There’s no way around it – if you want to build a writer’s platform and cultivate relationships with your readers, you have to be on Twitter as part of your author toolbox. Although I didn’t really see the purpose in Twitter, I followed this advice and worked hard on building what I thought was a solid Twitter following with over 10,000 followers.

Like many busy authors, I used Twitter to project myself. I tweeted about my books, found articles I thought my followers would find interesting, and – every so often – did a search for funny or interesting tweets to retweet. Every once in a while – usually as part of my work on a re-tweet team – my tweets would gather some sort of following, but more often than not, I felt like my tweets were disappearing into that place where all Internet rubbish disappears to (please note: I’m not really sure where this is, but I hope never to go there).