Marketing Tips for Writers: Twitter Hashtags

I) Why bother with Hashtags

Twitter hashtags are potentially useful for accomplishing the following:

- Expanding your audience: Insert your tweets into existing conversations on topics related to your book or of interest to prospective readers or the press. 

- Promoting an upcoming event, such as a book launch or reading, by creating a hashtag that other people can use.

What follows is a summation of advice from avowed experts and my own experiences following that advice. This blog post is geared toward novelists and fiction writers -- online marketing is generally easier for non-fiction writers.

Note: This post assumes some basic knowledge of Twitter. Some previous posts, if you need a refresher

Disclaimer: In 2014 I made a big push on Twitter and as of today, I have not been offered any Pulitzer prizes or Guggenheim fellowships, but I'm giving in another shot on the advice of an agent I met with earlier in the month.

 

II) Things to Try 

 

1) Find and use hashtags employed by authors of books similar to yours. 

My first book God Bless Cambodia and my novel in progress are love stories featuring romantic dysfunction, bathroom humor, and white guys behaving badly. (I know, I know -- I'm tone deaf, out of sync with 2021, etc)

Unfortunately, after checking out authors with similar work, I found no useful hashtags. One of my comp authors used hashtags mainly to promote his work (@jonathan tropper). Two other comp authors, Sam Lipsyte and Joshua Ferris don't use Twitter, and a third comp author, Philip Roth, is dead.

Verdict: Not useful for my work 

Try Lit-Map if you need help finding comp authors for your work

Lit-Map.com can help you find comparable (comp) authors

 

 

2) Find hashtags related to themes or topics in your book

My books and one-man shows include neurotic, mildly offensive humor so I searched for comedians, such as Larry David, Greg Gutfeld, and Chris Rock – didn't find them use any useful hashtags.

God Bless Cambodia, my first novel, includes a lot of travel writing – the narrator takes a trip around the world and had a rotten time. I was able to find plenty of hashtags related to travel but most were promoting travel not saying it sucks. 

Verdict: Not useful for my work

3) Find hashtags for your genre 

Here's a list of hashtags for different genres (scroll to the middle of the page)

Another place to find your genre: See how comp books are categorized on bookseller sites or at the local library.

My books don't fit neatly into a genre. God Bless Cambodia falls somewhere between commercial fiction and literary fiction and has been classified under "absurdist" and "comedy," on some bookseller sites and, at the public library, under "Man-woman relationships -- Fiction," "Voyages and travels -- Fiction," "Depression in men -- Fiction.

Verdict: Not useful for my work

4) Use hashtags used by the local press: arts reporters, book reviewers,

Even if your tweets don't result in immediate coverage, you might build some visibility and generate coverage at a future date because reporters will be familiar with your name. Remember the old axiom of advertising: need to hit someone seven times before they'll notice you) What are local arts media and authors using?

Verdict: this has promise

 

5) Create your own hashtag for a theme in your book or an upcoming event your hosting.

 How to create your own hashtag: When creating a tweet, adding a “#” to the beginning of an unbroken word or phrase creates a hashtag.

For my Twitter account @chronicsingle, I created a hashtag a few years back called #chronicsingle.

 

 

 

 

Here's a hashtag I created and am going to try out. For songs, movies, books, etc that were funny some years ago but will likely be offensive now, I created the #wontflyin2021 by simply typing it into a tweet. 

 

Step 1 for creating a hashtag

 

And here's what a tweet using the hashtag #wontflyin2021 looks like. Note: I tried to weave the hashtag into the actual tweet.

 

The finished product

 

Note: If you're using a Twitter to promote an event, be sure to ask attendees, the press, etc, to use the hashtag in any tweets.

Verdict: Could be useful

 

III) Tweet Etiquette for Deploying Hashtags

 

- Weave the hashtags into your tweet – classier but not always practical

- List them at the end of your tweet – easiest

- Don't use too many. Twitter and other experts recommend no more than two per post.

