Guest Post: Lynne Cantwell’s Newest Book

May222013
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Release Day Blitz for the 5th and Final Book in The Pipe Woman Chronicles by Lynne Cantwell

Naomi Witherspoon lives in interesting times.  At the winter solstice, she was Seized by a Native American goddess to mediate a power-sharing agreement between all the pagan gods and goddesses and the Christian God.  Then, as her relationship with her new boyfriend Fissured, she Tapped a wellspring of strength – her Native American heritage.

Now, Gravid and due any day, she must conduct the mediation of her life.  Will she succeed?  Or will it all go up in smoke?

The answers to those questions, and more, can be found in Annealed, the final installment in the Pipe Woman Chronicles, an urban fantasy series by Lynne Cantwell.

It began at the winter solstice
And it ends
Now. 

PWC5 - Annealed

It’s zero hour…

Naomi has just two weeks to find a new home for Joseph’s grandfather. The old Ute shaman is fighting for his life against a mysterious injection of toxin he received at the hands of the Norse Trickster god Loki. If Naomi is to defeat Loki once and for all, she must learn what it is he seeks under the old man’s wickiup. 

She has just one week before she must mediate between the Earth’s pagan gods and goddesses and the Christian God. If her efforts fail, all of humankind will suffer the consequences.

And her baby is due any day.

In this, the fifth and final book of the Pipe Woman Chronicles, Naomi is in a race against the clock to balance the demands of her body, her family, and her friends – and she must do it while the whole world is watching.

PAPERBACK | KINDLE

A taste of chapter 10: Jehovah sighed. “White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, I concede that much of what You have said here is true. Humanity wrestles still with its baser impulses, even as it reaches for the pinnacle of its potential. Math, the sciences, engineering. I never thought they would figure out fractal theory.” He chuckled. “I love My children dearly. Soon they will reach the stars. They are ever a surprise and a delight to Me.” Lynne Cantwell’s take on the excerpt: “Naomi has finally reached the Big Mediation — the one between the Christian God and all the pagan gods and goddesses that the whole series has been driving toward. In this scene, White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman has just outlined all the ways humanity has trashed God’s Creation: ruining the environment, using Scripture as an excuse to treat other human races like animals, and so on. God acknowledges all of that. But it’s also clear that He takes great delight in what He has created — and He has a sense of humor, too.”

About the Author: Lynne Cantwell

Lynne CantwellLynne Cantwell has been writing fiction since the second grade, when the kid who sat in front of her showed her a book he had written, and she thought, “I could do that.” The result was Susie and the Talking Doll, a picture book, illustrated by the author, about a girl who owned a doll that not only could talk, but could carry on conversations. The book had dialogue but no paragraph breaks. Today, after a twenty-year career in broadcast journalism and a master’s degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University (or perhaps despite the master’s degree), Lynne is still writing fantasy. In addition, she is a contributing author at Indies Unlimited and writes a monthly post for The Indie Exchange.

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Posted by fitch in writing

How to avoid writing

Jan032013
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The cabinet of curiosities

The cabinet of curiosities

Okay, honestly, I didn’t start out looking for a way to avoid writing. No, really. Here’s how it happened.

We (my husband and I, not the royal “we”) finally finished our long-term project of stripping the wallpaper from the kitchen/eating area and repainting. It’s not that big an area, but it took us at least six months to complete. With the advent of guests at Christmas, I felt the need to get things in better shape. We moved the wooden cabinet back in from where it and the kitchen table had languished for quite awhile. I’d considered replacing the furniture, because it seemed too “country” for my current tastes. We didn’t find a table we wanted in time, so the old pieces went back in place.

As I was deciding what knick-knacks to go back into the cabinet, I decided on a steampunk theme. I found some old-looking clocks

The clocks

The clocks

at World Market and Target, as well as a ring of skeleton keys, and hung those on the wall to the left of the cabinet. We already had some cool items, including a genuinely antique mustache cup and bowl, and a spice rack with test-tube bottles. My husband loved the idea, and we set out to find other bottles to adorn the shelves.

Aqua Regia label

Kinda cool, but too crisp and modern

Being Donna, I couldn’t just let the bottles go unadorned. I’ve loved making props ever since I freaked out a visitor to an early-1980s Call of Cthulhu game with an aluminum-foil covered dagger (for a campaign-starting auction). I recently read and enjoyed Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim, so I decided to add a label to a cool bottle related to a beverage (maybe not so refreshing) mentioned in the book.

