~ What To Avoid In Social Conversation ~

I saw this delightful list from late Victorian/early Edwardian times, on @serialsemantic's Twitter page, and considered how it might be translated into these days of social media conversation.

As you will see, I think some should still apply to Twitterly interaction, though others should be disregarded entirely. 😉

If you click on the item below it will be big enough to read, but I've written out each one before my Twitterly translation.  Enjoy!

1.  Do not manifest impatience.
Building a Twitter profile takes time - do not manifest impatience about your lack of interactions and retweets, or certainly not via tweet.  If a new writer, do not publicly manifest impatience about your lack of book sales.  It takes time to build up a readership, too.  Also, it might make other people wonder why no one is buying it.

2.  Do not engage in argument.
Debating differing opinions is one of the joys of conversation, online and off, but do not call someone a self-absorbed c*** if their opinion differs from yours, as happened to me a short while back. Or say that they are 'sad' because they do not perceive a situation in the same way that you do.  If someone is not willing to reasonably accept a differing point of view, it is best to bow out gracefully. Then mute the dickhead.

3.  Do not interrupt another when speaking.
If you see a conversation between two or three strangers, and you have strongly negative feelings about the subject matter being discussed, do not butt in and tell them how offended you are by their conversation.  Unless you're the sort of person who goes on Twitter to seek arguments, of course.

4.  Do not find fault, although you may gently criticise.
When you get those DMs that we all hate, in which the person (inevitably a total stranger) asks you to download their music, subscribe to their Youtube channel, review their new book, etc, do not tear them off a strip.  They may simply be ignorant of the best way to use social media.  If you wish to comment, it is more productive to suggest that this may not be the best way to promote themselves, and let them know that such an activity is considered spam.

However, if they're rude back, or continue to send them, give 'em hell.

5.  Do not talk of your private, personal or family matters.
A couple of weeks back, I saw a tweet from a woman complaining that she was having 'a particularly heavy flow this month'.   
WHY?  Why would anyone tweet that?????  😖 😩

6.  Do not appear to notice inaccuracies of speech in others.
If they want to describe themselves as 'adverse' to something, or indicate their agreement by tweeting 'Here, here!', let them.  Unless it really, really irritates you.  Some inaccuracies, such as use of 'words' like 'irregardless' and 'deteriate' might cause you to spontaneously combust if not corrected.  In these cases, priority should be given to your own well-being.

7.  Do not allow yourself to lose temper or speak excitedly.
Do not call someone a self-absorbed c*** because their opinion, politely and amicably expressed, differs from yours.  If that insult is directed towards you, report and block.  But speaking excitedly?  What is life without joyful enthusiasm?  The floor is yours!

8.  Do not allude to unfortunate peculiarities of anyone present.
Unless they are Carol Vorderman, Bojo, the far-left über-woke, etc.  In these instances, fill yer boots.

9.  Do not always commence a conversation by alluding to the weather.
But be aware that if you tweet about it, you will get more interaction on that tweet than on any other one before or since.  Much of it from people who have never spoken to you before, but feel the need to tell you that it's raining where they are.

10. Do not, when narrating an incident, continually say 'you see' or 'you know', etc.
Or those 280 characters won't go very far!

11. Do not introduce professional or other topics in which the company generally cannot take an interest.
Nah.  Do not feel scared to talk about stuff that you're enthusiastic about.  That's how you find like-minded people.  You will never please everyone, and trying to tweet only 'items of general interest' makes your profile look somewhat 'vanilla', as if you have read a book on How To Engage With Your Twitter Followers.  Your profile is your own; if you want to tweet about the sex life of the koi carp, go right ahead. 

12. Do not talk very loud.  A firm, clear, distinct, yet mild, gentle and musical voice has great power.
Do not greet someone in your Twitter feed by saying 'MORNING, FATSO!  SOLD ANY BOOKS YET TODAY?'  On the other hand, do not say, 'in my humble opinion' (IMHO) before expressing yourself; we know it's your opinion because you're saying it, and if you consider your opinion humble, so will others.

On yet another hand, it might be better to say, 'I'm not sure I agree with that' than 'You're talking out of your arse, mate'.

13. Do not be absent-minded, requiring the speaker to repeat what he has said, that you might understand.
It's perfectly acceptable to ask someone for that useful link a second time.  We all forget and lose stuff on our cluttered desktops, etc.  However, asking for a third and fourth time might get you a 😬 followed by the gritted-teeth suggestion that you keep the link somewhere you can find it.
 