 

 

IV) More Marketing Tips for Authors

 

More on Hashtags

https://writersrelief.medium.com/55-social-media-hashtags-for-authors-and-how-to-use-them-cc56490b67d7

https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/how-to-use-hashtags

Twitter Refreshers

 https://www.theloneliestplanet.com/search/label/twitter

https://www.makealivingwriting.com/writers-win-social-media/ 

 

Previous Blog Post: Covid Query Process for a New Novel

 

 Video trailer for my first novel God Bless Cambodia

 

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What's My Genre? Positioning Your Book Even If It's Not Genre Fiction

Even if you're not writing true "genre" fiction, you need to be able to position your book for readers and agents (if you're going to look for one). Specifically, you need to know:
- where your book fits in the marketplace (similar authors, comparable titles)
- on which shelf it should appear in a physical bookstore.
- in which category it should sell on Amazon or other online book stores.

For this article, we'll use my manuscript-in-progress as an example. The book's working title is "The Loneliest Planet: A Handbook for the Chronically Single."

At a writer's conference I pitched it as a comic novel offering "the personal journey of "Eat, Prary, Love" with the sexual frustration of "Portnoy's Complaint." One agent told me those titles were too old. Another said that all she could remember about "Portnoy" was the masturbation scene. I also worried that the term "comic" might lead people to confuse it with a comic book as opposed to a satire.

Tools for Finding Your Genre

1) Lists of genres 

 

Wikipedia List of Literary Genres: Probably the best place to start. Scroll to the bottom of the Wiki genre page for clickable links with explanations.

Sparknotes: The top part of this article is a little tough to read, but the bottom offers a useful list with definitions.

Virtual Salt: More detail than most people need. This page includes a list of genres, styles, and other literary terms with examples.

2) Similar Authors

Literature Map: This site allows you to enter a popular author and the site generates a list writers considered to be similar in style and genre. In the screen shot below, I search Philip Roth, the author of "Portnoy's Complaint," found the contemporary author Jonathan Tropper, whose books are selling well and, much like my book, cover topics such as dating and single life. 

A search on authors similar to Philip Roth produced both familiar and unfamiliar names.

3) Comparable Titles  

 

Genres of Existing Books: The Library of Congress Web site allows you to search for authors and then drill down to find genres of their books. The results are not always helpful and the ease-of-use and speed are, well, what do you'd expect from the government, but the site is worth a look.

A listing of genres associated with "Portnoy's Complaint" from the Library of Congress Web site. I didn't find this that useful, but you might.

Live Plasma: Worth a look. When I entered "Portnoy's Complaint," the site generated a lot of older titles. When I entered a book by Jonathan Tropper, the produced nothing.

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Other Online Book Sites: Key Things to Look for:
- On Amazon: Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
- On Barnes and Noble: Related Subjects

More On Genres

1) Applying This Information to an Agent Search 

 

Once you've got a list of comparable books and authors, Google the author's name and the word "agent" or "literary agent" and consider pitching that agent.

2) Hot Genres

Upmarket Fiction: I've been seeing this is a lot of listings for what agents are looking for. Upmarket is kind of a catch-all for books that are too smart to be straight commercial fiction but not smart enough to be straight literary fiction.

High Concept: Another popular, but confusing term. High Concept is really low concept -- a story that can be described simply and succinctly. I've developed a description for my book that might be considered high-concept: A never-married hypochondriac takes a trip around the world looking to change his luck with love. Click here for a succinct description from former agent Nathan Bransford.

 

3) How I Put This Together

 

At present, I plan to put the following sentence, which includes my genre and market positioning, high up in my query letter:

The "Loneliest Planet" is a satiric novel that will appeal to fans of Sam Lipsyte, Shalom Auslander, and Jonathan Tropper.

*Art attribution: Weird Tales image by Weird Tales, Inc. (Scanned cover of pulp magazine.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. (I put it down here because putting this text under the image creates a mess when the article is sent out over Feedburner. 

For More of My Book Marketing Tips, See:

- Book Marketing: My Six Month Progress Report 

- Query Letter Confusion: When One Agent Says "A" and Another Says "B"

- Twitter Tips for Those Who Hate Social Media

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