Finished label

Finished label

My first attempt wasn’t so great actually. It looked a bit too fresh. I went in search of methods for aging paper. I based my aging process on this article at Curbly, but it uses coffee. Nobody who lives in or visits my house drinks coffee, but I have plenty of tea, so I substituted that instead. I printed out the label, preheated the oven to 200 degrees and laid the printout in a roasting pan. I brewed a cup of jasmine tea (loose leaf, itself in a most excellent tin, which I’d photograph, but one of my cats is on my arm at the moment), which proved not to be dark enough, so I added some English Breakfast to it. I poured the cup, with bits of leaves in it, and tucked it in the oven.

Way too soggy, so after about five minutes, I poured off the liquid. That did the trick. The instructions say you know when it’s done when the edges begin to curl. That observation made me realize I needed to trim the paper down to the label, or my edges would be too flat.

The finished label, complete with wrinkles

The finished label, complete with wrinkles

Within another two minutes, the label was ready. The writing on it was largely washed away, particularly the red letters. I did achieve an old, faded look and decided to use it until I try again. I affixed it with double-sided tape, and you can see the result below.  I left in the wrinkles, figuring it had been on the shelf a long time and the heat of years got to the glue.

I also obtained some tiny bottles from Advantus by Tim Holtz and 7 Gypsies from Supermart, and used those to create some small labels, using the wonderful set online from Seeing Things that Aren’t Really There blog. Be advised, these bottles really are tiny. I intend to put liquid or powder in them at some point. And hope the police never visit and decide it’s got real wickedness inside.

Lovely tiny bottles full of wickedness

Lovely tiny bottles full of wickedness

 

So there you have it. I’ve found a new way to avoid the writing that I really need to do on my work-in-progress, Revival. I have some more time-wasting craft projects to tell about, but I’ll save that for another post. Happy procrastination!

How do you avoid writing? Share in the comments below.

Posted by fitch in crafts

More excursions

Dec272012
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I’ve neglected this blog in favor of the main blog at donnakfitch.com, but I’m currently working on a different novel than I was last time I posted here, so I thought I’d post a bit of information about that. Plus, I’ve written my first short story since “Detour” in 2008!

Dad, Christmas, 1964 001_cr

Dad holding the red guitar, Christmas 1964

First the short story. It’s called “Red Guitar,” and it appears in an anthology called An Alexandria Winter Story Collection, available at Amazon and Smashwords. It’s classified as fantasy, but it’s based on my father, who died on Christmas Day, 1988, and this wonderful photo of him receiving a guitar as a gift in 1964.

The collection is full of other wonderful stories by my colleagues at Alexandria Publishing Group: Jonathan Gould, Paul Kater, Stephen H. King (TOSK) and D. Kai Wilson-Viola, with an excerpt of Valerie Douglas‘ latest book, The Girl in the Window.

My work-in-progress is called Revival. It’s the novel I started during last year’s NaNoWriMo, and it’s on the (roughly) second draft. Maybe third. It’s the story of Elijah Grayson, a Baptist preacher with a dark past whose first sermon in rural Bishop’s Creek, Alabama, is interrupted by church members speaking ancient Sumerian. I’d love to have it published by the end of 2013. That’s my goal, anyway.

Pick up the APG collection and let me know what you think in the comments below!

Posted by fitch in writing

A glimpse of Noora

Jul082012
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I’m still raising money for the Clarion Foundation in the Write-a-Thon through August 5, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse of my story. Here’s part of the first chapter of the currently-titled Noora Tamarin and the Ring of the Mote. If you haven’t given already, please do so, or encourage someone else to help. I’m up to 5,425 out of the 20,000 word goal.

 

Noora Tamarin risked a glance back over her shoulder, clawing the green silk scarf from her eyes. The soldiers were out of sight at the moment, detained by the press of crowds in the market. She dashed around a cart selling samosas and nearly lost sight of her quarry. The brown flicker of a tail vanished behind a pillar at the last stalls. Ah hah! she thought with a smile. Noora plunged after him, the curved wood of the dotara slung across her back bouncing rhythmically. She could feel the faint vibrations of its strings against her skin.

The kananauka sped down the narrow corridor between the row of pillars and the wall of some administrative building. Noora’s breath echoed in her head. “Please—” she panted. “Stop—I just—want to talk—”

She caught a glimpse of the monkey man’s brown and tan face and wide eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded, but didn’t slow his pace. “Quit following me!”

