Twitter for Writers Tip: Use Twitter Chats to Learn and Network

Posted by Donna on December 16, 2009 under Chat, Twitter for Writers, literary agents | 2 Comments to Read

Twitter is the worlds largest conversation. But, you can still segment this world-wide water cooler to become more intimate. Over the past year, I’ve learned about several writers chats on Twitter that happen pretty regularly.

Another active blogger and Twitterer, Inky Girl (@inkyelbows on Twitter), wrote a great blog post highlighting some of these Twitter discussions for writers, as well as a comprehensive list of their scheduled days and usual topics. If you scroll down more, you will see she also offers some tips on chatting in general. She highlights regular hashtags writers use daily while writing, like #amwriting and #writegoal, as well as more targeted chats that occur on certain days or sporadically like #writechat, #scriptchat, #yalitchat, and my two personal favorites, #askagent and #memoirchat.

AskAgent

One of the coolest Twitter chats for writers is #askagent, first started by literary agent Colleen Lindsay. There is no scheduled time for this chat, so if this is something you are interested in participating in, do a search for “#askagent” and then save it in your saved searches menu on Twitter. Then, each evening you are on Twitter (or whenever you feel like it), click on “#askagent” on your menu to see if there is anything happening. Lindsay and now a few other literary agents on Twitter graciously give their time to answer burning questions writers have about agents, queries, manuscripts, the writing process, and other publishing questions. I highly recommend looking out for this one. It’s not every day that you can ask an agent a question.

Memoirchat

My favorite writer chat on Twitter has become #memoirchat. The first #Memoirchat was organized by blogger/writer, Alexis Grant who, of course, is at work on her travel memoir. I’ve attended three or four of these and have found them incredibly helpful. The last #memoirchat on Twitter was last week, and you can read a transcript here to see just how engaging the conversation was. During this chat, we talked about our what memoirs we were reading, our current projects, obstacles we were facing, and also had some discussion about how to format a memoir- narrative vs. collection of essays. That either-or topic was very eye-opening for some. Even though it was a chat, I could see people eyes sparkle! Definitely a good place to exchange thoughts and ideas.

A few things to keep in mind when chatting in Twitter:

• Twitter is public. Anyone on Twitter can see your tweets during that chat, either live in your stream or in a  search the hashtag for the chat. Additionally, many Twitter chats are archived. This means, don’t vent to your writing chat on Twitter about how horrible an experience you had with someone — they may also be following you or the chat.
• Use proper etiquette just as you would in any other professional setting. For the most part, people are going to be using Twitter chat for help, advice, inspiration, or to just talk and meet each other. But, should a disagreement arise, keep things civil. Remember that tone is often hard to tell in online communication, so remember to use emoticons.
• If you are on a chat where you have access to agents or editors, remember they are there to help; not to be pitched. Do that privately in the terms that agent or  editor prefers, as outlined in their submission guidelines. This is not to say that a relationship or mutual interest cannot be spawned from a chat; just use common sense.
• Remember to always use the Twitter chat hashtag after your chat so everyone can follow along. If you are using a service like TweetChat, it does it for you, so remember not to use the hashtag there, otherwise, it shows up twice.
• You only have 140 characters, but try to address the tweet you are replying to if at all possible. Sometimes the conversation can change or there may be a few questions happening at once. I don’t just mean reply to the proper person, but also somehow mention the tweet to which you are referring.
• Use TweetChat to follow that chat in real-time, or use a desktop program called TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a must-have tool if you are a Twitter addict anyway, so organizing your Twitter writing chats is just one more bonus!

Happy chatting! And, if you don’t see a Twitter chat for writers that fits your genre or goals, why not start one?!