Writing, on Twitter (note the comma)

'Cause, yeah, commas do useful sh*t. So do asterisks, or as one of the people I've worked with calls them: 'Those weird star things over the 8 key?'

I could've said 'writing on Twitter'. I do that too. But I wanted to write about writing, on Twitter, as in people who write and Tweet about it.

After following and being followed for a few years now, I've begun to realise what interests me in a Twitter feed, and in a Twitter biography, and look for folks to follow who share interests, or at least interesting stuff. Do I only follow authors, or only get followed by authors? Of course not. There are a lot of book folks, but there are psychologists, politicians, network security experts, security and law-enforcement types, porn actors, pilots ... Twitter's a great place to meet people.

Is everyone going to have the ability to provide useful advice for writers in 140 characters? (Insert JRR Martin joke about killing all 140 characters here .. sigh). Nope. Is everyone going to be a great blogger? Probably also ... yeah, nope.

Since publishing my sci-fi novel, Through the Hostage, (see what I did there, in terms of shameless plugging?) in February, I've become one of those writers who Tweets. Oddly enough, publishing a book has expanded my Twitter following massively. The flux of book-related tweets has probably pissed off my non-writing friends massively, too. Happily anyone still willing to admit they know me socially after five minutes is also virtually immune to my more annoying habits.

I confess I rather expected that I'd sell a few more books, and gain a few less Twitter followers. Probably everyone does.

Not that I'm complaining. I've found Twitter to be an awesome resource as an indie author. You can find cover artists, cover designers (no, not always one and the same), editors (for them as can afford them), reviewers, and any number of writers, tweeting about what they do.

Some of them (let's start with @NatRusso, or @FionaQuinnBooks) tweet incredibly useful blog posts and #writetips on a diverse array of topics.

Some people just do be on Twitter to tell you that they've written a book. Valid. If it turns out to be a good one, I may even retweet it. We're all going to do some shameless plugging of our creative genius at some point ... Others tell you some useful stuff, retweet publicity tweets (cultivate these folks too), and and some people focus on current news (yep, useful as well. If you're a sci-fi writer and you're not following @BadAstronomer, you may just be dead to me).

Also, there are the hashtags, the speakeasies of Twitter, where you can see what people you've never heard of are saying on topics that interest you. #writetip, #horriblewritetip, #amediting and #amwriting are all fantastic spots to belly up to the bar and listen in to the conversations. Not to mention #scifi, #fantasy and #IARTG. (You'll adapt the genre hashtags depending on what you write, yes? Good.)

You can learn a lot from Tweeps (or, as I occasionally can't resist calling us, Twits).

And here's the key bit. You may not think that most of what you're reading is at all to do with writing, editing, or, crucially, how to tell if you slipped a disc in your PoV. I put it to you that actually, the bits of Twitter you think are completely irrelevant to creating the next De Re Publica may be the most useful things of all. I didn't learn how to describe what drowning feels like by going to a writers' convention. Unfortunately, I learnt that one by damn nearly doing it. Likewise, the guy you follow because he sometimes comes up with awesome one-liners? One day your protagonist is going to run into someone really like that guy. Life and people are what you can find on Twitter, and what you can contribute back to Twitter. And, hey, guess what - if you're in any kind of fiction genre ... sooner or later it's about people. Even if those people happen to live at ten atmospheres in the utter darkness of a sea of liquid methane.

Amazon Author Central - Undercover to El Dorado

Yo, authors! I was kidding about El Dorado. This is much better hidden.

There's something provided by Amazon. It's free, it's useful, and it's very well hidden if you don't have its exact coordinates. It's Amazon Author Central.


Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.fr

Amazon.de

Amazon.co.jp

(See, I cheated. I gave you the direct links.)

It seems to be conceived as a hybrid of the very familiar Kindle Direct Bookshelf, where you can track sales, etc., and a personal profile page for you, the author, as well as a spot to track customer reviews.

Whether it will eventually expand to other Amazon country sites, maybe supplant the Bookshelf altogether, possibly not even Amazon knows.