“Your name’s Mathur, right?”

He leaped sideways at one of the pillars, his long fingers and toes grabbing the white stone, and slung himself up out of sight.

Noora skidded to a halt, her green slippers sliding off her heels. She twisted her feet back into the shoes and peered upward into the dazzling blue sky. The spire looked razored out of white paper. She saw the flick of Mathur’s tail over the edge of the roof.

The broad leaves of the tree formed a deep green curtain at the corner of the building. Noora spotted a low branch and pulled herself up into it, climbing as quickly as she could toward the roof. She swung off, resolutely not looking down. One of the fanciful spires of the building swept upward—I wonder if my father designed this one, she thought—and she glimpsed the brown body in the dun-colored worker’s shift leaping up onto it.

“Mathur! Wait!” she called.

On closer inspection, Noora noticed the spire’s surface wasn’t smooth stone, as the lower stories of the building were, but plaster sculpted into a motif of waves protruding at regular intervals. She knew her father must have designed this one; the wave was his signature. I must remember to thank him, she smiled to herself and stepped up onto the lowest level.

She climbed no more than a few meters when a chunk of plaster slid under her foot and spiraled far below to the streets of Ujjayini. She knew she shouldn’t look down, but scraped her toes around for another foothold. “Please, Mathur, wait!”

His long brown tail twitched as it disappeared over the curve of the tower’s fanciful architecture. She heard his voice float back, “I’m innocent!”

“I know you’re innocent!” The sweeping curve of plaster was caked with bird droppings. Noora hauled herself up onto it, wincing at the slimy feel of the substance. “But if you won’t tell me your story,” she said, wiping her hands on her blue cotton tunic, “No one else will know that.” She adjusted the dotara; it kept sliding around and getting in her way. Noora wondered briefly how her grandmother had managed it, but thought, Maybe she didn’t go climbing around the spires of Ujjayini after monkey men. The plaster creaked beneath her as she reached for the next handhold.

Mathur’s brown and tan face peered over the edge of the next curve, his large eyes squinted. Even though he could have easily scaled the tower and lost her, he hadn’t. “Why do you care?” he asked.

Craning her neck to look at him against the brilliant blue sky made her dizzy. She grabbed the protruding wave. “I want to tell your story.”

He twisted his wide mouth and spit off to one side. “Nobody cares about the kananaukas,” he said, the words sharp and bitter. “We harvest melambu all day and all night for the masters and work our digits to the bone—” Mathur wiggled his long, identical fingers and toes over the edge. “And if we stop to ask why or demand better treatment, we’re punished for it.”

Her stomach lurched at the sight of him squatting on the plaster outcropping, until she remembered he was far more in his element than she was. “Isn’t it time someone put a stop to it?” Noora asked.

A sudden gust of wind whipped her green scarf around her face. She stepped back with a gasp, blinded by the fabric. One slipper dropped off her heel and dangled. She clutched at the plasterwork with one hand as she swiped at the scarf.

Posted by fitch in writing

Help bring Noora to life

Jun092012
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As I did last year, this year I’ll be participating in the Clarion Write-a-thon, June 24-August 4. A write-a-thon, as my intelligent readers have probably figured out, is like a walk-a-thon, but instead of giving per mile, you give per word, or whatever amount you wish. My goal is to raise $150. The Write-a-Thon has been hosted annually for the past few years by the Clarion Foundation, a wonderful organization that provides funding for the highly respected Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Workshop at UCSD.

It’s all for a literally fantastic cause.  Clarion is the oldest writing program of its kind, and it is highly respected.  Many of the greatest figures in science fiction and fantasy honed their skills and launched careers there.  Check it out on the web at clarion.ucsd.edu.  Writing programs across the nation are under tremendous financial pressure and Clarion is no exception.  The Write-a-Thon’s success is vital to the workshop’s continued existence.  Last year it raised $17,000.

This year, I’m hoping to make a start on the first novel of my projected series about the adventures of Noora Tamarin, a young woman in Sahasra, a fantasy analog of historical India that I wrote about in a game setting for d20. It’s full of swashbuckling, steampunk-flavored adventure. My writing goal is 20,000 words during the six weeks of the Write-a-thon. Please support me in this endeavor by donating whatever amount you wish.

