Twitter Tips Part 2: How to Keep Your Followers

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

If you’ve read Twitter Tips Part 1, you have a good idea of how to get people to follow you back. But what about once you have them? It’s far too easy to push that “unfollow” button.

I don’t go through my timeline searching for any reason to drop everyone I can. I only unfollow people who stand out for one of the reasons below, and generally only if they’re repeat offenders. I would rather be writing than wading through tweets that annoy me, so I aim for quality in my timeline. To semi-quote the lovely Nina Badzin:  following someone who you never interact with doesn’t do either of you any favors. It’s not about numbers; it’s about people and connections. For me, that means a slim and trim following list.

Here are some reasons that I have dropped tweeps, and conversely, tips on how to avoid being dropped.

Things that Make me Unfollow Someone:

You have an app that posts all of your ________ (fill in the blank: Pandora songs, TV shows, “Ask Me” answers, Goodread updates, physical locations, Tumblr pictures, etc.) In short, don’t hook up ANY automatic outside apps to your Twitter. They flood the timeline.

You fill up my entire timeline with #FFs and “Thanks for the RT love” lists. One or two “FF” tweets is plenty for each week. If you want to thank people for RTs, do it by @ mentioning them, not by tweeting their names to everyone. That just comes off as bragging. (This tweet: “@Whoever, thank you so much for the RT!” is totally different than this tweet: “Thanks for the RTs @Whoever @WhoeversTwin @WhoeversMomma @Stranger @PersonIDontFollow.” Get it?) Nina Badzin has a great explanation of this (and why it’s annoying) here.

Most of your links are to fiction and/or poetry on your blog. (This is just taste. I don’t like to read people’s actual work on Twitter. Some people do.)

One or more of your tweets is offensive to me. I don’t mind crude, but I do mind rude. If you tweet sexist, racist, or homophobic tweets, I unfollow.

You tweet endless micro-poetry. The part of my brain that reads tweets and the part of my brain that reads poetry cannot be active at the same time. I find micro-poetry tweets jarring and out of place. Again, taste. There are thriving communities of micro poetry tweeters out there. If you love it, full steam ahead. Just be aware that you might be isolating yourself from non-poets (and poets like me).

You tweet too many WIP lines (quotes from your current writing work in progress). For one thing, this is like micro-poetry: I just don’t want to read creative fiction when I’m on Twitter. But even more than that, by tweeting WIP lines, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Take any line from the greatest work ever, and unless you have already read it, the line will fall flat. Clever lines don’t sound clever out of context, they sound lame. So by tweeting WIP lines, it implies to me that you think they’re awesome. When they fall flat (and they almost always will), it makes me think poorly of your book, when in reality it might be awesome in context. So just… don’t do it. And if you want to do it anyway, don’t do it often.

If I follow you and you send me an automated DM asking me to look at your blog or buy your book, I unfollow. I don’t need or want that kind of spammy behavior in an already overwhelming Twitter timeline. Put your book on your website; put your website link at the bottom of your Twitter profile. Interested parties know where to look.

You’re always stoked/always in despair. I have no problem with people being stoked or in despair, but when the same person is always one of those things, I don’t buy it. I especially dislike an endless stream of “OMG this is the best chapter I’ve ever written I can’t wait until you guys can read my booooooook” type tweets. Not only does it seem false, it seems like you’re already trying to sell a book that’s not even out yet. Ick.

You change your avatar/profile pic and/or your Twitter handle without telling me, and I no longer have any idea who you are.

You go inactive for six months or more, less if I don’t know you well or don’t remember you. I just assume you’ve given up on Twitter without closing your account.

Things That Annoy Me, i.e. Things You Probably Shouldn’t Do:

Don’t put a copyright sign in your profile. Everything you write is copyrighted. We all know not to plagiarize, and the people who do it anyway won’t stop just because you do that. (It makes you look ignorant and/or arrogant, as if you assume everyone has nothing better to do than steal your tweets.)

Don’t unfollow and follow again to get my attention. If I didn’t follow back, try actually talking to me.

Don’t #FF me just as an attempt to get me to follow back (more than one #FF and I assume this is your endgame. Call me cynical).

Don’t #FF me if you aren’t following me yourself. That’s clearly a gimmick. How can you recommend me to your tweeps if you don’t even know what I tweet about?

Don’t tweet the same things from your personal and organization accounts. This happens more than you might think. Many writers are also editors, part of group blogs, or leaders of writing organizations. Which is great, I mean, I am too. But if you use your personal account to RT your group tweets all the time, chances are good that I will quickly unfollow one or both. Why do I need the same information twice?