14. Do not try to force yourself into the confidence of others.  If they give their confidence, never betray it.
If someone tells you in a tweet that they know a writer who sends DMs to other writers asking them to do review swaps, you'll be dying to know who it is, won't you?  Go on, ask them to tell you in a DM.  Just once.  If they don't reply, don't ask again.

And if they tell YOU in a DM that they haven't sold a book in three months, do not report this to anyone else.   

15. Do not intersperse your language with foreign words and high-sounding terms.  It shows affectation and will draw ridicule on you.
Or, at the very least, will make people mentally label you as pretentious.  It actually shows insecurity, but does not impress, as hoped; it usually has the opposite effect.

16. Do not aspire to be a great storyteller; an inveterate teller of long stories becomes very tiresome.  To tell one or two witty, short, new stories, appropriate to the occasion, is about all that one person should inflict on the company.
Do not use Twitter to detail, in a thread of tweets, the injustices caused to you by an former romantic partner, unless you already have an audience of online friends who have previously expressed their interest and concern, and are waiting for details of the latest developments.  If not, it will make you look like a nutcase.

~ Do unto other Twitter users as you would have them do unto you ~

(ideally....)

😉 😉

A Few Dos and Don'ts for #Writers new to Twitter

If you've just started writing your first book, or if you've recently published and have heard that Twitter is a good place to spread the word, you're probably wondering how best to go about it.  I've seen lots of new users asking for advice lately, so I thought I'd compile a quick, easily accessible list.  Please note: it is mostly applicable to writers who have work published, but it's all worth bearing in mind!

There is so much conflicting advice, on blog posts and in 'how to' books; I've read some articles by social media 'experts', and wondered if they actually use the site at all.  One I read recently advised the busy writer to 'do' Twitter quickly each morning by going down their feed and 'liking' all the posts...  😬

I make no Twitter 'expert' claims, but I have over 90K followers, have run very successful promotions for my books and gained lots of readers via the site, for both my books and my blog.  I have also made good friends in the writer/blogger community, some of whom I have met in real life, too.  If all or some of this is what you are aiming for, I hope you find the following helpful - it's not much to take in all at once, just basic dos and don'ts in bullet points.

Do:

• Be friendly, and take an interest in others' work.  Be generous; share and retweet your followers' posts.
• Be genuine, and helpful.
• Tweet about stuff other than your book.  Places you've been, photos you've taken, TV shows and music you like, observations, a funny cartoon, a helpful or interesting article.
• Ask questions.  Most writers and bloggers are happy to share their knowledge/experience.  But not those 'What do you prefer, breathing or yawning' ones, unless you want to alienate anyone who has more than one brain cell.
• Follow, follow, follow ~ not just other writers, but book bloggers, avid readers, and those who share your interests outside the book and writing world.  If all your Twitter activity consists of cheerleading with other writers, you won't reach the reading public.
• Make your profile picture a photo of YOU, preferably smiling, or at least looking approachable (or cool, if you're very good looking!).  Not your dog, or your child - save those for Facebook.  Not your book cover, either - this gives the impression that you're only on the site to sell your book.
• Block anyone who is needlessly rude to you.  Don't engage, just block.
• Retweet, don't just 'like' ~ clue's in the logo and name; Twitter is all about spreading the word.  If you have found a tweet interesting/funny/useful, chances are your followers might like to see it, too.
• Understand that Twitter is not Facebook ~ it will not be possible to interact or keep up with everyone.  In a way, it's a numbers game; out of all those you follow and who follow you within a week, a few may become people you talk to regularly, while most won't.  But that doesn't mean they won't be interested in anything you tweet about, and vice versa.
• Take it slowly; at first, have a look at what other writers do.  Find them on hashtags like #WritersCommunity, #WritingCommunity, #Writers, #amwriting #writerslife - but, as mentioned previously, don't get too caught up in discussions about what your MC might like for breakfast, or those threads that ask you to post a gif expressing what your protagonist's third cousin might think about you getting a book published.  There's a whole world out there.
• Pin a post to the top of your page, by clicking the little arrow at the top right hand of the tweet.  Change it often, at least once a week.
• Add pictures to your tweets; you can add up to four, or one gif.
• Make sure, if promoting a published book, that your tweet contains links to where it can be looked at/bought.  Sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how many Twitter newbies smother the book promo tweet with hashtags, but leave the link off.  No, people won't go to Amazon and look it up.  If there is no link to click, they'll move on to the next tweet. 
• Enjoy it.  If you don't, if it becomes a chore, it's possible that Twitter is the wrong site for you. That's okay; I've never been keen on Facebook, and this year I finally decided to close my account.  Different strokes, and all that.
• Retweet stuff that isn't about writing and books, too.  Beautiful scenery, interesting articles, funny one-liners, etc.
• Try not to do too many retweets all at once.  It can put off followers who don't want to see a hundred tweets by people they haven't chosen to follow.  Yes, I know, I do too many, sometimes; it's an easy practice to fall into.  Incidentally, if you want to follow someone but don't want to see all their RTs, click onto their page, then onto the three little dots by the 'follow' button.  This gives the option to turn off their retweets.
• Reply, if someone gives you a bit of advice you've been seeking.  Don't just 'like' the tweet; it only takes a couple of seconds to say thank you, and this will make all the difference to the person who tried to help; they may help you again, but are less likely to do so if all you could manage by way of thanks was a quick mouse click.