Consider participating in the Clarion Write-a-thon! As of this writing, we need 80 more writers by June 24.

Thanks for your support, and if you’ve participated before, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

 

Posted by fitch in writing

How learning your craft helps your creativity

May252012
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The subconscious mind is pretty amazing–and not a little bit mysterious. On my way to work this morning, it rose up, tapped me on the metaphorical shoulder, and said, “You know you have a fundamental problem with your Work in Progress, don’t you?”

Bolt of lightning time. Yeah, I’m working on a second draft/rewrite, but I realized the protagonist doesn’t have a significant source of struggle within himself, and that’s something I need/want. Of course there’s an antagonist, but I’d like to see that, at the end of the novel, he’s gained insight into himself.

I turned to research. I’m curious about this phenomenon of the subconscious mind. I found an interesting article, “Creativity, chance and the role of the unconscious in the creation of original literature and art,” that sheds some light on it. [Harle, Rob. 2011. "Creativity, chance and the role of the unconscious in the creation of original literature and art." Technoetic Arts: A Journal Of Speculative Research 8, no. 3: 311-322. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed May 25, 2012).] In the process, I discovered yet another reason (and a scientifically based one!) why writers should thoroughly learn their craft.

Harle’s point is that chance plays an important part in the creative process, and he explores this concept through analysis of Surrealist and computer-generated poetry. Fascinating stuff, really, but this section really grabbed my attention: “I contend that Breton and colleagues were doing nothing more or less than creative artists, writers and scientists have always done and continue to do today. That is, the technical aspect of the discpline is throughly learnt; then by relaxing the hold on the conscious mind, shifting down the scale from logic-high-focus to dreamy-low-focus and quelling premeditated ideas of what should be, inspirationis given a chance to manifest itself. Also, ‘chance association’ of disparate ideas (which is perhaps inspiration itself), like genetic mutations, sometimes results in new, deeply imaginative, unique creations.”

Learning to write, internalizing the process, frees up your subconscious to move on to the “dreamy-low-focus” that Harle describes as daydreaming. Creative solutions to problems, he says, occur at the opposite end of the spectrum from the alert and logical state. When I had this inspiration, I was driving to work, listening to a story on NPR. Not focused on logic, just taking in information and letting my mind wander.

I haven’t addressed his concept of chance; log on to your local library and seek out this article if you’re interested. The take-away from the article is that stressing over plot details isn’t always the way to go. Your subconscious mind works it out for you. But the way to improve the associations your mind makes in the creative process are based on learning your craft.

 

 

Posted by fitch in writing

The Solution to Procrastination

May032012
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“Life is what happens when you’re not writing.” I don’t know if that’s a real quote or if I just made it up in my head. I hope it’s not a real quote because I don’t want to bash a perfectly good aphorism. It’s what popped into my head a bit ago while cleaning up after our old and intentionally incontinent cat (probably in protest for her two younger siblings, but I digress). I think the implication of such a statement is that life is somehow separate from writing, that we stand outside our writing.

I’ve been feeling really guilty lately that I haven’t worked on my Work in Progress in nigh on to two months. Actually that’s not entirely true. I profess not to believe in guilt. To be honest I’m annoyed I haven’t finished the rewrite of the book. Regardless, I’ve thought of a way to cut myself some slack.

I realized we don’t stand outside our writing. People say, “Writing is my life.” If that’s true, what you’re really saying is “My life is my writing.” Whatever comes out of us, out of our subconscious minds and deep hidden recesses, injected into the flesh of a notebook with the syringe that is the fountain pen or tattooed onto virtual skin through the action of manipulating keys, is based in our feelings and beliefs and experiences.

“Oh, Donna,” I hear you saying, “You are so amazingly profound to have discovered this secret eluding humankind for eons.”

I’m nodding sagely. What I acknowledged about my writing today is my psyche has been temporarily diverted to a decision I’m trying to make about my future—get a master’s degree or a certificate or certification classes, and in what field? (AKA What do I want to be when I grow up?) My writing self isn’t on hiatus, though. She’s taking notes. She’s doing research. She’s storing up these thoughts and emotions and processes and details for my future writing.

