Agents want writers that are internet savvy

Guess I'll just have to write better then, because I refuse to get involved in those things.

So what's your angle, Fear?

(Love how that sentence reads. Sometimes I surprise even myself.)

All the networking in the world won't sell a sucky novel.

James D. Macdonald said:

All the networking in the world won't sell a sucky novel.

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Oh, man...

Check out one called Fragment.

Sucky doesn't begin to cover it.

But it did have a great web-site and a lot of networking behind it.

Nah, I don't think so, Fear. Having a web presence is useful, but it's not make-or-break. It just makes you more accessible.

And thinking networking is behind bad books doesn't make sense, to me. Why? Because your version of bad is not my version of bad. What makes for a good book is a subjective thing. And that's why individual readers will always have to comb through what they believe is crappy literature to find the stuff that resonates with them. It's to do with taste, because other people love those books.

And I don't think you CAN get published purely on networking...I mean there is that whole issue of actually writing a book and all.

Social media is learned--or hired out--easily enough that the writing is still way more important.

It's not a bad idea to start learning or preparing, but in the end if you've got nothing to show for it, it's not worth it.

The most important ingredients in signing with a reputable agent is write a saleable novel and query it correctly ( and by correctly, I mean you query agents who rep your genre, you follow submission requirements, and you write a good query letter).

Internet savvy is important to market yourself as a writer to READERS, not to agents. Is it helpful to have a web presence of some sort prior to your agent search? Yes. Agents do Google prospective authors if they are interested in offering representation. Keeping an active blog with updated and interesting content is never a bad idea. Most people have personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, and that's fine, too, but social networking sites are less important to agents than they are to your future fans.

A website prior to a book sale is usually...not advised. What's your content going to be? What's the point of your site? How do you drive traffic to it? How do you keep it updated if you haven't sold a novel?

Agents want a really good book.

Pretty much anything else is gravy, and Not a Big Deal.

You can buy Internet savvy; a really good story is a heck of a lot harder to find.

Worry about writing a super book. Don't worry about marketing, social networking or anything else--all of that is much easier to find than a really good book.

Fearghas said:

As someone who has recently become a member of facebook after years of running away from it in terror, I'm starting to wonder if having lots of internet buddies, or running a really popular blog, can increase your probability of landing an agent. What do you all think? Stories? Personal experience?

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FaceBook and other Internet stuff can be taken care of by a bright fifteen year old with basic literacy.

Writing a good book?

That's a far more difficult skill.

There's a difference between being internet savvy, and having a platform/pre-built audience.

Being internet savvy won't land you an agent. Your ms will.

Having a platform/pre-built audience (which you may have built by, say, maintaining a 100,000 hits a day blog about cupcakes) will be a strong point of interest you should note when sending query letters out. It may help overcome some flaws which would otherwise turn an agent off your ms.

Celebrity can overcome lack of authorial ability as a marketing point. But unless you've established a truly remarkable web presence, your participation on facebook isn't going to make a huge amount of difference to your potential agents.

An AW member and blogger asked this question recently, and wrote an interesting post on it here:

http://disobedientwriter.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/is-platform-necessary-for-fiction-writers/

Thanks, Fear. The query process is going really well at the moment (as in my agent search is finally over )

Right, well I'll give a bit more of a personal example. My name doesn't come up on google (well it does, but it turns up this really prestigious heart surgeon rather than the unprestigious high school kid that I am. I'm cool with people getting me confused with that guy...), but I have a blog. I didn't attach my real life name to it and it isn't a very popular blog -- it's basically read by certain people from on these boards and that's it. Yet two agents did first come into contact with my writing via my blog (I post snippets). One liked the work they saw enough to request. The other requested a bit later via different paths and mentioned having really liked my work and having seen it before on my blog (it kind of shocked me that people were actually reading the goddamn thing).

Bottom line is, they cared about the writing, not my blog, or I'd have been turned down instantly (really, I'm intending to fix my blog up into something even vaguely respectable eventually) because my blog is not an impressive thing. Having a bit of a web presence makes you accessible, yes. But no, you don't have to have a massive blog following or super-wonderful social networking skills for people to be interested in you. In fact, you can have zero web presence and just query traditionally and I don't think anyone will care.

You can build up a web presence after you get an agent, if it's such a crucial component in marketing. But you need the book first.

Well, I have the book, so I guess now I should blog: "Come all ye Agents, suckle at my rosy teat."

But seriously, I had a blog once. I was basically just brainfarting the whole thing, and I came across as less than professional. Sometimes Internet presence can RUIN your chances of getting an agent...

Not that I used my real name, and it wasn't a writing blog, but I'm still of the mind to only blog if asked by an agent or editor or, better still, the marketing department. And I refuse to be published under my real name anyway, so until I have a contract and have agreed with a publisher on what pen name I'll use, there's no point starting a blog named "Cliff Face" if I wind up being known as Harry Longbottom...

It doesn't surprise me, I've been looking at a publishing career at over the last year there have been shifts in the requirements towards being internet savvy.

Agents and editors have always had an expectation on authors to contribute towards marketing aspects. This is just an extension of that.

For heaven's sake, if you're writing a novel, avoid ever using the phrase "fictional novel" to anyone.

Novel = fictional narrative prose.

It's stupid. It makes you look stupid. It's the kind of phrase agents use a filter to weed out, because if you have a clue, you don't use it.

But my novel is fictional because I haven't written it yet...



I'm SO not helping.

I'm still running in terror. And I will not do Twitter. Period. Maaaybe one day someone could force a blog out of me, but I'd have to have something a lot more interesting to talk about than my current life (i.e., went to practice, am sore, wrote some but not as much as I'd hoped, taught some classes, rinse repeat ).

Not saying I wouldn't have a website. I'd be all for having a website one day. I think a blog where I could answer people's random questions would be fun, but for now I'd have nothing to say. Twitter...well I find the whole concept stupid so yeah, I'm pretty sure I could find ways to do other things.

I would make a Facebook page for my last MC though. And a group. I'd love to do that. It would be such a fun marketing thing, because the main part of the book is about how he uses things like that to fight against his accusers.

Anyway, I'm sure this makes me sound like a no never I'd hate that sorta person, but I'm really not. At my current point in life, there is no point whatsoever for me to have these things. No one would read/view them, no one would care, and I have nothing interesting to say. Add to that the fact that I'm a fairly private person, and I'd have no desire to broadcast my life on the internet (I can send an email if I care about telling someone something), and you get why I don't do the web presence thing.

If I was published yeah, I'd definitely be making websites and trying to spread the word, but that's different. That's not selling me, it's about my work. Dunno. I'm probably weird. I figure if I have a good book and am open minded I'll find an agent. I wouldn't refuse to have a web presence. Except maybe for Twitter.

James D. Macdonald said:

All the networking in the world won't sell a sucky novel.

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It will sell a something. Blogs like "Stuff White People Like," "This is Why You're Fat," "I Can Has Cheezburger?" "Shit My Dad Says" and "Look at This Fucking Hipster" all got book deals.

Anything you can get 100,000 unique viewers to look at each day is hot stuff.

More on topic, your personal facebook page is not going to matter. Unless you are a very popular tweeter, it isn't going to matter. Trying to get a zillion twitter followers so you can sell a novel is like trying to get on a reality television show to sell a novel.