I've noticed of late that my twitter feed has entirely degenerated into whimsical musings about the Hot Postie, photos of cats, updates of what children's book character my small child is currently obsessed with, and far too few tweets of a professional nature.
I'm pretty sure that many of the people who come to follow @catnipbooks have done so because they want to know about how a small independent publishing house works and really, I owe them a bit more than the occasional bit of publishing opinion. (And a lot fewer of the Ryan Gosling links...)
Although Catnip used to consist solely of me – and therefore my thoughts – we've recently expanded to include another member of staff. The fantastic Liz Bankes (blogger over at Books, bonnets & full frontal blogging and author of the excellent YA debut Irresistible, published by Piccadilly Press) joined in February as an Assistant Editor. Since then, we've been working hard divvying up Important Editorial Duties and hatching Awesome Publicity Plans in a way I've never been in a position to do until now.
This marks a new era for Catnip – we've DOUBLED the workforce – and we're taking it up a level. On every level. Including our facebook page, this blog and twitter. These things will happen piecemeal, because despite DOUBLING our workforce, there's still a huge amount for two people to do. But I think a first, easy step is for us to change the way @catnipbooks is used.
From now on, the twitter feed will be focusing on the things we think people really want to know about:
- Insight into editorial life
- Tips on submissions and writing
- News on exciting new projects
- Opinions on The State of Publishing
- Sharing interesting links from other publishers, editors, writers, illustrators and bloggers (and anyone else, really – you don't have to be connected to books to be interesting!)
It might be me behind the tweets – or it might be Liz. We're still people with personalities and we'll happily banter with other users (in which case, we'll make sure you know who you're talking to!), but we'll try and keep it focused on books, rather than buff postmen.
(And for those of you who will be devastated by a lack of Hot Postie updates, who want to know some of my more shouty opinions on publishing and books and who might be interested in my writing as well as my editing, you can follow me over on @NonPratt.)