If you do all this, you will develop a following and, hopefully, find people who are interested in your work. 

Now, I'll balance this out with some advice about what not to do....

Don't:

• Expect to obtain lots of followers, book sales and reviews within a couple of months.  Building up your 'platform' on social media is a long game.
• Introduce yourself to people by providing your book links, either by tweets or DMs.
• Send auto DMs to new followers, with links to your book/blog/website/Youtube channel/Patreon/requests for votes in an online competition/offers of a free book if they sign up for a newsletter/anything else at all.  This is a huge Twitter no-no, and a large number of people unfollow those who do it.
• DM/tweet to new followers/strangers/random people asking them to read/review your book.  Everyone moans about this.  Yes, you may get the odd taker, but these will be far outweighed by the amount of people you piss off.  Seriously.  Just don't do it.
• Make your bio all about your book, and (even more don't!), never use the words 'check out book here', 'buy book here' or anything similar in it.  This is your bio, not a 'buy my book' desperation headline.  Also, don't write it in the 3rd person, as this gives the impression you have someone 'doing your social media' for you; at the very least, it looks a bit pretentious.
• Take notice of those who send those auto DMs - especially not dodgy looking profiles that try to sell you book promotion, claiming thousands of readers in your genre, or whatever.  Often, they just want you to pay for advertising space on their site, or tweets that you can do yourself.  Scammers of all types have been cashing in on the Kindle gold rush since it began just over 10 years ago - please don't get sucked in! (See item 2 of the article on this link for others to watch out for)
• Communicate mostly in the blurred gifs you get by clicking 'add a gif'.  Most are pretty lame, and Twitter is about words, first and foremost.
• Make it all about getting reviews.  Some people do general tweets offering a free copy of a book in exchange for an honest review.  It's up to you if you want to do this or not.  But it's a bad idea to ask for them in a promotional tweet.  Even if the book is free; never, ever tweet anything like 'please download and review'.  Wait until someone has read your book and told you that they've enjoyed it, of their own accord; then you can judge whether or not it's okay to ask them to review it.
• Call yourself a 'best selling author' if you're not.
• Hard sell.  If someone expresses interest in your book, just thank them and answer any questions.  If they want to buy it, they will.  If you hard sell (i.e, by telling them how much they'll love it, quoting from reviews, offering them free copies of other books if they buy it), it may put them off.  Most of all, don't ask them to review before they've even bought it.  They might not like it, or might not read it for six months, and it's too pushy, anyway.
• Engage in a gif game with one or two friends, while 48 other people are tagged in.  Nobody wants to log on to find themselves tagged in 30 blurry gifs of 1990s sitcom stars/yawning chimpanzees.  You want to play gifs - untag everyone else.  Yes, I know they can mute if they don't want to see (the mute option is in the little arrow, top right of a tweet), but it's nicer if you do the job for them.  If you're mentioned in an #FF (Follow Friday) tweet, untag everyone else before saying thank you.  All too often I log in to find myself with over 100 mentions, the majority of which are people I don't know talking to other people I don't know.  Lots of people moan about this - untag, untag, untag!  You do this by clicking on 'Replying to' and unticking the box 'Others in this tweet', and saving it at the bottom.
• Ask strangers for retweets.  You know, you follow someone back and within a couple of hours you get a DM saying 'Hi, thanks for following!  I'd be so grateful if you could retweet my pinned tweet.'  If you want retweets, do retweets.  With luck, others will reciprocate.  Oh, and please don't ask for them in your bio.  This is super-naff!
• Ask people to follow you back.  If they want to, they will.
• Overdo hashtags on your tweets.  I'd say two or three max for a book promotion tweet.  More if it's an advice post or one of general interest, because you want it to reach the right people, but don't go overboard. 
• Hashtag hijack - by which I mean checking out the trending hashtags, and adding them all to your tweets in the hope that this will improve your 'reach'.  Yes, more people will see you, but they will also wonder why this idiot is tweeting about his book on a hashtag that's for football fans, or whatever.
• Let your stream become nothing but endless streams of book promo retweets, with one pinned tweet about your own book at the top, without ever interacting.
• Forget the 'social' in social media!