Obviously it won’t directly correlate. It’s not a one-to-one correspondence, like when people ask, “Where do you get your ideas?” The answer to that one is, “Um, I live.” I don’t plan to write about a woman’s midlife crisis and journey of self-discovery. Although I suppose I could. But you just know (if you’ve read my books) she’d run into a sorcerer masquerading as her personal trainer who’s on the lam from a secret society of Cthulhu-worshipping Baptist preachers intent on subverting the foundations of the world as we know it.

What I’m saying to myself—and you, if you’re feeling guilty about not writing—is chalk it up to experience. Dry spells happen, events intervene. It’s all fodder for the creative mind. Don’t use it as an excuse to quit writing. Because you know you can’t ever stop. Not really.

Not if your life is your writing.

Posted by fitch in writing

Digging up 1940 relatives

Apr092012
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As an oft-times genealogical researcher, I was thrilled when the 1940 census was released. The actual records themselves showed up online in a remarkably rapid fashion, but the indexes take much longer. Ancestry.com has helpfully provided three ways to access these records until those indexes are available. [Note: Delaware and Nevada census indexes for 1940 are already available.] The first is the typical search–flipping through each page of the census until you find your ancestor. Very time-consuming, but somewhat zen as well. To me, anyway. The second way is by knowing what street  your ancestor lived on. The third way is using the enumeration district number from the 1930 census to locate the residence in 1940.

I decided to track down some of my ancestors living in 1940, as an illustration of these methods. It was still time-consuming. I went through at least 5 of my ancestors and 3 or 4 of my friends’ before finally finding someone. I was struck by the frequency with which my people moved around. Just because they lived somewhere in 1930 didn’t mean they’d still be there in 1940. Usually I found the street and house, but someone else was living there.

The ancestor I finally had success in locating is named Herbert Barnes, my great-great grandfather. Technically he’s a “junior,” as his father was also Herbert Barnes. He was a coal miner, born in Lancashire, England. His father and both grandfathers were also coal miners. According to his naturalization papers, he was missing both hands and an eye. Everyone I tell this to asks how he could be a coal miner with such a disability; I suspect coal mining was the cause of this, and maybe part of why he came to America–to escape a life that would maim him. But that’s a story for another day.

The key to a quick search in the 1940 census is knowing where the family member lived in that year. I knew Herbert was living with his daughter in 1930 on Beulah Avenue, according to the census, and a Chattanooga, Tennessee, city directory listed him at the same address in 1941. His death certificate recorded it as his address in 1944.

Ancestry.com, in their helpful guide to researching the 1940 census, recommends looking up the address on Google Maps, and figuring out the cross streets. I did that, and found a photo in street view of the house where he lived and died. More importantly, it showed the cross streets. [Note: I find it helpful to search this in another window, so I can refer back to it as necessary.]

Armed with the knowledge of his address (5410 Beulah Ave., Chattanooga, Tennessee) and of the cross streets (W. 54th St. and W. 55th St.), I started to look at the census itself.

This image shows the three methods I mentioned earlier. Since I knew where he was in 1930, I could’ve chosen that method, but wanted to try out the cross streets method first. The image on the left also shows the choices I made, including choosing the cross streets. This resulted in two enumeration districts to look through. In heavily populated areas such as cities, enumeration districts are anywhere from 14 to 50 pages to go through, much quicker than in some rural areas that cover a larger area.

I was thrilled to locate him, there on Beulah Avenue with his daughter Lyda L. Barnes Butler, his son-in-law and his grandchildren. His wife Elizabeth died five years earlier.

I hope this brief demonstration inspires you to look for your relatives in the 1940 census.

 

Posted by fitch in genealogy

Winter Brain Finds Many Excuses

Mar012012
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Winter brain has gotten me. I am so not in the mood to work on my work-in-progress, Revival. I’m not sure what prompted it, but I was suddenly seized by a long-dormant desire to research my family tree. See, I was bitten by the genealogy bug years and years ago. My first published work was in Genealogical Helper, on using computers in genealogy. My research even inspired my first novel, Second Death. [Actually I do know what prompted it. I got an email from Ancestry.com that the 1930 census was free for a week.]

I made a huge breakthrough last night, but let me back up a little and tell you what’s so intrigued me about the story.

Old Stone Church, Ringgold, Catoosa County, Georgia

My great-grandfather was a man named George Washington Roach. He died in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1946. He was born in Catoosa, Georgia, in 1880. Despite those towns being in separate states, the distance is only something less than 30 miles. I knew from his death certificate that his father was named Jim, and from census records found his full name was James D. Roach.James D. Roach was born in 1862 in Georgia and, like his son, died in Tennessee, near Cleveland in a place called McDonald. The intriguing thing to me about him is that he seemed to be alone from a young age. In the 1870 census, at age 8, he is living with a family not named Roach. The head of household is a woman named Martha Banfield, and includes an older couple, Christopher Nations and his wife. The key here to me is what happened in the year James was born.

