Recently I’ve become somewhat disillusioned with Twitter, at least in terms of my intended use of

it, which is to sell books. I’ve read other blogs in which the authors suggest that

Twitter does nothing for sales at all.

My immediate thought is that one’s results must depend upon what how one uses it and what one uses it for. If one simply wants to express one’s mood or thought of the moment, it works well. If one is in the middle of a revolution in a foreign country and wishes to describe the experience, it works well too. If one desires to maintain a friendship or to begin one, I don’t think it works as well. And if one wishes to sell books, it depends.

The longer I thought about it, the more I realized that accurately targeting an audience is extremely important. When I began on Twitter, I looked for writers’ forums, hoping to exchange information, learn  techniques, get advice. And I have done, to a degree. But most writers on Twitter are also trying to sell their books. Hence, I am trying to sell to salesmen, a difficult job, to be sure.

What I should do, of course, is seek out readers and try to develop a following. I should expose my craft to those who seek it. That is the larger part of sales. Even more than that, I should try to narrow it down to readers of my specific genre; fiction>mystery>thriller> etc..

I see Twitter in the same way I saw the original iPad: a platform without a precise purpose, meant to allow users to find their own way. The structure is there; it is up to me to figure out how best to use it.