Please Retweet My Tweet!

“Retweet my tweet!”
What is this world coming to?

Or more important, what is MY world coming to.

I found myself writing this bit of deathless prose to someone who’s helping me with PR for my book, which in case I forgot to mention, is called I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M NOT BITTER. Catchy title, no?

No? Then help me come up with something better for my next book, which is only a vague idea at the moment, but which I plan to develop into a concept, and then an outline, and then. . . Wait, isn’t this something from a Woody Allen movie?

Everyone says I should write a novel based loosely on my life, because “you’ve had an interesting life.” Well, yes, maybe, but loose or not (the book, of course, not my life), there are certain people who are still alive who wouldn’t be particularly happy seeing how they come off in print, so to speak. They would have to die.

If I killed them, that would make a hell of a story, but life in behind bars in confined spaces holds no charms for a gimme-space gal like myself. I don’t even like elevators all that much. And MRIs! Don’t get me started. Although I DO look good in orange.

So meanwhile, while I’m thinking of a future book, I’m publicizing the current one. Did I mention that it’s called I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT BITTER?

Self publishing is a tricky business (now there’s a title). Getting your book published involves lots of work, time, money and attention to deatils, er, details. But that’s the easy part. The hard part is getting your book noticed. The word is “discoverability.” And discovering how to achieve maximum discoverabilityosity is not only tricky, but fraught with mistakes, dead ends and phrases like “please retweet my tweet”.

I can explain. . .

The advice of the many, many media experts out there on how to publicize your book amounts to two words: Social Media.

As in, get on it. You go, girl, do the Facebook thing, and then Twitter, and in your spare time, go on all the blogs that are similar to yours, and Linked In and Goodreads and . . . Huff. Puff. The thing is, all this media is overwhelming. Especially for a person who still dials fax numbers by mistake.

My latest boo-boo was in my post on FB and on an email blast I sent out on Monday stating that Mother’s Day is on June 12. June! How can you trust someone who can’t even get a date right? And I was promoting my book, which is called, oh never mind.

I didn’t give a date on Twitter, only because I didn’t have enough characters left (you only get 140), so I was saved by lack of space, a first in my life. So now I have a perfectly sweet tweet out there in the universe and damn it, I wanted my sweet tweet retweeted to my hundreds of followers.

Hundreds? You think that’s a lot. Ha! It’s nothing on Twitter. People asking me to follow them have thousands, some close to six figures. And they’re not celebrities like Justin Bieber, who is “celebrating” reaching 38 million. Million! It’s enough to make a girl feel pretty insignificant. But wait! I’ve only just started this thing, and there are self help sites for the Young and the Twitless.

The advice includes:

“Tweet well and tweet often.”
Well, “well” I can do. But often? How often? Do these serial twitterers have a life beyond social networking? Will I?

“Follow people who follow people that are like you.”
Really. And I always thought it was “Follow the money.” Silly me.

And the big one:
“Ask people to 
retweet you.”
Because “being retweeted pushes your exposure to the edges of your Twitter network. Simply adding “Please retweet” or “Please RT” to the end of some of your posts here and there (not all the time) can remind your followers that you want them to spread the word for you. Occasionally posting a link to an article on How to Retweet will also help your followers help you.”

Got that? My experience is whenever instructions include the word “simply,” I’m in trouble. But maybe you are more of a techie and want to join the wonderful world of Social Media, where you can post and tweet me!) to your heart’s content. Or maybe not.

My advice: take up tennis or golf and leave the tweeting to me. Unless, of course, you plan to retweet my tweets. Let’s talk about that. Or maybe you can send me a tweet.

NEWS FLASH: My latest tweets are being retweeted so I quess I’m a success.

See also: I Look Good In Orange, in case you’ve got cheating on your mind.