For more advice for debut authors, here is a list I compiled of useful articles:
List of Useful Articles 

If you would like to read more about how to use social media, I particularly like this article by Emma Lombard, which gives practical, up-to-date advice on how to use Twitter. 

I follow you back if.... #Twitter @TerryTyler4 #Humour #MondayBlogs

On Twitter, I do my 'follow backs' once every few days, and make snap decisions based on my first impressions of each profile.  The other day I noticed that I only follow back about 50%, and decided (because I love lists and bullet points) to write this summary.

So...  I follow you back if:

(nb, liking The Walking Dead/South Park/Aerosmith preferable but not essential)

• you are a writer, except if you write porn.
• you love books, and are an avid reader.
• you are a blogger, particularly a book blogger.
• you love The Walking Dead.
• you love South Park.
• you are interested in anything post apocalyptic or dystopian related.
• you come from or write about/post pictures of Iceland, Alaska, Greenland, the Arctic/Antarctic, Scandinavia, etc.  Or anywhere cold, barren and beautiful.
• you write or are interested in history.
• your bio makes me laugh.
• you seem like like a fairly normal person, without massive airs, graces or worrying personality defects.
• you have a picture of yourself for your bio and you don't fall in any of the 'I don't follow you back if' categories.
• you like rock music, partic Aerosmith.
• you like any other sort of music/films/TV/books that I like (extensive list!).
• you're a bit of a rocker, generally.
• you are a travel blogger about places that interest me.
• you look as if you're good fun.
• you are an artist or photographer, a poet, a crafter, a musician, or pretty much anything creative.  Or a librarian, a teacher, a geologist, an editor, a journalist, an environmentalist, a historian ... you get the picture.

I don't follow you back if:

• you claim to be a social media influencer (which is actually odd, because this doesn't 'influence' me to follow you back).
• you claim to be a bestselling/award winning author when you aren't.
• the profile is a book.  (I don't follow inanimate objects).
• you claim to be a guru or an expert in ANYTHING.
• your bio is full of buzzwords and phrases.
• your profile is nothing but links to your profiles on other social media sites.  If I wanted to follow you on Facebook/Instagram/God Knows Where Else, I'd be on that site, not this one.
• your profile picture is of genitalia 
• you are offering me sexy girls, or a link to another site so that I may have sex chats with you (the last two: one of the downfalls of having a unisex name!). 
• you want me to buy your book marketing services.
• you have words like SEO and marketing in your bio, separated by vertical lines, and you have one of those super-professional marketing person type profile pictures.  
• your bio is written in the third person (because it looks as though you have someone 'doing your social media for you', whose only aim will be to promote your work)
• your bio is in a foreign language (simply because I can't understand what it says).
• you are promising to boost my Twitter profile, but only have 3k followers.  
• you have no bio.
• you have no profile picture.
• your profile picture is a blurred one of a man in a military uniform and you have no bio aside from a line claiming to be a 'military office', or a 'man who care and fear god'.  The Happy Shopper version of online dating scams....
• your bio is a mass of hashtags and little else ~ yes, it may make you hit all categories, but it also makes you look like a desperate robot.  
• your profile picture is a business logo, unless the business really interests me, and the bio is otherwise well written.
• you want me to give you money (mention of gofundme or Kickstarter in the bio).
• your bio asks me to buy or 'check out' something.
• your bio shows only interests that I don't share (nothing personal, but if you love chick lit, football, hip hop music, Geordie Shore, cricket, GTA, cars or whatever, we will have nothing in common).
•  you promise to deliver me followers or 'likes' or blog views or anything similar, on any site.
• you profile picture is a beautiful girl, your header a wonderful scene, and your bio is nothing but an incorrectly spelled quote.  See, I know you're not really that beautiful girl and are probably a potential spammer/hacker. 

