One: The carpet bomber
Non-stop tweets and retweets promoting their books, as well as books by their friends. “What you call ‘social media,’ we call ‘free ad space.'” Apparently, there’s no such thing as too many hash tags in a tweet.
Two: The hustler
They pepper your timeline with tweets documenting their perpetual-motion writer’s life: Workshops, retreats, conferences, book signings, phone calls with editors, selfies with other indie authors. They’re living la vida loca, baby.
Three: The charmed life
Anecdotes about their cats. Magazine-style photos of perfect chai lattes. Dream-vacation photos of rolling green European countrysides. Oh, yes—did they mention they’re spending four weeks in Key West to develop their next novel?
Four: The political animal
Screw books, they’re on Twitter to snark about every D.C. dust-up du jour. Following even one of these accounts will poison your timeline with screaming matches between people who refer to politicians by their initials.
Five: The mover and shaker
Lots of screenshots of Kindle sales reports and KU normalized page counts. Tweet-threads on how to exploit Amazon book keywords and categories. The occasional nostalgia post on finagling that sweet BookBub Daily Deal years ago.
Six: The tea sipper
Drops a tweet every two to six weeks about something absurdly human that happened to them on the way to the pub. For some reason, this type is always British.
Seven: The old oak
Daily pronouncements about how the indie writing scene has changed since they got in on the ground floor waaay back in 2019. Had one bestseller back when you could game the system and get on USA Today‘s bestseller list for a week.
Eight: The unrepentant one
Laughingly brags about using AI to write eight-dozen books a month, all moneymakers. “You suckers are doing this the hard way.” Oddly, they have nothing of substance to say about any other book on the planet, even obvious ones like The Firm, Fight Club, or Green Eggs & Ham. Not an actual author.
Nine: The griper
Never happy with any rating below five stars, and never happy with any review that mentions a problem with their story. What does it take to satisfy these damn readers, a back massage? Stand back, this type is a ticking time bomb.
Ten: The agented
In case you didn’t hear the news, they added it to their account name: “Joe Blow is Agented.” Casually drops tidbits from their latest phone call with their agent, who is agenting them. Offers followers soothing tweets that, one day, if they work hard, they’ll all manage to rise from the trenches and find an agent.
Eleven: A star is stillborn
Mission accomplished! Agent acceptance, book contract signed, manuscript sent off to the editor—this type is last seen boarding the rocket ship to fame and success. Nine months later, they’ve mysteriously deleted all those tweets and switched their account to selling scented bath oils online.
Twelve: Yet another bot
Likes six posts you wrote months ago, follows you, and DM’s you, all in a span of seconds. Has an @-handle with more numerals than your Social Security number. Account name is a Big and Famous writer, who (in real life) has better things to do than maintain a presence on X/Twitter.