If At First You Don't Succeed, Tweet Tweet Again

So one of the hot topics of conversation and workshops at the recent SCBWI conference was all the social media opportunities available to writers. It was all Facebook this and Twitter that. Well, let me tell you, Mary and I felt a bit Tweaked because we had tried Twitter and we weren’t wowed by it. Clearly we were missing something. Not only that, we were in danger of being passed over by a major trend. SO not acceptable!

So we put our thinking caps on and, with a great Aha! moment, came up with a new idea. This whole process has been a great reminder to us that one should constantly revisit this stuff when it feels like the universe keeps shoving it in your path, and snickering when you trip over it. ☺

In addition to hearing all-Twitter, all the time at the conference, we’d received a few emails from readers who miss our twice a week posting. So….we are going to begin twittering again, but as the Shrinking Violets, not Mary and Robin! (Anyone else hearing a resounding d’uh! in the background?)

Yeah. Pretty obvious, huh? Not sure why we didn’t think of it before, but for the both of us it was like, of course! We need to turn to our strengths when we have to stretch our comfort zone. Peppering people with twits felt a lot like saying look at me, which is way outside our comfort zones. But giving away something—whether advice or encouragement or reminders on how to promote your books—well, we’re all over that.

So we have formed a new twitter account: @shrinkngviolets. (Notice that missing i in there. Someone else got to our name first—le sigh!) We will begin tweeting today, so pop on over and follow us. We promise not to flood your tweet deck. Instead, we will send you once daily tips, reminders, affirmations, and suggestions for caring for your introverted self as you navigate the extroverted world of book publicity.

Be one of our first fifty followers and you will be entered in our First Official Twitter Drawing, in which the lucky winner will receive a personal pedicure by Mary Hershey, who will travel to your home and paint your toenails a special Shrinking Violet color, blended especially for us.

No? O-kay. Be that way. How about a box of Sees Candy instead?

Speaking of followers, we’ve been noticing on other blogs those cool squares of blog followers and thought we’d try that out here. It’s fun to see everyone’s lovely avatars. AND, just to make the whole following thing a lot more fun, in the future, whenever we have drawings for prizes, we’ll pick the winners from the followers rather than the comments. That way the super-introverted of you won’t even have to speak up to enter. Unless there’s a quiz involved, and then you will have to enter in the regular, old fashioned way.

And one last thing. The conference also reminded us what a great, big thrilling event it is to have a book published, even if it’s not your very first one. In honor of that, we here at SVP want to start celebrating book launches. So if you’re a Shrinking Violet and have a book launching in the next year or so, let us know, would you? We’d like to celebrate those moments and shout your accomplishments far and wide. Email Mary with the deets, and we’ll coordinate a list. Also, if you have a book out and you haven’t seen it up on the sidebar, be sure and email me the info so I can get it up on one of our book cover rotations.