Can Twitter sell books for you? Well, no, not all by itself. But Twitter is one of the tools you can use to promote your book.

Writing your book was the first step. Now it’s time to promote it so that you achieve your publishing goals. Whether you published to make money in royalties, generate leads or build your expert reputation (or some combination of all three), you have to get the word out. When used correctly, Twitter is a wonderful book promotion tool. Take a look at these clever, effective, and powerful Twitter ebook promotion tactics, tips, and ideas.

Give a Taste
Some fiction writers have used Twitter to publish their book 140 characters at a time. That is not something I would recommend, but it has been done. (Even before Twitter there were Japanese writers publishing stories via text message.) Instead of pushing the entire book out via Twitter, how about sharing some tasty morsels with your readers? This can be easy for non-fiction writers: Choose some of the useful tips from your book, get them under 140 characters and start tweeting. Don’t forget to link to the page where readers can get your book. Fiction writers can tweet some of your characters’ best lines or plot teasers.

Vine
Vine is Twitter’s new service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Video is a fantastic way to generate interest and clicks. Vine videosare just six seconds or less, but a creative clip can get lots of attention. Tagging with hashtags and linking to your book page is easy, too.

What can you do in a six-second video? Stop-action animations are popular, such as this one:

Or how about something that inspires a “How did they do that?” reaction?

Use Images
Your book cover should grab attention, so tweet it out. Get pictures of you with your book, with fans, at readings and other events, or doing things related to your book. Did you write a cookbook? Then tweet photos of dishes you made from your recipes. Are you doing research for your next novel? Tweet a photo of where you are and ask followers to guess.

Interact with Followers
Remember that the secret to building a large following of book buyers is to connect with prospects. But don’t just blast information out to everyone. In addition to sharing information about your book, interact with your followers. Respond when they mention you or your book. Re-tweet their messages. Comment and connect.

Interact with Influencers
Follow people who are influential in your field or genre (e.g., other authors, experts, reviewers, industry professionals, etc.) and reply to them when appropriate. You may be able to get noticed by major players just by paying attention to what they are saying and responding. (But don’t be a stalker!)

Don’t Spam
If all you ever do is send out tweets saying, “Buy my book,” your followers will not stick around. It is okay to send out promotional tweets, but that shouldn’t be all you do. Post links to helpful sites other than yours, share favorite quotations, retweet great posts from others, interact with your followers and generally be a part of the community. Then, yes, send out some tweets about your book, events, blog posts, etc.

Twitter has become part of our mainstream communication. Use it to connect and build an audience of book buyers and followers.