Get your @#$ on Twitter

Had Twitter been around when I started looking for an agent, I think the process of finding one would have been a heck of a lot easier. Why? Because there are tons of agents on there and each posts a boatload of valuable information - little tips and insights into how to find an agent, how the industry works, what the trends are on a given day ... I could write a lengthy list of the things I've learned from following agents on Twitter.

I'd like to say that I was an early adopter of the medium - but I wasn't. I've been tweeting now since March 2009 - I have just over 12K tweets and I've only recently gathered more than a thousand followers. I'm not on there to get jillions of followers either - I use Twitter to interact with other authors and to follow people in the publishing industry as well as book bloggers. I'll get to them in a minute, but back to literary agents.

The most valuable information I've learned from agents comes from their little observations on queries or partial submissions. Agent Sara Megibow (@saramegibow) often does what she calls #5pagesIn5tweets - where she will literally tweet her insights into the first five pages of a partial submission she'd requested. It's short, not always sweet and blunt as hell - it's also a valuable peek into the literary agent's mind.  Other agents like Juliet Mushens (@mushenska) will host an #askagent - a period where anyone can ask an agent anything they like (within reason, of course) and the agent will answer. Bear in mind, it's not a pitch session. Agents on Twitter DO NOT LIKE, I repeat, DO NOT LIKE to be on the receiving end of a pitch from an author who is also on Twitter. When it happens, (and it does multiple times a day) that agent will let the entire world know that pitching on Twitter is lame, unprofessional and about a thousand other things. Seriously, that people actually pitch agents this way is still a bit of a wonder to me.

Even my agent Jenny Savill has finally opened a Twitter account. She hasn't been on there for long  and I expect that in time, she'll be posting her thoughts about publishing.

I also follow bloggers. Why? To build a fan base and to interact with folks who love books, plain and simple. If a blogger loves your book, they're going to tell everyone. You know, when I went to London last year to launch my book POLTERGEEKS, I met a number of bloggers. It was a bit surreal because they actually treated me like I'm a bit of a celebrity when in fact, I'm just a yutz from Saskatoon who writes books about magic and blowing things up. What struck me was the sheer scale of their love of books - and what was really cool was the fact I was meeting people I'd been interacting with using an online medium. Mind bogglingly cool!

See where I am going with this? Get your @#$% on Twitter and you will learn about publishing in real time. You will be exposed to valuable information that you can't get in the latest "how to get published" book. It's a fantastic tool for the fledgling author and even though I've been using it now for more than four years, I'm still learning something new every single day. Do check it out.

I wrote a NaNo book. Now what?

                  Winner of the Rachel Vincent contest is Liz Czukas!  Congrats, Liz!

Agents all over are cringing as they open their email inboxes today. Why are they cringing? Because NaNoWriMo is officially over, and writers all over are sending in their manuscripts. If you know what’s wrong with that statement, then you can stop reading! : D LOL.

For everyone else, listen carefully! :D Do NOT send those novels. Just because they’re complete, doesn’t mean they’re finished. You have a TON left to do. Like editing, revising, more editing, rewriting. Sending to betas, more rewriting. More betas. Are we seeing a pattern?

It’s a lot of work, but it’s so worth it when you get feedback from an agent/editor saying it’s well written and they want your work.

The best advice for what to do with it now? Nothing. Set it off to the side. Let it mature for a few weeks to a month or so, while you write something else. Why? Because absence makes the heart grow fonder. Seriously, though, it’s because you need distance from your story, so you can see all it’s flaws.

Right now you’re enamored with it, and you won’t be able to see the things as clearly as you should.

And while you’re waiting, write that next novel. After all, the only thing that sets an author apart from others is the fact they write. And with each subsequent story, you get better.

So, please, no matter how much you love that story you just wrote, be kind to the agents and editors who are fearful of their inboxes this month and “just say nay.”