Don’t automatically send all of your tweets to Facebook. Facebook users are just not used to this level of activity, and it’s very frustrating to them. Also, non-twitter FB users don’t understand hashtags and other Twitter ways. So tweets just confused them. (It’s not just me! Look at Emlyn Chand’s post that includes this.)

Don’t have really, really long conversations 140 characters at a time with other people. When it gets beyond 5-6 tweets in one day, it’s time for email. (When you follow both people it takes up your whole timeline.)

The Bottom Line

Most Twitter sins are forgivable if a tweep has lots to offer otherwise. There are people in my timeline who waaaay over #FF or tweet links to their new blogs at least a dozen times. But I haven’t unfollowed them because they took the time to make a connection with me. The common theme among the unforgivable sins? Treating Tweeps like consumers instead of friends. People don’t want to get on Twitter just to be advertised to and spammed. They get on Twitter to socialize and network. There’s quite a difference.

Want to see if I tweet the talk? Find me @AnnieNeugebauer. =)

So how about you? What sorts of Twitter habits turn you off big-time? And how do you decide when it’s time to unfollow?

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Twitter Tips Part 1: How to Get Followed Back

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

A lot of people auto follow-back on Twitter. Others follow everyone who doesn’t look like spam. And you know what? That’s cool. It’s a nice thing to do. But some people think it’s rude not to, and I disagree with that. That’s how people end up with 8,000 followers and are following 8,025 people. How can you possibly keep up with that many tweeps? At some point, automatically following back seems disingenuous to me. Which is why I don’t do it.

My take? Life’s too short to follow someone who doesn’t offer you something. (This is related to Roni Loren’s post about this same concept with blog comments.) Not trying to sound snobby. It’s just the truth. We’re all on Twitter to get something out of it, right? No one is 100% altruistic. What people offer can vary from entertainment to information to emotional support and beyond. When did “following back” become so important?

There are plenty of reasons that someone can be worth following. Unfortunately, sometimes those reasons can be disguised under a pile of mistakes. And our attention spans are at their shortest when we’re on Twitter, so it doesn’t take much to get nixed. Here are some of the things I personally consider when glancing at a new follower.

And hey would you look at that: if you reverse them, they become tips on how to avoid getting skipped. 😉

Things that Make me Hesitate to Follow (Back) on Twitter:
*Please note that the keyword is hesitate. There are exceptions to every rule.

No avatar (default egg). Makes you look like spam.

Avatar is not a person (book cover, animals, graphics, cartoons, etc.). I’m on Twitter to connect with people, not random objects. I understand that you’re super-duper-uber excited about your new book cover. I would be too. But the place to feature that awesome-sauce is a twitpic and/or on your blog’s sidebar. Or a whole blog post – or a whole page! And I also understand that some people are very self-conscious. But I promise I don’t care what you look like: I just want to see a human face.

Following over 5,000 people. I just feel like my tweets would be lost to you. I’d rather make meaningful connections.

Following no people. Again, this looks like spam.

Don’t have any tweets yet. Everyone has to start somewhere, but empty timelines look like spam accounts. Beginners should tweet at least a few times before they start following people.

All/most of your recent tweets are self-promotion. I don’t have a problem with self-promotion, if done in moderation. If half of your tweets are about your book, or if you tweet the same blog post five times a day, it begins to feel impersonal and annoying.

All/most of your recent tweets are @ mentions. @ mentions are great, but if you’re not following both parties, you never see those. I need some “free-standing” tweets too.

All/most of your recent tweets are RTing others. A lot of people do this once they hear the advice to share others, but that doesn’t mean at the expense of yourself. I want your tweets, too. Otherwise I could just follow everyone you’re following and call it a day.

All/most of your recent tweets are Pintrest, Tumblr, or Facebook links. I can just follow you on those sites.

Something in your profile description puts me off or insults me. Personal taste. Certain things just make me cringe, like really feel-good life philosophies or intense declarations of religious/political views.

I can see that you go overboard with #MM #WW or #FF. This just becomes clutter. If you fill up my timeline with half a dozen tweets listing names, I won’t check out any of them. And I’ll be grumpy because I have to scroll down three pages to see anyone’s tweets besides yours.

You are famous + I’m not already a fan (blue checkmark + I don’t know you). I don’t like to follow famous people that I don’t know because it implies I’m a fan. Maybe that’s weird, but I don’t want other people to think I’m a fan of an author/singer/actor that I might actually hate.

You seem overly cliquish. Don’t like it in real life, don’t like it on Twitter.

