Twitter is a good social media platform you can use if you are targeting a very large audience. The thing is, even before you tap into Twitter, you should have laid the groundwork for you to maximize the use of the platform.
First, you should create a following. A following is the universe of people whose tweets you subscribe to or follow. The updates of the people whom you follow show in your tweets. As an author, Twitter can be used to follow known names of authors in your niche. As you create your following, it would be best to maximize these connections by interacting and exchanging ideas and opinions with those whom you choose to follow. You may also check and follow influencers in your niche as you may be able to gain more leverage if you retweet messages coming from these influencers.
On the other hand, remember your followers. These are the people who see your tweets in their home timeline. The followers of those who follow your tweets actually see your tweets as well. Thus, if you use Twitter for your marketing activities, it would be a good strategy to make your messages clear in your tweets and space them in a manner that does not annoy your followers.
Marketing in Twitter could be a bit tricky: in other media, you get to see the whole marketing content, whereas in Twitter, you should be creative enough to catch the attention of the reader in as little as 140 characters with no hard sells. And when you tweet, always think hashtags as this will make your tweets easily searchable.
Tweets should be perfectly timed as well as you risk not being regularly seen by the follower or being unfollowed as the tweets become annoying. The good thing about Twitter though is that it is already assumed that you have done your groundwork previously and you have a group of followers interested in your niche when you have your book published.
In terms of DIY E-publishing, what should be clear is that you are not really dealing with publishers but distributors or retailers. They are not concerned about the quality of your work but only its distribution. On the other hand, they do not take any rights to your work.
The following describes the characteristics of E-publishing services:
Free or low cost distribution. Free distribution means that the distributor will distribute your book for free by taking a percentage of your sales.
At-will and non-exclusive. Here you may be able to upload and download your book at any time. You can make it for sale, change the price, make a new version, and sell your book through multiple services or through your own site. There is nothing barring you from doing whatever you want with your book as there are no exclusivity rights.
Little technical expertise is required. Major services use automated tools to convert files and list your work for sale.
This being said, DIY E-publishing puts the brunt of the work on the shoulders of the author. You still have the rights to your book, which may be the reason why the publishers do not care much about how the book comes out. So before you finally decide on DIY E-Publishing, better make sure that you are ready for whatever setbacks this could lead to.
