Read My Book For Only 99 Cents And Is A Retailer of Choice #1 Best Seller for YA Epic Science Fantasy About Samurai Elves That Wet Their Beds

If you haven't figured it out, I love Twitter. It fits my snarky, smart ass personality. And I've done some great networking, got to know some great people, my tweets published on my local paper's website on multiple occasions, had great conversations with fellow writers about genre and the process and even made some professional connections with people. That being said, I've noticed something lately that's driving me nuts: the number of writers (especially self-pubbed/vanity press types) inundating my feed with the Twitter equivalent of the cell phone/body cream/hair extension kiosks at the mall.

We're writers. Can we do a better job of marketing our work on Twitter than "Buy my book for $.99." You want me to buy your book and that's the best you can do? Even the high school drop out cell phone salesman at the mall kiosk trying to convince me to buy his smartphone by yelling at me, "Excuse me sir, do you have a cell phone?" is better. (I respond usually by saying "No" and when they go into their schpiel, I show my iPhone and say, "I have an iPhone.") And you're clogging up my feed.

If that's your Twitter "marketing strategy" then guess what, I have no faith in your ability to write a coherent story. I don't care about price. I don't care about it being best selling in whatever little niche category you've painted yourself into on Amazon or Smashwords or whatever path you've decided to take. I don't care if you're giving it away. I'm not interested. Not in the least. If all you tweet is: "128,000 words of space fantasy goodness for only $.99 on Kindle" (An actual tweet), that tells me you are a lazy writer and why would I want to read a lazy writer?

Now, if they only reason you use social networks is to get me to buy stuff, then you are using it wrong. I use social networks to do exactly what it says, network socially. I like connecting with readers, other writers, editors, agents and other writerly types. I don't want to harass someone with endless, uncreative messages shilling my work. But hey, that's just me.