The Bottom Line

The number one way to up your chances of me following back is to @ mention me and introduce yourself. You don’t have to say, “Hi, I’m so-and-so,” but you could comment on something we have in common, how you found me, or a mutual friend. Not only does this get my attention and prove you’re a real person, it also tells me that you’re interested in really starting a relationship (as opposed to getting me to follow back so you can unfollow me to improve your following ratio). Surprisingly few people do this.

Everyone has different standards that they look for in new tweeps. And just like in real life, you can’t please everyone. Some people won’t like you. That’s the way of things. If you find yourself consistently upset by someone, regularly annoyed, or somehow offended… unfollow them. And on the flip side, try not to get too offended if someone drops you or fails to follow-back. If you’re a die-hard believer that automatically following back is the minimum courtesy, you have every right to drop me for not following you back. I’d prefer you try to strike up a conversation with me first, but that’s your prerogative. It’s all relative, you know? At the end of the day, it’s not personal.

Want to give me a shot? See how I roll @AnnieNeugebauer. =)

*Now that you know how to get followers, don’t forget to check out Twitter Tips Part 2: How to Keep Your Followers.

So what about you? What are your criteria? Do you always follow back? And do you think it’s rude when someone else doesn’t? Why or why not?

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The Problems with Strong Female Characters

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

I’m not even close to the first writer/blogger to bring this up. Two of my favorites are this New York Times article and Natalie Whipple’s post. I don’t actually agree with everything in both of these, but I think they’re well-spoken and worth reading. And of course, I’m going to throw my own two cents in.

For me, the main problem with this phrase is that it exists. What we should be discussing, in my opinion, are strong characters – or perhaps, in certain circumstances, female characters. If reviewers, agents, editors, readers, and writers started throwing around the phrase “strong male characters,” the ludicrousness of the female counterpart becomes clear. By specifying that these desired strong characters are “female,” it implies to me:

1) That most female characters are weak.
AND/OR
2) That most females are weak.

3) That most male characters are strong.
AND/OR
4) That most males are strong.

5) That gender alone makes these different topics.

Which brings me to my next point, as evidenced by my “and/or” options. The very phrase “strong female characters” is confusing. Are people who seek “strong female characters” looking for female characters written strongly, or characters who are strong females? And yes, there is a difference. Let’s break it down.

Characters Who Are Strong Females

What makes a woman strong? There is literal strength. If someone knows martial arts, lifts a lot of weights, or perhaps is very skilled at gun fights, she can justly be called strong. A person can be physically weak, absolutely. Physical strength can be an excellent symbol of moral strength, but I think far too often, physical strength is conflated with moral strength, so that trend has perhaps outlived its welcome.

So then there is moral strength – what in non-literature life we call “strength of character.” Can someone stand up for what she thinks is right? Does she know what she wants? Has she weathered obstacles? Persevered? The problem, of course, is that moral strength is not only subjective, but ambiguous as well. Is the stay at home mom a societal hero, bucking pressure to do what she believes is right, or is she weak for sacrificing her career and power position in society to fill traditional roles?

The problem with “strong female characters” becoming more and more masculine is quite simple: it implies that men are innately strong and women are innately weak. This is not about literature at all actually, but about our society. If we think the ass-kicking assassin is stronger than the wife who bakes cookies – based on that information alone – that’s a reflection on our own gender views, not on books. (And by the way, wearing heels while you beat up bad guys doesn’t make you “girly,” it makes you totally impractical and probably overly sexualized.)

“Masculine” and “manly” should not be synonyms for “strong.” “Feminine” and “girly” should not be synonyms for “weak.” No, really. This is part of what I love so much about Zooey Deschanel’s character Jess on New Girl. She is ultra-feminine and girly and happy and it doesn’t make her weak at all. In fact, that she’s embraced who she really is makes her super strong, in my opinion. “I brake for birds, I rock a lot of polka dots, I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours…” If you assumed Jess would be weak based on that, you might want to rethink.

[Side note: I’m not bashing “masculine” women/characters. I love masculine women, as long as that’s who they feel they really are. I just don’t think women should “hide” or “subdue” their femininity because they think it’s a weakness, and I don’t think masculinity should be used as a measure of a character or person’s strength.]

Female Characters Written Strongly

So are there weak women? Sure. It’s subjective, as I established above, but all people find certain other people to be weak. Maybe they’re too selfish, with few redemptive qualities, or maybe they let people walk all over them and don’t stand up for what they believe. Maybe they run from who they really are. Whatever the deciding factors, weak women exist because weak people exist. Does that mean that weak women can’t make strong characters? Not if you interpret the phrase to mean female characters written strongly.