• You claim to be a 'thought leader', or to have the power to motivate or inspire me.  I suspect you're not, you haven't, and you won't.  Those who make such claims seldom are/have/will; I am not inspired by churned out, hackneyed 'motivational' memes, which is (experience tells me) is usually what such profiles offer.....

 

There's raising money online, and then there's online begging....

Today I was followed on Twitter by someone who described himself as a writer.  I almost always follow writers back, so I did with this one, too.

Later today I saw that I had some DMs; whenever I have a follow back session, I always get a rash of automated ones, as I presume you do, too.  You know:

• Hey!  Thanks for following.  If you'd like to connect on Instagram, Facebook, and thirty-three other sites too, here are all my links (no, why would I?  I don't know you.  It's a Twitter follow back, not the beginning of a meaningful relationship).
• Thanks for the follow.  Check out my blog/book at linklinklink (and my motivation for doing so is what, precisely?)
• Hi!  I know automated messages are awful, but I so want you to see this! (Listen.  Acknowledging that auto messages are awful doesn't make it okay to send them.  If you know, why are you doing it?  If anything, this makes it worse).

I've also had my share of links to pleasesendmeyourmoneynow.com, or gofundme or whatever it's called, as I am sure you have.  But today I got an absolute peach.  It was a long message from this guy asking me (and no doubt everyone else who'd followed him back) for money to get his book edited and illustrated.  He claimed it was something he'd wanted to do all his life - so why hadn't he managed to save up the cash for it?  He sent the links telling me how great Kickstarter is, and how I could send him money.  He even very kindly said that if I would like to spread the word for him, I could include the link in my tweets.  

I hope you don't mind me using this, Agent-X comics, it's so perfect!
I couldn't resist - says it all :)

He didn't even send a genuine, non-automated hello, first.

I couldn't believe my eyes.  Are these people completely lacking in any social skills?  Would they go up to a complete stranger in the street and ask them for money to edit their book?  If you're raising money for a worthy cause, yeah, tweet away (but please don't shove it in my face), and I hope you reach your goals, but setting up one of these online begging (because that's what it is) projects because you're too stupid/tight/poxy to save up the money to pay for an editor - well, either start saving now, or learn to edit your book yourself.  

And what of Patreon?  Users appear to fall into two camps:

• 1.  Those who have been supplying advice/a service for some time, free of charge, and are now asking those who follow them if they wouldn't mind donating to help them carry on doing so.  I have zero problem with this, and have in fact become a Patron of a book blogger who has done a great deal to support me.  He has earned it.
• 2.  Those who think they can get people to sponsor their hobby, with big promises about the rewards to be earned.  Inevitably, these rewards are worth little.  What they don't understand is that you have to be providing this service/advice/whatever for a while before you start up a Patreon, so that people know what you're offering is worth the outlay.  Trying to get Patrons in this way is like going to a publisher and saying, please can I have a publishing contract, and then I'll write a book.

One more thing.... if a publisher requires you to start up a Go Fund Me or Kickstarter, or whatever, it is not a proper publishing house, but a version of a vanity press.  Publishers pay authors; they don't expect them to raise their own funds to get a book edited/proofread, etc.

 

The only tips you need to finish your novel

• Stop browsing Amazon for books about how to write a best seller.
• Stop writing blog posts about being a writer.
• Stop spending four hours a day voting in polls/looking for gifs to post for Twitter's #WritingCommunity.
• Stop chatting to your friends on Facebook writers groups about your lack of motivation/time.
• Open the document.  Write.
  

DOs and DON'Ts for First Time Novelists

Recently, I clicked on a post on Twitter entitled '21 tips for new writers'.  It was on a writing blog, not a marketing one, but I was appalled to see that the first 15 tips were about establishing your social media presence, your author 'brand', choosing a great cover and blogging about your book as you write it, to create interest for when it's published.  Only at the end were a few sentences about making sure you can actually write in the first place, as though the blogger had remembered to say a few words about the content of the book itself, as an afterthought.

