We’ve just heard about mid-June’s 140 Character Conference, a two-day exploration of the influence of Twitter on, well, just about everything, and we’re fascinated. We recognize several of the participants because of their active role in the publishing community—folks like former Soft Skull executive editor Richard Nash and the Macmillan digital marketing crew of Ami Greko and Ryan Chapman, so we emailed organizer Jeff Pulver to ask if we could contribute as well:
“We would be glad to join Kaylie Jones and Kevin Heisler in the conversation about ways in which authors and publishers can connect with readers on Twitter,” we told Pulver. “We’d especially be interested in breaking past the advice currently given to authors—’you HAVE to be on Twitter, everybody’s doing it now’—and emphasizing the importance of a sincere interest in social networking combined with an authentic and consistent presence. And beyond the other publishing folks who will be in attendance, we’re sure that there will be much to learn from the many other disciplines that will be represented amongst the cast of characters, and we look forward to sharing that knowledge with the readers of GalleyCat.”
(We also pointed out that folks would be able to follow along on senior editor Ron Hogan‘s Twitter feed.)
Fingers crossed that this’ll get us in the door!
(UPDATE: After talking with Heisler about authors and Twitter for a bit Friday afternoon, we’re in! Meanwhile, we hear that the congregation of book publishers was brought together by indie publicist Russ Marshalek.)