Thursday, August 13, 2020

Twitter and Author Followings




What I've noticed:

If you want general recommendations over everything, most twitter writers that have 10k plus people following them will have a feed filled with general books/spotlights. But they don't concentrate on on specific wheelhouse or genre. (Barring a few exceptions).

More specialized accounts will, most of those have 2-5k followers. If they manage to grow enough.

I find I gravitate towards specialized accounts that cover sci fi or fantasy I am personally interested in.  Most of the "big" book accounts keep recommending the same 20-30 things over and over. From what I see on the feed. From Romance to Paranormal Fantasy. So that shows me those genres are still much bigger than everyone else.

While twitter is helpful, the landscape is so wide in terms of writers trying to get the attention of everyone, a potential reader, or someone like myself will search for specific tropes and terms. TO see if we can find more stuff in our preferred wheelhouse.

Depending on Genre: I focus in on

  • Pulp: Barsoom, Sword and Planet, Raygun anything!
  • Space Opera
  • Mil Sci Fi (Tech heavy or Light, I dont care.) As long as the characters are cheer worthy. 
  • Horror Sci Fi like Event Horizon or Sunshine. A thread of hope in the dark. 
  • Fantasy: Sword and Sorc, LoTR style, Space Fantasy
  • Even some smattering of Grit Fantasy: Black Company and the like. NOT GoT type stuff. Even my gritty stuff has to have actual heroic acts or heroism in it. Something to have Hope in.
So most of my recommendations will go towards those specific genre tropes or wheelhouses.

Gonna do more experiments on other platforms just to see how much traction is there. I am beginning to think most with giant amounts of followers to book accounts, if say half of those are purely writing followers, they are probably looking for advice rather than direct engagement. I see myself as a hybrid of sorts. I like researching things but I also enjoy book recommendations that cater to my wheelhouse of fun.

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