For the past couple of months I have been a frequent participant in the twitter-based Scribe Chat. During one of our discussions of writing craft, we hit upon the idea of creating a book club  which would focus on memoirs of the writing life and books on craft and technique. Lia Keyes, author and creator of Scribe Chat, and I selected Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees as our first title and we'll be discussing it during this week's Scribe Chat on twitter.You're welcome to participate whether you've read the book or not. Topics will include the author-editor relationship, and the many types of writers.

If you've never participated in a twitter chat before, I recommend reading Twitter Chats for Writers: A Quick Guide to brush up on the basics. It's simple to participate, but chats tend of move quickly and it can be difficult for a first-timer to keep up. Luckily, the chat is recorded, so you can read the transcript later at your leisure. You do not need a twitter account to follow the chat, but you do need one if you wish to contribute to the conversation.

In the last part of the How to Build Your Author's Platform series, I featured Dora Machado, a traditionally published author who came to platform building late in the game. For today's feature, I interviewed Georgia McBride, a YA author with a very different perspective. Georgia is not yet traditionally published, but she has an impressive social media presence, and is very active in both promoting her writing and mentoring and supporting up-and-coming authors. She also speaks to teens about writing, promoting within her target audience, and nurturing the next generation of writers. She has a background as a marketer and manager in the music industry, and has been a part of the launch of several teen and tween music brands including N'SYNC and Fall Out Boy. She's no stranger to promotion and branding, and her expertise can help both new and established authors refine their web presence.

TED: There are many ways to connect with potential readers and publishers. Which do you consider the most essential?

GM: You want both potential readers and publishers to recognize your name when the time comes. However, the attention span of a consumer (potential reader) is so short that spending lots of time trying to get their attention (and God forbid money) now, when there is no book/physical product to promote is like playing the boy who cried wolf. When you finally do have a book out they will be so tired of hearing about you, they may move right on past.

I've recently been bitten by the twitter bug and have found a wealth of writing-related resources there. From agents posting helpful advice, to detailed articles on writing craft, twitter has it all. What it also has is a rather steep learning curve, especially for people who weren't born with a computer mouse in hand. I spent most of my college years immersed in the precursors to today's social media sites (ISCA BBS, anyone?), but twitter threw me for a loop. Now that I've got my sea legs, I've put together a quick guide to the growing phenomenon of twitter chats: Why they matter, how to participate, and which ones are best for authors.

First, a quick overview of how to use twitter.

If you don't already have a twitter account, you will need to create one at twitter.com. Once you have an account, you can either read and post tweets from that site, or use one of the many third-party tools to access your information. I prefer tweetdeck, but hootsuite is also popular, as are many applications for mobile devices. Many tweets are labeled with the name of the software the author used, so use that as a guide and find the one that works best for you.

The most important (and frustrating) thing about twitter is that you are limited to 140 characters at a time. That includes spaces, hashtags, and anything else you might want to type. Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the hash symbol - #. Hashtags act like a filter on twitter. You can click on a hashtag, or enter it into the search box, and only posts containing that hashtag will be displayed. This is how twitter chats work. Each chat has its own hashtag, and you need to know that tag--and to add that tag to your posts--to participate.

The Internet is a mess.  This might be my own personal bias resulting from the laptop melting virus that ruined the first half of my month, but I think most people would agree the signal to noise ratio online is rather low.  In a way, every horrible blog with pop-up ads flying everywhere makes up appreciate those places where the Internet is really helpful and kind of awesome.  Today, one of the really cool aspects of the Internet celebrates its first anniversary, LitChat.

We didn't want to love Twitter at the Editorial Department.  It seems like such a gimmick and once Ashton Kutcher became the public face of the service, we thought it wouldn't be for us.  150 posts (and counting) later, we're hooked.  There are so many interesting people on there, it's hard to scoff and turn your nose up anymore.  After all, if it's good enough for Margaret Atwood, it should be good enough for us, right?  One of our favorite things on Twitter is LitChat, a thrice weekly hour long discussion of writing or writing related themes.  The conversation is well-moderated, welcoming and informative, which is about all you can ask for these days.  We're proud to announce that our own Renni Browne will be guest-hosting the LitChat for Friday, November 20th, possibly with a few prizes to give away. Go to the LitChat homepage to learn more about how best to experience the chat, get your questions ready, and get into the Twitter fray with Renni and probably some of our staff.  See you there (virtually, but the sentiment is the same).