Agents on Social Sites

Twitter, yes. FB and MySpace, no.

My own agent is on FB, and she's one of my "friends." But I wouldn't try to friend anyone else.

I think it's still fine, but if it feels stalker-ish to you, you can always type their name in the "search" function to see what they are saying without actually following them.

Some agents have *thousands* of followers.

I follow a lot of their blogs, and follow some of them on twitter. Not so much to stalk them as to see interesting information they might share. They have so many followers, I don't think they see it as stalking. I actually think most go on there wanting to get followers. Otherwise, why would they bother?

Definitely don't facebook or myspace friend them at random, though.

I know there are Agents snooping around on Urbis.

You submit your work and get it critiqued by the other members. And chances are an agent sends you a PM.

I've been known to stalk my own agent's blog, mostly because she writes hilarious anecdotes that are entertaining, but other than that I don't really care what other agents are doing with their daily lives...

I read the blogs and Twitter streams of agents I don't plan to query, because they're interesting people. None of them have complained or blocked me.

Some people restrict their Facebook and MySpace friends more, but they have the option of saying no to your request. They're not going to take mortal offence to a friends request.

ETA: You might have more problems as your Twitter updates are protected. That means people you follow can't see who you are and what you're tweeting about, so they won't know if you're real or a spammer.

I follow a bunch of agents on Twitter. I'm still in the pre-querying learning phase, so I find it very helpful. At least one of them is following me back, too.

I don't think it's stalking at all. Plenty of people I don't know follow me on Twitter.

Facebook I probably wouldn't unless it was my own agent. Twitter seems less personal and more open.

I follow a few on Twitter, but not on FB or MS. That's what's great about Twitter - you can follow them, but they don't have to reciprocate. It gives you a window without opening the agent in question up to PM features that would flood them with unprofessional queries and such (Colleen Lindsay said she's gotten queries by FB... tacky, tacky.)

And there's nothing wrong with answering back if an agent poses an open question or wishing them luck if they tweet that they're off for a difficult meeting or something - so long as you don't expect a response (seriously 1000's of followers in some cases. You get 456 "good luck" tweets at once, and you're not going to know who sent what)

Just don't act like an idiot or a stalker.

Agents are just like all other people. If they are putting stuff out on public sites, they want it to be read. Following their posts isn't stalking or doing anything untowards, unless one's responses are out-of-line or inappropriately business-related (as in excessive sucking up).

I say give them a break. Treat them like just another regular person (which they are).

I follow a bunch of agents on Twitter even though I have an agent and she's not on Twitter. They have interesting blog posts that they link to and some of the conversations are interesting.

I follow several agents on Twitter, a couple on Facebook and MySpace. I know one unpublished writer on Twitter who is so good at schmoozing (just naturally friendly) that she's got several of them eating out of her hand. Very impressive to watch. When she's ready to query she's got a ton of good will built up. Please note, she's not kissing butt, or trying to get advice or querying on the sly, just being friendly.

I also know of at least one agent who is on Twitter incognito. Not a word about being an agent in the bio and tweets about other interests, never about publishing. Interesting mix of things happening.