Blog tour update or what the heck is tweeting or twating or whatever you call it

Just a quick mid-week update. The blog tour is in full swing. The Hunter's Son was featured on  peacefrompieces.blogspot.com yesterday and there are a number of book reviews, guest posts, and author interviews coming up. I will periodically post the links the day of each particular blog feature, but if you want to see the full schedule, go to my author page at Orangeberry Book Tours here. Unless the reviews are bad, in which case do not go to the blog pages that day (this is my worst nightmare by the way).

Today, as part of the tour, I did something called a twitter view. It was like an author interview through Twitter. It went alright I think. I'm not certain I really knew what the heck was going on. Which brings me to my next topic.

I'm pretty sure I use Twitter completely wrong.

In the past, before my days as an author, I used Twitter for one purpose and one purpose only: Sports. I found it was, and still is, a great way to connect with local sports reporters. Most of the guys and gals are very accessible through Twitter and will give great in game updates and respond directly to fans. Being a sports nut (mostly Chicago teams) this is have become a fun and eventful way to get information about my favorite teams and players.

That is where my experience with Twitter ended. Since learning more about marketing my book, I have been told numerous times "Man, you have to get on Twitter to sell some serious books". I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I feel like I am completely lost. I think this is how my parents felt, or maybe still feel, when trying to use their computer (sorry Mom and Dad).

I always forget to use hashtags, and when I do, I get the feeling I am using them wrong. I'm not really sure, when I reply, who gets to see my reply verses who gets to see my direct tweets. This is definitely something I need brush up on because I believe Twitter can be a great marketing tool. Some people apparently swear by it.

So I pose this question to any of you who stumble across this blog: How have you used Twitter to market your product, website, book or any other thing you have sold on the internet? Also, can you point myself or any other self-promoter in the direction of some good resources about Twitter?

Hopefully I get the hang of this thing quick because I feel like I'm losing out. I don't plan on tweeting my every movement but I also do not want my followers to feel like they are getting nothing but spam about my book. Maybe some day I'll be able to tweet or chirp or whatever with the best of them.

Thanks for reading.