Here's my advice.
I don't mention your author 'brand' once.  
Because it's about writing the novel.  

Dos and don’ts for first time novelists

Twenty-four years ago I thought 'I wonder if I could write a novel?'  This article is for those who’ve recently had the same thought - random pieces of advice for those who are putting finger to laptop key for the first time, taken from my own experience and observation of others’.  I hope it helps!

• DO read a lot, and when you do so, take notice of why certain passages appeal to you, or bore you.  Be aware of the structure of the story as a whole, and what it is that makes you keep turning the pages…
• …but DON’T try to write like your favourite authors.  Those whose work you love reading are successful because they have their own ‘voice’, and you need to find yours, too.  In the future, when your novel is published, some readers might say that your style reminds them of so-and-so’s, but this should be a happy accident, not something you seek to achieve.
• DO plan your novel first.  It needn’t be 50 pages of in depth character studies and scene setting; I often start a novel with just a few pages of notes about the first few chapters, but you need to know where those chapters are going.  I don’t make character studies; I carry the personalities in my head and think about them a lot (I imagine unwritten scenes, sometimes!); I think if you write a character via a list of personality traits it can become a bit 'writing by numbers'.  However, you might want to make lists of the practical details, like his date of birth, name of the company he works for, etc.  For the story arc alone, it's a good idea to have at least a basic plan, because….
• …. everything you write should be relevant to the plot, so that you DON’T dive off at tangents and then realise that the great scene outside the pub is going nowhere.  And it helps with time continuity.  I have pages of A4 blu-tacked all over the wall in front of my desk, to which I constantly refer.
• DO show your first attempts (the first few chapters, maybe) to someone who will give you an honest opinion – ie, not a family member or friend who may tell you only what you want to hear.  It’s really hard doing this, I know.  I felt sick with nerves when I gave my first novel to someone else to take a look at!  Of course it’s not for me or anyone else to say that someone shouldn’t do something they enjoy, but it helps to have realistic expectations if you’re hoping for any sort of success in getting published/finding a readership, and it can help you iron out your weak points; you might ramble too much, for instance, or include far too much backstory (one of my downfalls!)
• … and DON’T be in too much of a hurry to publish on Amazon, if that is the route you want to go down.  Make sure this is the novel you want to see as YOUR DEBUT.  If you’re submitting to agents/publishers, that’s different, because they’re the only people who’ll see it and won’t remember your name for more than five seconds, but once you self-publish, this is the novel by which your writing abilities will be judged.  I knew my first three weren’t good enough, so I didn’t even send them to agents (I wrote them in the days before Amazon Kindle).  You learn with each one you write. Yes, yes, yes – I’m aware that some super-talented people become bestsellers with the very first one they write; you may well number among those, and I bow with respect if you do, but many authors you admire have a few unpublished ones hidden away, or at least a novella and a pile of bad short stories!  Okay, let’s have a cliché here – most overnight successes have been at it for years.
• DO think about what you like to read.  You know those long, descriptive narratives you skip-read in books?  Don’t write them.  Mostly, people don’t much care what the sideboard was made of.  Ditto how much your character paid the taxi driver and how much change she was given, unless of importance to the plot.  Cut the bits that aren’t interesting.
• DON’T look at hugely successful books you think are rubbish and think, well, if that can become a bestseller, anything can.  A book that has been slammed for its literary merit has probably struck a chord with the public by hitting on a gap in the market, or dealing with a subject that interests many people, or simply by having a very efficient publicity machine behind it.
• DO remember that those ‘I can’t write, I’m useless’ moments pass.  We ALL have them, honestly.  If you’re reading something you’ve just written and think it’s a heap of garbage, leave it alone, go and do something completely different, or have a moan to a writing buddy about it.  You might find that the the next time you look at it, it seems better – or that you can find a way to improve it. 
• Talking of skip-reading, DON’T use your novel as an opportunity to show off your knowledge about something.  Yes, many of us write about what we know, and indeed use our experiences in our novels (it doesn’t half save time on research if you already know what you’re talking about!), but it should always be PLOT RELEVANT.  If you’re desperate to display to the world your in depth knowledge about the architecture of Prague, don't slip all the information into your romance novel unless it's a romance novel about two architects/artists in Prague. Ditto chunks of info taken from your research notes.
