Promote Your Book with a Twitter World Tour

In today's guest post, novelist Graham Storrs shares the details of his amazing 24-hour around the world Twitter tour to launch his new book, and offers some practical tips for authors who want to plan their own Twitter world tour. If you don't have Twitter followers across the globe (or don't think you can stay awake for 24 hours) you could modify your tour to cover a more limited area.

Between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. your time, on February 15, 2010, I visited your time zone and tweeted. I did it as part of the TimeSplash Non-Stop 24-hour Round-the-World Twitter Tour, which I did to help launch my début novel, TimeSplash. It went like this:

I began in New York at 7 p.m. on the 15th. That time zone includes much of the Eastern Seaboard, eastern Canada, and a chunk of South America. I tweeted a hello to everybody in the whole time zone, told them about my book, chatted to anybody who was around, and, at 8 p.m. exactly, moved west by one time zone. That meant it was 7 p.m. again, but now I was in the central U.S. states, central Canada, and Mexico. I did it all again, said hello, mentioned my book, and chatted to anyone who replied.

Every hour, I moved west again by one time zone, jumping back each time to 7 p.m. Appropriate for a book about time traveling. In just a few hours, I had crossed the Americas. Leaving Alaska behind, I crossed the dateline, and entered Russia.

Tweeting for 24 hours solid was pretty tiring, but it didn't kill me (and, considering how I felt when I reached Europe and still had nine hours to go, surviving felt like a small miracle at the time.) In fact, I had a lot of fun. Most places I went, there were people to talk to and, to my surprise, there was a crowd of people who (while they were awake!) were following me and cheering me on.

I had feared that my regular followers would get bored with my constant tweeting but people seemed to enjoy it. I picked up dozens of followers during the tour and several people tweeted to say they'd bought the book and were enjoying it. One guy bought it, read the whole thing, and blogged a very nice review before the tour was even over!

This is how I prepared myself:

• I found a big atlas of the world and kept it by my side.

• I opened Wikipedia and, as I passed each country, read a little about it.

• I found a good online translator and kept it open on my desktop.

• I made a point of checking what countries my Twitter followers lived in – it turned out they were spread all over North America, Europe, and Australasia, so I had someone I knew in most time zones.

• I arranged with my wife to bring me meals and drinks throughout the 24 hours. A lot of the time I was extremely busy and engaged, and I was very glad of her support so I could stay at the keyboard.

These are some of the things I did that helped make it interesting:

• I used the hashtag #timesplash so that people could follow the tour.

• I gave greetings to all the countries in each time zone as I arrived, in each country's own language if possible, and used country and city-name hashtags to alert the locals.

• Whenever I knew a country, I wrote little anecdotes about my time there – about places I'd visited, or lived, or things I'd done there.

• Even if I didn't know a country at all, I found interesting facts about it in Wikipedia and tweeted about them.

• I tried to keep actual plugs for my book down to about one per time zone – however, several of my followers were re-tweeting my plugs throughout the tour (bless 'em.)

• Whenever anybody said 'Hi' from a time zone, I engaged them and chatted. Sometimes I was having several conversations at once. This was one of the best parts, especially if it was a stranger. I made a few tweet buddies that day!

It was quite an experience. Some things were very striking. North America, Australasia, and Europe were very lively. Russia is immense and, for me, was mostly silent. China, of course, was silent too, because of their Internet filtering. The Atlantic was the only really dull bit – three time zones with no inhabitants! I was very happy to make landfall in New York at 7 p.m. on the 16th and very pleased with the positive response I'd had throughout the tour. It was a great alternative to sitting in bookstores, and I think I sold just as many books.

About the Author

Graham Storrs, the author of TimeSplash, is a writer who lives in quiet seclusion on a bush property in Australia. He trained as a psychologist and, after a career in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction research and software design, now shares his time between his family, writing, and the beautiful forested mountains of his adopted home.

Learn More About Using Twitter for Book Promotion

To learn more about how authors can use Twitter to promote themselves and their books, check out the Twitter Guide for Authors ebook and the Boost Your Book Sales With Twitter audio program.

Comments

[Joy Butler]

Thanks to Graham Storrs for this article sharing a creative marketing idea. Graham says that "Every hour, I moved west again by one time zone, jumping back each time to 7 p.m." From the article, I understand he physically remained in one place during the 24-hour period. So what does it actually mean to move from one time zone to another in Twitter-speak?

[Graham Storrs]

Hi Joy, As you know, when you tweet on Twitter, the whole world can hear you. It doesn't matter where you are physically. "Moving" from timezone to timezone is a kind of fiction. You tell the world which zone you are "in" and talk to the people who are actually in that zone. It sounds a bit odd, I know, and many people I told about it before I did it, just couldn't get it, or see the point. Yet, on the day, it all became obvious and everyone got the idea. In fact, I was so engaged with my "trip" as I moved ever westward that it really felt as if I was there in Minnesota, or New Zealand, or the Netherlands, chatting to the locals, talking about places I knew, or the places they lived. It would make a great "field trip" for kids studying geography!

[Jeff Emmerson]

Oh man! I'm ALL OVER THIS once I publish early in 2011!!

THANK YOU for such an amazing eye-opener of an article!!

Jeff Emmerson - Author of a Gritty, Reflective and Inspiring Memoir.

[Cynthia Briggs]

Exceptionally creative marketing, and fun for you at the same time! Thanks for sharing your unique experience and best wishes for terrific sales of "TimeSplash." I'm not as handy with Twitter, but I could cook and bake my way around the world...

Cynthia Briggs
Cookbook Author
"Sweet Apple Temptations" and "Pork Chops & Applesauce"
http://www.cynthiabriggsbooks.com