Most people would agree that well-written characters:

1) carry the story (meaning they have a story worth telling)
2) seem three-dimensional, complicated, and life-like
3) are emotionally engaging
4) are flawed and conflicted
5) grow and/or change (dynamic)

The execution of these criteria is just as subjective as what makes women strong, so there’s always plenty of room for debate. But I’m going to take a much-cited “weak female character” to make my point: Scarlett O’Hara from Margret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.

Now, many if not most people find Scarlett to be a weak person. She’s selfish, spoiled, materialistic, narcissistic, greedy, and somewhat wishy-washy. I believe she has redemptive qualities, too, but let’s agree for the sake of discussion that she’s a “weak” woman overall.

And yet… whether you love her or hate her, she’s one of the strongest, most memorable characters in all of literature. Why?

Her story is the central story, and it’s one worth telling. She’s vivid, lifelike, and multi-faceted. She’s emotionally engaging. She’s deeply flawed and equally conflicted. She grows and changes from the beginning of the book to the end, showing that’s she’s dynamic. By the end of the book, Scarlett has become real to us, and it doesn’t matter if we like her or not. She’s that well-written.

None of those things make her a “strong woman.” All of them make her a “strong character.”

The Vast Array of Strong Female Characters

To prove how little this phrase means, here’s a sample of some of my favorite “strong female characters.” I’m not going to explain why or sort them into which way I mean, just to show how useless this concept is:

Anita Blake
Catherine Earnshaw- Wuthering Heights
Scarlett O’Hara- Gone with the Wind
Jane Eyre
Carrie Bradshaw- Sex and the City
Liesel Meminger- The Book Thief
Oedipa Maas- The Crying of Lot 49
Cherry Darling- Planet Terror
Lennie Walker- The Sky is Everywhere
Annah- The Dark and Hollow Places

I think you’d be hard-pressed to pick out exactly why I think these female characters are strong, and whether it’s because they’re strong people or strongly portrayed.

So my vote? Let this phrase die. At best it’s vague and subjective; at worst it’s confusing and sexist. Instead, let’s talk about female characters, strong people, and well-written characters, with specific traits that we like.

What are your thoughts?

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The Immortality of Books

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

Have you ever noticed that book reports, synopses, reviews, and query letters are written in present tense, even if the book they’re about is told in past tense? Have you ever stopped to really consider why (beyond the fact that it’s how your grammar teacher told you to do it)? I got to thinking about this the other day, and the whole concept fascinated me.

A screenshot of the plot summary for The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson on Goodreads,
which, by the way, I highly recommend to everybody.

If I shuck my familiarity with this convention long enough to view it logically with fresh eyes, the whole practice seems utterly counter-intuitive. There are other options that strike me as much more reasonable, namely:

1) Write the summary in the same tense as the book.

So The Sky is Everywhere would still be present tense, but Off Season by Jack Ketchum (which I also highly recommend, though not to everybody) would be summarized in past tense.

2) Write all summaries in past tense, sense the person summarizing them has already read them, and thus the events have already happened.

I mean, think about it. Even if you’re currently reading a book, you usually talk about it in past tense. Your spouse walks through the room and you say, “Anita just got them all in big, big trouble,” not, “Anita is getting them all in big, big trouble.” That sounds… not wrong, just odd. Even future tense (“Anita is about to get them all into big, big trouble.”) sounds more natural than that.

But, as I’ve already established, only one of these options is accepted — and the most awkward one at that. All summaries are present tense. Why?

To answer that question, I had to take my mind off the writer of the review and the writer of the book and train it on the reader of the review – and thus the potential future reader of the book.

Future is the key word. That reader has not yet read the book, so for them, the events in the summary have not happened. I’ll let that sink in a minute.

The plot is frozen in time, ready to verb itself into action when you read the words. Until then, it’s like it doesn’t exist. It’s waiting to happen. What an incredible concept.

If you haven’t read a book yet, nothing in the book has happened yet, so the summary wouldn’t make sense in past tense. And since summaries are almost always written for those who haven’t already read something, they belong in present tense. Hell, they could be in future tense if it weren’t so damn clunky.

This tells me several rather wonderful things:

  • Books, quite literally (pun intended), never die, because they’re always happening.
  • Books are always waiting for someone new to read them, to re-happen.
  • Books are not endless. Every book I’ve ever read has ended. But they are never-ending, as someone new can always pick them up.
  • When you think of it that way, books are immortal.

I don’t know about you, but that gives me a lot of joy to think about. Now I would like to pose a tiny little question.

Is that, perhaps, maybe, by any chance… the reason we all so desperately want to publish one?

Is it possible that it’s why we like to read them? Re-read them? What do you think? Am I over-romanticizing it, or are books our best shot at immortality?

