Secrets to Planning a Rockin' Twitter Party

I know consider myself a Twitter Party Addict. I have managed three of my own and hopped on the bandwagon of over twenty of them.

It's a great way to spread the word about your book and to play as an 'appetizer' to a larger launch party.
 
THE LAUNCH

Who says you can only have one book launch party? Well I say, have many. This is the main event for your book. You've been building up to this for months. Doing it on multiple platforms will afford your book a lot of visibility. But even though Twitter is always hopping, you need to promo it a bit.

THE BUILDUP

I usually start my book launches that include a Twitter Party, Blog Party and Facebook Party with a mini-blog tour which includes all the authors who will be part of my Facebook Virtual Launch Party. We do this to build up the buzz.

About 6 weeks before the party all of the authors involved in the big Facebook Party event tweet about the Twitter Party coming (using a hashtag for the book title & a link to our Party Map Page).

The mini blog party kicks off 1 week before the Twitter Party. It's used to build awareness of all of the book release events coming. The Twitter Appetizer Party (which runs the Friday before the Facebook Party) is used to drive even more traffic to the book sales pages for participating authors.

The Giveaway announcement. We run a giveaway announcement on twitter (a daily tweet from each participating author) with link to Party Map Page which has the schedule of the mini-blog tour, the Twitter Party, Facebook Party, links to all books, and rafflecopter.


THE TWITTER APPETIZER PARTY

We call it an appetizer because it's the night before the big Facebook Party event (which usually last for 8 hours on a Saturday and is run by a number of authors not limited to the launch guest of honor).

These usually last 3 hours. Three hours is enough time to run 3 trivia games, intro the book, shout out for prize winners and share links to big party coming the following day on Facebook.


The trick though is to have about 3 other people who you KNOW will be there to help you keep the party going, promo the party, and invite others.

A neat way to make sure you know who's coming is to use the mini-blog tour to build an invite list and later tweet a reminder to participants.

PARTY MUST DO LIST

For a twitter party to work, you need to have the Trivia Questions, links, etc preset (you can use hootsuite or socialoomph to do this in advance). This makes things much easier and allows facilitator to just do promo, invite tweets, and personal interaction with crowd.

Announcing the party should be done 60 to 30 minutes before by the 3 party facilitators. Invites to fans who are on twitter at the time & share a party favor if they show up is a great kickoff. Have a main prize of about $25 gift card that you will give out at end of night.
 
Kick off party with party jargon, a swag giveaway like bookmarks, introduction of participating authors, book, book trailer. Then start the games. Try to stick with games that are themes of the book. In between shout out a reminder about follow-on Facebook party, shout out winners and 'thank you' to participants before running next game. Sticking to 10 questions for each trivia works.
 

Trivia ideas. Movie lines, guess that tune, caption picture contest and many more depending how creative you are.

WOULD YOU GO TO A TWITTER RELEASE PARTY?


by LM Preston, YA & MG Author, http://www.lmpreston.com/

Playing it Close to the Vest

When I set up a Facebook account and started blogging back in fall of 2008, I knew from the  beginning that as an aspiring YA author, I’d have to be careful about what I posted. Swearing, sexual references, and joking about drugs or alcohol could potentially alienate my audience. I also elected not to say anything overtly religious or political. While others staked out their territory on Facebook by filling in the blanks for religion and political party, I left mine blank. A friend of mine did me one better, and her response is the best I’ve seen. For “politics” she put “just as private as my religion,” and for religion she put, “just as private as my politics.”

For a long time I felt a little uncomfortable about my stance of neutrality. After all, if I have a belief, shouldn’t I own it? But I’ve mulled it over a lot lately, and I think my position makes sense. And not just from a business perspective. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying people shouldn’t voice their beliefs publicly. That’s their right, and I understand the need to feel like part of a community. I just wonder if they realize the full ramifications of what they’re doing. Do they really want people to make snap judgments about them based solely on who they voted for in the last election or how they choose to worship? Is anyone’s personality really that cut and dried?

Probably every one of us has at least one friend or family member with drastically different religious or political views. And yet we accept them in spite of it. This is because we got to know the whole person, not just a single label. No individual is as simplistic as the stereotype of one group. We’re all a wild and crazy hodgepodge. Even within the walls of a single congregation of a single denomination of a single religion, there will be vastly different takes on dogma. And each member of each splinter group of each political party has her own nuanced take on various policies. I have friends on both sides of the political fence and of various spiritualities. When I think of what I’d have missed out on by jumping to conclusions, I’m so glad I sat back quietly and watched long enough to discover who these folks really are.

It only makes sense that people on social networks want to connect with those who share similar beliefs, and Facebook makes this particularly easy with its groups. But lately I’ve noticed that the names of some of these groups have become increasingly controversial—even insulting. They seem to be titled specifically to get a dig in against the opposing viewpoint. And why? Just so people can feel all buddy-buddy and superior? But at what cost?

I suppose it’s human nature to have an us vs. them mentality. It probably comes from our very early days, when anyone outside our own tribe was a threat to our existence. But just because we’re wired that way doesn’t mean we can’t override the circuitry. And really, why are these subjects so important, anyway? Think about all the TV shows and movies you’ve watched in the past week. Of all the books you’ve read. Chances are, you couldn’t pigeonhole the majority of the characters into any particular religion or political party. And it doesn’t really matter, does it? It doesn’t affect how you care about them.

For a moment, consider Harry Potter. Of all the things we know about him, of all the things that are important to his character, the one thing that makes absolutely no difference is whether his political leanings were liberal or conservative. Just something to think about.

~ Lisa

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NEWSFLASH! Ali Cross reveals the cover for her new book, Desolate, today on her blog. 

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In addition to being a YA author, Lisa is a retired amateur stock car racer, an accomplished cat whisperer, and a professional smartass. She writes coming-of-age books about kids in hard luck situations who learn to appreciate their own value after finding mentors who love them for who they are. You can connect with her though her blog, The Tao or Webfoot, or buy her book, Running Wide Open, (currently FREE) at any major online retailer.