• DO get your work professionally proofread before publishing it on Amazon or sending it to an agent or publisher.  Don’t just go with the first proofreader you come across; ask around (ask me!), look at their websites, see if they feature any testimonials from other writers.  Since self-publishing on Amazon began, loads of people are setting themselves up as proofreaders and editors, and some don’t know what they’re doing or are deliberately out to make money, not caring about the service they provide - there is no such thing as accurate proofreading software.  Let me tell you about a short story I was asked to read a while back.  The first page alone had so many errors that I suggested it was withdrawn and professionally proofread.  The poor guy told me that he loved to tell stories but was hopeless at grammar and punctuation, so had paid someone to proofread for him….. beware of the charlatans!
• BUT……DON’T make the mistake of thinking that your editor (if you choose to use one) and/or proofreader will turn your rambling scribblings into a polished best-seller.  You need to revise and re-write until your novel is as good as it can possibly be, BEFORE it goes to the (editor and the) proofreader.  I know one of the latter who found over FIVE THOUSAND errors in one book she worked on.  Aside from these errors, it read liked a badly written first draft.  When the ‘author’ published it on Amazon, she got some very bad reviews and tried to pin the blame on the proofreader, asking for her money back.  Proofreaders are there to correct your typos, grammar and punctuations errors, not wave magic wands!
• On that subject, maybe DON’T plunge into writing a novel if your grammar and punctuation is lousy.  If your written English is very weak, it’s best to learn how to improve it, first.  You could write blog posts or short stories, so you get used to writing.
• DO try reading the dialogue aloud, to see if it sounds realistic.  And if you’re not sure what language a Liverpudlian teenager or a Cornish Victorian housemaid would use, find out before you write it!
• DO leave your novel for at least a week between re-drafting.  Classic advice, but it really, really works.  I’m writing a novel of roughly 125,000 words at the moment and by the time I get to the end of one draft and go back to the beginning again, it’s been an average of a fortnight since I looked at the first few chapters, so I can see them with fresh eyes.  If you keep going over and over the same pages, despairing over them, you’ll drive yourself nuts.  You can’t see for looking!  However, if you leave it for a few weeks, you often find that the bits you thought were crap are actually fine – and you see exactly how to re-write that bit that just wasn’t working. 
• DON’T try to be clever.  Don’t use your novel to show off your vocabulary.  Keep it simple.  Don’t use ten words where four will do.
• DO be aware who you’re writing the novel for, at the same time as writing from the heart.  Is this story just to get all your angst out?  Okay, then it’s fine to use it as a way of exorcising your feelings towards your ex boyfriend.  Go for it.  If you’re writing it as a way of finding a readership, for this and future works, though, it’s worth reminding yourself that this catharsis should be entertaining, first and foremost.  One of the best pieces of advice I ever saw was 'write as a reader'.
• DON’T get TOO caught up in social media.  Yes, I know you have to build your online presence, and use social networking sites to let the world know about your books, etc etc etc and blah blah blah, but while you’re joining in with a jolly four-way discussion on a Facebook writers group about how hard it is to motivate yourself/find time to write, you could actually be WRITING.  Don’t feel you HAVE to join Facebook groups and Goodreads forums, etc etc.  They’re great for networking and the exchange of ideas, but often it’s just chat (or worse, oneupmanship) and won’t get the next chapter written.    Having said that…
• …. DO be moderately active on Twitter – it’s a wonderful site for networking, ideas, finding articles for advice on blogging, marketing, and the practical side of publishing your book.  You can also ‘meet’ so many interesting, amusing and helpful people – for this, it’s by far my favourite social networking site.  
• One last word about Twitter – be there IN PERSON, at least some of the time.  DON’T think you can do all your future marketing via the software available, those ones that churn out tweets and retweets 24 hours a day without you having to look on the site.  Interaction is all.
• DO make sure any practical stuff in your novel is properly researched.  Few things scream ‘amateur’ more than getting your facts wrong.
• DON’T tell everyone you know that you’re writing a novel.  The vast majority of people don’t understand the publishing industry (and why would they?), and their first question after ‘what’s it about?’ will be ‘are you getting it published?’.  If it’s not an immediate best seller, many will presume it’s no good. 

Good luck!

#TwitterTips ~ Tweeting with Style

Recently I've written four guest posts for book and writing blogger Rosie Amber, about how to get the most out of Twitter.

You can read the fourth one, Tweeting with Style, about how to make your tweets stand out, HERE