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Book Review & Contest Insights from Real Reviews and Submissions

What separates great books from the rest? Below are articles with insights from real reviews and contest submissions—what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve your book. You’ll also find a wide range of articles covering writing, publishing, marketing, and more. Each article has a Comments section so you can read advice from other authors and leave your own.

Why Some Books Win Awards (And Most Don’t) — Insights From Real Contest Submissions New!

What separates award-winning books from the rest? After evaluating contest submissions across a wide range of genres, certain patterns become clear. Some books consistently rise to the top. Others, even with strong ideas and clear effort behind them, fall short. The difference is rarely dramatic—it...

What We’ve Learned From Reviewing Hundreds of Thousands of Books (And Why Most Don’t Stand Out) New!

After reviewing and evaluating books across thousands of submissions over the past two decades, certain patterns become impossible to ignore. Some books immediately stand out to reviewers. Others—even well-intentioned ones—fade into the middle or fall short. The difference is rarely luck. It comes down to...

The Importance of Interacting with your Twitter Followers

These days, it is not just enough that you share interesting posts or follow important people on Twitter. In order to build good relations with your readers and followers, you also need to interact with them. Talking to your followers also provides better benefits for your development as a writer. This post will enumerate the various advantages of talking to your followers on Twitter.

1. Helps you understand your readers. You can’t tell their likes and reading habits just by posting and reading their Tweets. Interacting with them gives you an idea how they think about you and your work. By asking them, you will be able to evaluate the effects of your literary pieces on their well-being. This information can be used to tailor your tweets according to their needs and interests.

2. Makes them feel special. All of us wanted to be recognized by our favorite authors. The good thing about this nifty social media tool is that it can easily make your readers happy, even if you just gave them a 140-character message. Send them thank you notes regularly and answer their questions. In addition, you can repost some of their tweets that you find interesting.

3. You can get good ideas from your followers. Inspiration can come from any place and anyone. Although it is not really advisable that you seek their opinion when it comes to how you create a story, you can still ask for their ideas on other aspects.

An example of this one is the cover art for your next book. Most fans, especially the ones that are adept at sketching and coloring, can provide you with great ideas for your next book cover.

If you have upcoming events like book signings or a reading or blog tour, you can host a Twitter Party or Twitter Chat where they can throw in ideas and make the fan experience better.

4. Makes you appear more approachable. Engaging in conversations and interacting with your followers on social media helps close the distance between you and your followers. The lack of physical contact when communicating via social media networks is an uncomfortable experience for some people. By responding to their inquiries or sharing jokes with them, you will put them at ease. In addition, you will appear more warm and approachable in their eyes.

Keep in mind that when interacting with your readers, never use applications or web tools that automatically reply and tweet for you. Aside from online security risks, auto-generated tweets make you look like a robot. In addition, you might give a reply that is not appropriate to the conversation.

To wrap things up

As a social media network, the main purpose of Twitter is to provide ease of connection to your readers. Use this to your advantage by allotting time to answer their questions and say your thanks.

In addition, you should also try to come up with interactive ways to engage them in conversations. Host Twitter Parties, run Twitter Chats, and even do contests if you have the resources.