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Book Title Poems

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

The Setup

So a few weeks ago, I came across this post on Art of Trolling. Heads up: it’s naughty, but quite amusing. And more than a little silly. And even so, I thought, “Wow, that’s really cool.  I wonder what else you could do with that,” before forgetting about it.

Then last week Judy Clement Wall posted a blog sharing her poem arranged from book titles. J’s effort is, as is everything she does, quite lovely.

For me, it was one of those moments when the perfect combination of ideas comes together. I am obsessed with book titles. I love poetry. What’s more, I actually am a poet. I also am quite partial to crafts and projects, not to mention that I’m madly in love with physical books, of which I have many to choose from. Clearly, this is a concept that was meant to be my soul mate.

I immediately set out to write a book title poem of my own.

My Attempts

(You can click on these pictures to enlarge them.)

Horoscopes for the Dead

Wounds
under the skin
are
needful things –
ardent,
deep in the darkness,
looking for love.

The night swimmer
has
the courage to change,
sailing alone around the room,
under the influence
of
fears unnamed.

There is an urgency –
cold fire,
pale fire.

Even
old flames
can
spark
a light in the attic
in this
house of leaves.

I liked this one, but it was too long for the picture to look good and the titles to be readable. So I tried a shorter one:

Paradise Lost

Wild at heart,
Satan says,
“Darkness demands
lost souls.
Both
angels and demons
go
into the fire.”

This one’s much more photogenic, but perhaps a little dark. (Hey, I have a lot of horror novels. What can I say?) So I tried for one more, both short and less heavy:

The Book of Virtues

The decisive writer
has
a room of one’s own,
goes
where angels fear to tread,
faces
fear itself,
becomes
the book thief —
then
the giver.

How to Write a Book Title Poem

The first thing I did was begin pulling books from my shelves based on titles. Yes, this destroyed my beautifully organized bookshelves, but it was worth it. I took down titles that caught my eye for one of these key reasons:

1) They were poetic already.
2) They were particularly pretty covers.
3) They caught my mind by being somehow tied to another one I pulled.
4) I figured they would be useful phrases.

Now, I pulled way more books than I used. But that’s part of the fun.

I started messing around by stacking my favorite choices, trying to make the phrases fit together to make sense as a free verse poem. Once I had a good little section, I started browsing my shelves for specific things, like verb titles or phrases to be used as an adjective, etc.

When I got to the point that I had a decent stack with some holes, I sat down at my computer and typed up the lines, leaving blanks where something was logistically missing. Then I filled them in. The blanks were either 1) a short word or phrase that I could write on a blank book cover, or 2) something bigger than that. For the 2nd, in my longer poem, I simply went to my local public library’s website and started searching the catalog for words I needed. Bingo.

Finally, I made the book covers (just wrapped the spines of spare books in blank printer paper and wrote the words in), stacked them in order, and snapped a photo. Then I wrote out the poem and capitalized/punctuated it the way I wanted, because in the photos the titles can be a bit tough to read. Voila. A book title poem.

The Rules

These were, of course, self-imposed. As far as I know, there is no official Book Title Poetry Board of Snooty Regents.

1) No extra words (i.e. I couldn’t just ignore words that I didn’t want to use).
2) Keep covered books to a minimum.
3) Covered books could be used only for small phrases or single words.
4) Use mostly books I own.
5) One title per line of the poem.
6) Make it pretty.

The Challenge

So there you have it. I hope you love the idea as much as I do. If so, why not give it a go? I would love to see what y’all come up with. And I found it to be a really fun way to stretch my creativity.

If you do make a book title poem and blog/tumblr/flickr/whatever it, please come back here and paste the link to that post in the comments. Or if you don’t have a blog/don’t want to do a post on this, feel free to paste the text of the poem in the comments. Get as creative as you want: color themes, DVD cases, all books by one author, etc. I can’t wait to see what y’all come up with!

Where to Read More

I do hope that you guys want to play, but if not, at least I had fun and got to share this neat idea with you.

Are you like me and can’t get enough? Aside from the two at the top of this post, here are some more book title poems I found online:

  • What Rhymes With April? by Stacy Post at A Writer’s Point of View
  • Take A Look It’s On A Book by Abigail at Oh My Words!
  • Flickr by the The Northern Onondaga Public Library
  • Book Title Sentence Poem by Karin and Julie at Edifying and Edgy
  • Write Poetry with your Bookshelf by Meredith Ann Rutter at The Blog Farm
  • A Poem of Novels by Tahereh Mafi
  • Stack Poetry by Valette Keller at Rhapsodic

Happy title poeteering, my loves! =)

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