However, as anyone who's spent a few minutes wandering around the books section of Amazon scoping out the competition knows, there's customer reviews, luvverly little boosts that they are, and then some people have an entirely different section, called Editorial Reviews.

This is one of the fun things that it seems you can only access from Author Central. Essentially, Amazon doesn't allow professional book reviewing sites to publish reviews to your book site. However, you are allowed and encouraged to take your pro review and copy it into your Editorial Reviews area.

From there, you click on the book you want to add an editorial review to, and go into the Editorial Reviews tab below the book image. You can add (a) review(s) there, as well as product descriptions, some about the author blurb, and a number of other tidbits. All good cess to get people to stop and buy your genius.

Your Author Page is another nice extra that comes to those who persist. You can add a photo, a bio, your Twitter feed, your blog and quite a lot of other stuff.

Have fun - love and wiggles, the Indie Publishing Hacker.

Free book reviews

Hello authors.

Since everyone can use a review in this world ... there's a site called Readers' Favorite Book Reviews and Award Contest that offers free and paid reviews (basically the difference is whether you want your review this week, or you're not fussed), book competitions, and ... you can become a reviewer (FREE books to read, some of them by first-time all-new authors).

OK, well, that last bit's obviously the part I'm most excited about,  because I get cranky swiftly followed by shaky and homicidal if I don't have books to read in sufficient quantities. Ergo, the lure of books, especially ones that people give me, pretty much had me drooling and clawing at the door to sign up.

Despite the claw marks and slobber on their door ... I'm now a Readers' Favorite reviewer. Hope to see y'all, with books for review, lining up (because I need more BOOKS!!!).

Were Clans of the Northwest

As well as sci-fi, I also drop in occasionally on urban fiction and outright fantasy.

One of my one-off novels, which I have a feeling is going to turn into a series, is currently a completed Draft 0. Right now, it's running under the stunningly original working title of 'Cat Were', and isn't admitting much more than that.

However, I put up some of that Draft 0 on one of my other blogs, in segments, and it met with a very positive amount of reading. If you want to read the first few installments, the link will take you there. Fairly self-evidently (I hope) the earliest post is the start of the book.

It's due up for editing once I finish work on the second book in the Cortii series, which is currently at the 87% loading stage and sucking down most of my run time, invention and energy.

Meet Katrin Summers, Canadian, outdoors enthusiast, introvert (sounds better than anti-social), native of Vancouver's North Shore, and a were cat. Don't make the "Cat? Where?" joke. It's been done. To death, in some cases.

Katrin is a peacekeeper for the were cats of the Northwest. In her own words, she goes out looking for trouble to put down. The elders, bastions of clan tradition, aren't particularly thrilled that Katrin will work with wolves, witches and even living legends to solve a case ...

*****

Cat Were

So, there's something a little odd about me. Fine, there's several things a little odd about me. This one's odder than most of the things you find out about people after one too many drinks, though. A lot of people make jokes about their wild side. Mostly, I don't. When your wild side weighs in at little over the average cougar, and comes equipped with claws that can take someone's throat out, bragging seems a bit superfluous. Not to mention not a great idea. I mean, someone who staggers into a police station right now and starts talking about watching a woman turn into a mountain lion, they'll probably let him cool off overnight in the drunk tank. Make a fact public domain, and suddenly everyone starts asking nosy questions.

It's a trend right now to be fascinated by the supernatural - vampires, mostly, but weres, magic, voodun, anything that would definitely have got you excommunicated to kebab flambé a century or so ago. It's a damn nuisance. Most of the fans are harmless in fact if not design, but the intelligence agencies? They're a real pain. Especially because I feel so guilty about propping up the stereotype of snoopy.... well, snoops, let's face it, employed by one or other of the so-called free world's democratic governments, hanging out in my brambly backyard trying to catch me out. I hate feeling guilty. I'd say it was the were-cat thing, but if truth must be told, it's probably just me.

So someone's going to ask: if I like my privacy that much, why am I writing a book? Why now? Good questions. Probably because most of the fantasy books out there are just so wrong, it makes my hair stand on end, and depending on which form I'm in, that can be pretty spectacular.