more) beneath your tweet. (Or beneath any tweet you want to share with others) It will bring up options. One is ‘Copy link to tweet’ If you click on that, you can copy the link, which will be a direct link to your tweet, and share it with others who can then retweet you.
3. Look to the left side of Twitter and find ‘Trending hashtags’ and try to incorporate them naturally into your tweet. It’s advisable to find out what the hashtag really means so that you use it correctly. 
4. Use no more than 2 or 3 hashtags per tweet to prevent your tweet from appearing to be spam. 
5. Since you are limited to 140 characters, you can create an image and add text, so that you can say more than you can in just your tweet. But, you don’t want to overdo it and have lengthy wording in your image. Less is more.  You can add quotes from your book, brief snippets from reviews, tag lines, etc. For example: 
6. Speaking of images, tweets with images are more likely to be noticed. You can easily add text to an image by using sites like this: http://ipiccy.com/ http://www.online-image-editor.com/ (You can also resize your image on this site)
7. Speaking of resizing…I’ve found the best size to use for Twitter images is 200 x 300.
8. Use exclamation points, capitalization and quotation marks (but not all in the same tweet), to help get your tweet noticed. But, as always, less is more. I don’t advise doing all of that in the same tweet.  For example, do not do this: “A DYNAMITE READ THAT WILL LEAVE YOU GASPING!!!!” STEPHEN KING’S THE SHINING IS A #MUSTREAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But you could do this: “A dynamite read that will leave you gasping” Stephen King’s THE SHINING is a #MustRead Or A dynamite read that will leave you gasping!!!! Stephen King’s THE SHINING is a #MustRead
9. If you are searching a hashtag or particular subject and you put the words in the search (or click on the hashtag) to bring up all tweets containing that word or hashtag, be sure to go up toward the top of the page that comes up. You will see a few choices such as ‘top’ and ‘live.’ ‘Top’ is where you will find the most popular tweets containing your search criteria, and ‘live’ should bring up all tweets containing it.
10. Rather than just tweeting, retweet for others and interact, reply, compliment them.
11. If you use punctuation in a hashtag, it breaks up the hashtag so that only the first part shows as part of the HT. For example, if I used: #Alicia’sBlog – Only this much would show as a hashtag: #Alicia and ‘sBlog would not show up as part of the HT.
12. Ask for retweets. You’d be surprised at how many people RT just because you ask. 
13. Create a Hashtag specific to your book (Mine might be #LibertyEmpoweredBook)  
14. You can pin a tweet so that it is the one that always shows up when someone goes to your profile. Just click the … (more) beneath your tweet and the option will come up

Until next time…happy tweeting and Happy New Year!

(Here are a ton of hashtags you might want to utilize)

Tuesday: #TeaserTuesday

Wednesday: #WriterWednesday

#1LineWed

And WWWBlogs WomenWriterBlogs

#SampleSunday

#AmReading

#Books
#BookWorm

#LovetoRead
#GreatReads
#ShortStory

#Ebook

#Fiction

#blog

#FridayReads

#Goodreads

#IndieThursday
#MustRead
#Kindle

#Novel
#Paperbacks
#Storytelling
#WhatToRead
#WriterWednesday

#1LineWed

#Reading

#Readers

#BookLover

#Share

#RT

#BookShare

#99c (to offer or pick up an eBook bargain)
#AuthorRT
#BookGiveaway
#BookMarketing
#FollowFriday
#FreebieFriday
#FreeReads
#Novelines or NovelLines (to quote your own work)

#SundayShoutout

GENRE

#sweetromance

#cleanreadbookclub
#140Poem
#Crime
#Comedy
#DarkFantasy
#Dystopian
#Erotica
#HistFic
#Historical
#FaithLitChat
#KidLitChat
#Literature
#LitFic
#MemoirChat
#MGLit (middle grades literature)
#Mystery
#NonFiction
#Paranormal
#Poetry
#PoetryMonth (Each April in the USA)
#Romantic
#RomanticSuspence
#TrueStories
#ScienceFiction
#SciFiChat
#ShortStory
#SteamPunk
#Suspense
#UrbanFantasy
#WomensFiction
#YA
#YALit

Here are some hashtags you might find useful for yourself:

Book Industry News and Publishing Tips Hashtags

#AskAgent
#AskAuthor
#AskEditor
#BookMarket
#BookMarketing
#GetPublished
#IAN1 (Independent Author Network)
#IndiePub
#PromoTip
#Publishing
#SelfPublishing
#WriteTip
#WritingTip

Hashtags to Connect With Other Writers

#1K1H (write one thousand words in one hour)
#AmWriting
#AmEditing
#AmRevising
#CopyWriting
#EditGoal
#Editing
#IndieAuthor
#MyWANA (writer’s community created by Kirsten Lamb)
#NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month is held every November)
#RomanceWriter
#ScriptChat
#WIP
#WordCount
#WriteChat
#WriteGoal
#WriteMotivation
#WritersLIfe
#WriterWednesday
#Writing
#WritingBlitz
#WritingPrompt
#WritersBlock
#WroteToday
#WW

ePublishing and eBooks

#Amazon
#eBook
#BookBuzzr
#eReaders
#ePubChat
#iPad
#Kindle
#KindleBargain
#Kobo
#KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)
#Nook
#Pubit
#SmashWords
#Sony
#Webfic

*** If you would like to send me a few sample pages (around 7500 words or so, even though I will not edit that many on the blog. It just gives me more to choose from) for me to edit and share on an upcoming blog post, please do so in the body of an email to AliciaMDean@aol.com. Please use the subject line: “Blog Submission” This is for published or unpublished authors. In the email, please include whether you would like me to use your name or keep it anonymous, and whether or not you would like me to include any contact info or buy info for your books. Also, you can let me know if you would like for me to run my edits by you before posting on the blog. Please keep in mind, this is for samples to use for blog posts. I will not edit or use samples from all the submissions I receive, but I will use as many as possible. 

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#FREE on Kindle Unlimited…

How to write a novel? That is the question. There are probably as many answers to that question as there are people who ask it.

Wanting to write and actually doing it are two very different things. I am well acquainted with the sometimes grueling process of churning out a story. Over the years, I have tried many methods for creating and completing manuscripts, and have tweaked and honed it down to a workable (for me) process.

Using specific examples from one of my own novels, Without Mercy, I share my method in this mini how to book. The first eight steps actually deal with plotting while the last two are designed to help expand your outline into a well-developed draft. There is no one, perfect way to create a story, but there will be a method, or methods that work for you. I’m not sure if this is the one, but it works for me. Only you can decide if it also works for you. Fingers crossed that it does!

*** Warning – Please do not purchase without reading a sample. (This is solid advice for any book, fiction or non. If you are not intrigued in the sample, you will likely not enjoy the book)

Amazon: Click Here