Here are my top five ways to have a successful time using Twitter and other social networking sites:

1. Post  at least three times a  day to increase your following -If you are not posting, then people are not going to follow you. If they don’t know you exist, they can’t follow you; and if they don’t know that you exist, then you are not successfully marketing yourself or your product.
2.  Don’t just market your product -People are slammed with advertising from every corner and every commercial break. Make yourself stand out from the crowd and show your followers and your potential followers parts of you and your personality. Don’t be afraid to converse. No one wants to receive link upon link or read post upon post saying “Buy my book”.
3. Send personal messages – People love to connect and feel important. Personalizeyour messages to your followers. Even if it is a small Shout Out or Retweet. Let them know how important they are to you with a word of kindness.
4. Have a picture – No one likes to tweet with a picture of an egg. Therefore, personalize your page with a picture. It can be anything, but
   people love pictures of other people. It lets them know that they are communicating with a “real” person and not an automated computer.
5. Perseverance – To acquire a large following, it takes time, perseverance and endurance.  Success is usually not achieved overnight. Instead of concentrating on the numbers of followers on your profile, continue to improve your product and be relevant, and then they
   will find you.

Twitter is a great and almost addictive experience. However, when used correctly, it can become a great tool to improve your personal
success.

Good luck! If you’re looking for someone to follower and be followed back, look me up on Twitter at @tinaglasneck.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always wondered about life after death.  Like many, I’ve had my own experiences with the dearly departed – talks from beyond the grave in incorporeal forms. Sometimes they appear as dreams, other times it is a conversation while awake that I hear. With such a knack, you’d think I write paranormal, but I can’t.

Many in the publishing business tell you to write what you know.  For some it is that safety that allows them to create prose that read like poetry, but for me, it reads like a hacked up, discombobulated mess lacking in plot, characterization and sustenance.

I don’t think that writing what you know is the end all rule to writing. I think that a writer should write what they want and what they are interested in. With the proper research and time spent learning the ins and outs of the topic at hand, an author can create a story with a great premise.

When I was in college while taking a psych class, we were assigned to write about our family and upbringing. I’ll never forget the assumption that droned though my head – think of the sound of a jet flying too low. I was filled with relief. I knew about my family and every aspect of the assignment spelled ‘A’. It wasn’t until I sat down in front of the computer that I realized how close I was to the topic. I only saw one tree in the large forest; the problems were insurmountable and to close to describe, to bear witness to; the pain and experiences were too fresh, too close.

From that assignment, I learned that knowing something with hands on knowledge brings a different sort of credibility to the words. My experiences numbed my writing; they hampered it. My word choice tanked as I grew more and more squeamish by the memories that I had to relive in order to complete the assignment.

I’m sharing this, not to put the limelight on my past – for we all have one, and live in glass houses- instead, I write this to point out that just because one has the talent to create worlds doesn’t mean that one has the gift to relive the world of which they were and are a part of.

That being said, I write fiction; I write thrillers, suspense and enjoy creating something that doesn’t remind me of the world that I’ve lived in. My characters don’t remind me of me or anyone that I know. My locations are real but redefined for my stories’ purposes and my take on the procedure within the pages are just that. Fiction.

My advice for the novice author, the one on the precipice of deciding the genre for this great feat, is simple. Write what you enjoy. Have fun creating. Only in between the pages, do you get to determine the ultimate outcome, and see a character flounder and then flourish.

Good luck and keep writing!