Midlist Writer: I've reached 500 followers on Twitter

Wednesday, 1 September 2010

I've reached 500 followers on Twitter

Today my Twitter feed reached 500 followers. I started in January and have kept it up regularly since, except for the two months I was in Ethiopia and Somaliland.

I've already talked about my first impressions of using Twitter for writers. After only a week on the service I posted saying it was a great help with my travel writing and not much good for anything else.

Eight months later, I still feel the same. Most of my activity on Twitter is travel related. I retweet my Gadling posts and pick up some good leads from other travel writers that inspire stories. Retweeting my stories nudges up my hits a bit, and it helps with this blog too. Otherwise Twitter hasn't done much. Sure, I hear about interesting news and keep tabs on the horror fiction and history markets, but these have yet to materialize into real advantages. If it wasn't for the help for my travel writing, Twitter would be a waste of my time and I'd ditch it.

Writers need to budget their time carefully. Too often writers feel they have to take on every new social networking tool to help their exposure. We don't. We need to find what works for us and ignore the rest so we can spend the maximize amount of time and energy on writing.

So who is my 500th follower? Kristin Martin, who describes herself as a writing mom. She's new at Twitter so I don't really know much else about her. Welcome anyway, Kristin, and good luck in this crazy world of writing.

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