Georgia voted to leave the United States on January 19, 1861. Fighting occurred primarily on the coast through 1862. In August 1863, the Chickamauga campaign began, and the Siege of Chattanooga followed in September. This battle happened about 20 miles from where James and his family lived.

One of the untold stories (or at least I haven’t located those stories) of the American Civil War is what happened to the children orphaned by the conflict. James’ father, James H. Roach, was alive in 1860, but I can find no trace of him after that census, at least not without going to Georgia myself. And then his 8 year old son turns up in the same area living with another family. I’ve always thought James H. must have died in the war, whether as a soldier or a civilian I don’t know. I’ve been researching the family he lived with and the neighbors, trying to pierce the veil of history and find out what happened. Ten years later he appears in the census, again in the same area, as a servant of another family. A book on the county tells that James H.’s father David (born in 1800) was “killed by bushwhackers” during the Civil War.

Last night I made the discovery that James D.’s uncle Stephen lived next door to him in both censuses. I don’t know why Stephen didn’t take him in, although it’s possible James D.’s mother remarried and lost another husband during the 8 years he was growing up.

It’s easy to get caught up in the research, stretching the line back, finding connections, and forget that these were real people with joys and sorrows and frustrations. What was it like for a young boy to live around so much fighting and death? A Confederate hospital was located at nearby Catoosa Springs. Did his father die in such a hospital? What kind of mark did that conflict leave on his psyche?

I don’t feel all this research is wasted. The reflections on family and their lives plant seeds for future stories.

Maybe Winter Brain is doing me a favor after all.

What’s your winter brain up to? Share in the comments below.

Posted by fitch in genealogy, writing

Adventures with TweetAdder

Jan272012
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I love Twitter. I’m just gonna come right out and say that up front. Criticizing Twitter has become a cliché: “Who wants to read what people had for lunch?” Anyone making that criticism is outing themselves that they don’t really use Twitter. Every day I read an amazing array of cool tidbits, vignettes of life and links I’d never have found on my own from people all over the planet.

I primarily tweet from the viewpoint of an author. Every author who’s the least bit interested in promotion of her or his book needs a Twitter presence. But I’ll confess, acquiring followers isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Following is a voluntary process, and you can’t go around forcing people to join, even though you suspect they’d be very interested in what you have to say or write. That’s where TweetAdder comes in.

TweetAdder is a program that automates the process of acquiring Twitter followers. I read about it in Jon F. Merz‘s book How to Really Sell Ebooks, in which he devotes at least a chapter to implementing the program. (I really appreciate that about Jon’s book, the step by step detailed instructions rather than vague platitudes about how great the product is.)

I was a little skeptical at first. What TweetAdder does for you is grab lists of people who follow people you specify and automate the process of following them. For example, since I’ve written a steampunk book, I wanted to engage the followers of Gail Carriger and Cherie Priest. The theory, obviously, is that if you follow someone, they will very often follow you back. TweetAdder manages the grunt work, unfollowing people who don’t follow you back within three days (or whatever time period you specify), and maintaining that vital ratio of followers to people you’re following.

At first the idea struck me as somewhat sleazy. But when I thought about it, I realized that I’m just tapping into people who share common interests. I’m selecting people to market to based on their reading preferences (presumably that’s why they follow the people they do). I’ve gone from a couple of hundred followers to 1,085 in about six weeks’ time.

Here’s the challenge, though. Nobody wants to read a constant barrage of spam, requesting they buy my book. As Jon F. Merz stresses, Twitter is about relationships. You have to interact with your followers as if they’re people (since, y’know, they are). Engaging in 140 characters on a regular basis is difficult for me, particularly when I’m at work. I’ve tried posting interesting historical trivia related to the research I did for The Source of Lightning, and links to fascinating items found on the American Memory site. I’m still experimenting. Occasionally I get retweets. Sometimes I even get into conversations. Which is really what Twitter is all about.

Do you have experience with TweetAdder? Thoughts about Twitter marketing? Share in the comments below.

Posted by fitch in Marketing
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