Twitter Chats for Writers

When I first started getting serious about both publishing and twitter, I learned a lot about the industry and the market through twitter chats. (I will forever owe a debt to Colleen Lindsay and her #askagent sessions.) I also met some of my earliest writer friends this way.

Twitter chats these days are much more frequent, numerous, and organized. I highly recommend them for aspiring authors who want to learn more about the industry/market and meet new friends. Here are a few regular chats I know of. Let me know in the comments if you know any more:

• #yalitchat - Every Wednesday from 9 pm to 10:15 pm EST. Focuses on Young Adult topics. Three weeks out of each month there are guided discussions. The remaining week is always an open discussion.
• #indiechat - Every Tuesday at 9pm EST. Focuses on self-published topics. Hosted by The Indelibiles.
• #nalitchat - Every Thursday at 9pm EST. Starts this week! Will focus on New Adult topics.
• #kidlitchat - Every Tuesday at 9pm EST. For YA and MG writers.
• #mglitchat - Every Thursday at 9pm EST.
• #scifichat - I think this is every Friday at 2pm EST.

 Tweetchat

The best way to follow these chats is to log in to www.tweetchat.com with your Twitter account and enter in the hashtag you want to follow. The website will show only tweets including that hashtag, whether or not you follow the tweeter. The stream auto updates, but you can pause it and change the refresh rate. Additionally, every tweet you write from that window will automatically have the hashtag at the end so you don't have to worry about remembering it. Additionally, you can choose to feature a person (such as the moderator or featured guest) and block people (like spammers or trolls).

Tweetchat is not the only way to follow a chat. You can also use your desktop/mobile twitter client (like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite) or go old school and simply use search.twitter.com.


I hope to see some of you around #yalitchat and #nalitchat this week! (Say hi if you see me on there!) Let me know if you have any questions about writerly Twitter chats.