My 'Twitterati'

Ok, so as promised this is a post about who recommended the book Ready Player One I blogged about last week.

It was recommended to me on twitter, nothing new there, people do that sort of thing all the time dont they. But for me it was special. Really special as it was personally recommended to me by an author I'm a big fan of, Myke Cole. His book Shadow Ops: Control Point is awesome and well worth a read by the way.

The difference between twitter and other Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace etc (at least in my experience) is participation and engagement. On twitter, you can engage on an individual level much easier than you can on any other site. This is what I've been doing. 

I'm a massive Science Fiction and Fantasy fan and always have been. I'm also a massive Technophile. I've been on twitter for several years now, and am technically a published author thanks to David Pogue and his crowd sourced book The World According To Twitter. People who know me know that I love twitter and am always looking for funny interesting people / accounts to follow. Whenever I find a book I enjoy I often look for the author on twitter and tweet them to say I enjoyed their book or to ask them questions that have sprung to mind whilst reading their work etc.

A couple of years ago I came across Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. These books are Amazing and a must read for any fan of the fantasy genre. As well as being an awesome writer, Brent really engages with his fans on Twitter and other social media sites with Q+A's, webcasts, competitions and just replying to you. I've had many tweets answered by him, have a personalised signed bookplate from him which I won in a competition he held on there (which I've stuck in my first edition copy of his latest book Black Prism.) I once tweeted him asking for any recommendations of great books to read and he pointed me in the direction of  Peter V Brett and The Painted Man, another Amazing writer and series. I loved these books and thanked Brent for the recommendation and told Pete how awesome I thought his books were. From there I asked them both for any other recommendations and they have introduced to the worlds created by Douglas Hulick Myke Cole Brandon Sanderson and many more.

To me this is what twitter is about. Engaging with others!  I'm lucky enough to work in Social Media and have a job I love, which entails just that. Using twitter and other social media sites in a customer service capacity to help people, to answer queries, and to fix things that have gone wrong. As you've probably figured out by now, I also have a personal twitter account which I use to tweet  others, to tell the world what I'm up to, how I'm feeling, to share with my followers things that I find interesting or funny etc and to see and take in the same from the people out in the twitterverse that I follow.

I know many people who have said they don't really 'get' twitter, or that they 'have an account but don't tweet from it and only follow a few celebrities' or the 'Twitterati' as they are more colloquially known. I feel for these people and try to explain that, at least for me, twitter is about engaging people, from your friends to your neighbours next door to Barack Obama, anybody! Its about taking the opportunity to talk to people all around the world, to share a common interest, to say hi, or thank you, to ask questions, get advice, say what's on your mind or just tell everyone you have a hole in your sock.

I've also met a few people who are complete twitter sceptics saying that famous people aren't really on twitter it's 'their assistants' or that if it is them, then it's 'only because they have something to sell or promote and they don't really care about their fans.' I don't try to argue or persuade these people, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm pretty sure that some of the higher profile 'Twitterati' such as Ashton Kutcher or Lady Gaga etc (not linked because they aren't interesting enough in my eyes) probably are on twitter for those reasons. But not every famous person is. For me its people like Brent, Pete, Myke and all the other authors, famous and interesting people that I've had personal responses from, that make twitter what it really is.

Getting a personal response from people with thousands of fans following them makes my day every time. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that they've taken the time to tweet little ol' Dave in sleepy Norfolk here in the UK, that they've answered a query quite possibly about something so inconsequential or random that to anyone else it's gibberish. Knowing that they didn't have to, but they chose to because of a willingness and a want to engage with their fans.

To all of them I say Thank You and that to me you are the real 'Twitterati!'  if I finally get to writing the book that's been stuck in my head for so many years, I hope to be just as awesome, engaging and welcoming to my fans as you all are to yours.

Peace and love peeps :0)


P.S. Whilst writing the last paragraph I received a tweet from Myke Cole in response to my question about a tour of the UK. Question and response within 15 minutes on a Sunday afternoon, Choice people, its choice :0)