7 Ways Twitter Has Impacted My Life

It’s been about six weeks that I have been active on Twitter, and I must say, “Wow!” I mean, some really amazing things have happened to me that I really don’t think would have happened outside of the Twitterverse. Here are about seven of them that I think are worth mentioning:

1. I’ve met new people—all over the world!
The number-one thing, of course, is that I have met some really great new people and have even built stronger relationships with people I already know. I am a book editor, which means I am a part of a pretty major portion of culture. Yet before Twitter, I worked in a tiny bubble with just me and the editors, authors, salespeople, marketing people, and designers that work with my company. That’s a pretty shallow industry view, wouldn’t you say? Well, with Twitter, my worldview of publishing and my industry peers has broadened tremendously. Being connected like this has helped me to see more of how I would like my career to look. My peers blog regularly, attend writer’s conferences, engage their readers, connect with book reviewers, and are in touch with what customers, clients, and authors are saying about their interests. It is really incredible. Of course, to them, it may seem like, “Duh, what else would you be doing?”

The people I follow on Twitter challenge me in a very positive way, and I hope that I can grow to be a challenge to those around me as well. It’s like the pay-it-forward concept. We can coexist to make each other better people and better professionals, and when we’re better people and better professionals, we pass it on to someone else reaching up for that next level.

2. I’ve started to blog again.
Another great thing that has happened is that, because of Twitter, someone saw my blog post “9 Insider Tips to Getting Your Manuscript Accepted” and reposted it on Christian Book Buzz Online. (I know there’s a misspelling on the blog page. Please leave a message for the blog administrator on my behalf). And instantly, I became a first-time guest blogger! How cool is that? I’ve also found it beneficial to post my blog on Writer’s Digest’s community blog site. It has been helpful to some of the writers there. The Writer’s Digest online community is full of information that is helping me see what writers struggle with, their questions about the industry, their fears, their confidences, and so much more. My involvement in this community is already helping me be a more sensitive editor. It is also helping me better define the role I want to take with the authors I currently work with. If it wasn’t for my follow of @WritersDigest on Twitter, I probably wouldn’t have known their online community existed (again, because I lived and worked in a bubble, not any fault of Writer’s Digest).

3. I’ve been the subject of a feature story on Essence.com.
“I was walking along, minding my business, and out of the orange-colored sky… Flash! Bam! Alacazam! Wonderful you came by…”

9 Insider Tips to Getting Your Manuscript Accepted

Because of the work that I do, I am often asked, “How can I get my book published?” I know that they are not asking what is the process for submitting a manuscript to a publisher. They are asking, “How can I get accepted and see my book on bookstore shelves across the country.” This is a very legitimate line of questioning that basically gets past all the diplomacy and straight to the point: “How can I guarantee that I will get published?” I have to admit that other editors and I find ourselves asking the same question to each other as we review unsoliciteds or plan strategies for acquiring new authors. And of course, what better topic to squeeze into my blog called “Embrace the Impossible” than how to get a book published, ’cause that’s what it can seem like (impossible) when you have a book and no publisher wants to give you the time of day.

But let me just share this truth with you: book publishing is a tight market if you can only see yourself being published using traditional models. Expand your horizons a bit and consider investing in your own dream, and your options may open up a bit more. There are still a few publishers that accept unsolicited manuscripts, but even though they do, many of the unsoliciteds are only accepted for copublishing or print-on-demand agreements. But that is not really a bad thing. There have also been many traditionally published authors who began with copublishing or even self-publishing and were later acquired for contracts that followed a more traditional model of publishing.

So becoming a published author may depend on your definition and expectation of what “getting published” means.