Authors Connect on Twitter

While Coe Booth (@coebooth) admits that Twitter is a fun way to procrastinate, she’s well aware of the tool’s networking potential. “It definitely helps me connect to librarians,” says the author of young adult novels Tyrell (Scholastic, 2006) and Kendra (Push, 2008).

After scheduling a talk with kids at the Alameda County (CA) Juvenile Justice Center last fall, Booth tweeted her plans, which soon resulted in additional stops at schools and juvenile centers in Fresno. “That was entirely because of Twitter,” she says.

Of course, Neil Gaiman’s (@neilhimself) tweet heard round the world, “I won the F___ING NEWBERY THIS IS SO F___ING AWESOME!” posted after he won the award for his novel The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008) in January (see pp. 30–32), has brought more attention to Twitter. But children’s and young adult authors have been using the free online service for quite a while.

The 140-character restraint on Twitter messages may be especially attractive to writers, creating a self-imposed exercise in brevity. But many, too, recognize the inherent promotional value.

Authors have long understood the need to connect with their fan base, mainly through book tours and library visits in years past. But today, writers without a Web site, Facebook page, or other online presence can be considered out of touch, especially if their readers are teens or tweens.

Twitter, with its immediacy, enables writers to reach followers (others on Twitter who choose to subscribe to a user’s feed) in an instant without the time investment of posting to a blog. Fans can learn of their favorite author’s progress on her next book, or revel over the inauguration at the same moment as they are. Booth has even considered twittering as Tyrell—giving virtual life to her title character.

While there’s a random quality to Twitter posts, as in “Waiting for the coffee to brew... OH G-D, WHAT’S TAKING IT SO LONG???,” a recent tweet by Booth, some set specific limits what they will broadcast. “I work hard on my tweets. I try to make them excellent,” says Mitali Perkins (@mitaliperkins), whose latest book, Secret Keeper (Delacorte), came out in January 2009. “But I do keep a certain circle around my life. My children, personal information, my family, that’s not for Twitter.”

Instead, Perkins uses the tool to network with the children’s book community. Recently she launched an event bringing 155 authors and illustrators to 43 bookstores on Valentine’s Day in support of New England’s booksellers. “We haven’t had one committee meeting, or a face-to-face,” she says. “We just gathered together, brainstormed fast—and it’s all because of Twitter.”

But not everyone wants to connect with readers over Twitter. E. Lockhart, author of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion, 2008), keeps her Twitter page open to just 16 people, those that “I know in person,” and directs fans to her Facebook page, instead. Writer Ann Brashares of the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” series doesn’t twitter at all.

Susan Marie Swanson (@susan_marie), who wrote the picture book, The House in the Night (Houghton, 2008), recently won the Caldecott Medal, mostly tweets with teachers and librarians. She sees Twitter as a stepping stone to more online publishing. “I would like to blog someday,” says Swanson. “I think Twitter will help me overcome some of my particular challenges, even just minimizing some of the terror of clicking 'send.’”

Follow School Library Journal on Twitter - we're @sljournal.