Bye Bye, Slush Pile Dream

Jamesaritchie said:

I'd also say stay away from agents who are on twitter.

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So you'd stay away from someone like the Dystel & Goderich Literary, Nathan Bransford and Colleen Lindsay (of FinePrint Literary Management), successful agents who all use Twitter?

Jamesaritchie said:

I'd also say stay away from agents who are on twitter.

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Why?

I stay away from anyone who's on Twitter.

caw

Dungeon Geek:
a lot of agents don't work out. They have to be fired. They don't always know what's best. They usually don't know anything about writing, but some of them will ask for novel rewrites. An informed writer is going to say: "Sorry, I don't do rewrites for agents. Your job is to sell my book to publishers and negotiate contracts."

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What complete and utter bollocks.

My agent has given me comments on my novel. I am finishing my revisions in line with the same. Some of her comments I agree with (and they have helped to strengthen the story). Some of her comments I disagreed with (but thinking about those points helped indicate other weaknesses within the text, which I have hopefully fixed).

All of those comments have been with the intention of making a stronger and therefore more sellable manuscript. They come precisely because she knows how to sell a manuscript, not because she's telling me how to write.

Dungeon Geek:
If you're scared of offending by offering a small sample of your work, then you're not acting like someone who is trying to hire an employee, but more like a writer desperate for someone to represent them.

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An agent is not your employee. If you're going to classify the relationship as anything, it's closer to a partnership. As a result, they have to want to work with you as much as you want to work with them.

Sometimes, ignoring an agent's submission criteria works. But this is only sometimes. More often, the ones who ignore it find themselves at the bottom of the pile and those piles are very big.

Dungeon Geek:
I was just giving some cautions to writers who do put agents on such high pedestals it runs them into trouble. I assume this website gets a lot of writers visiting who read this stuff, so if it helps one writer make a smarter choice, it was worth blabbing about.

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Judging from your earlier response to waylander, I presume that your "cautions" haven't helped you to get an agent so far.

blacbird:
I stay away from anyone who's on Twitter.

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Agreed. I just don't get Twitter. I set up an account, used it once and never got the whole devotional following thing. Give me a good old blog any day of the week.

MM

blacbird said:

I stay away from anyone who's on Twitter.

caw

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See ya!

Guys . . . the twitter theory . . . not a great one. More and more people are going on Twitter, and I have to tell you, as an active user myself, it takes NO TIME out of my day. There are top agents on twitter, good, amazing, talented, kind agents. I think possibly some of you might think the only agents on twitter are the ones analysing queries together or being a bit snarky. But there are others who don't participate in that, who are on twitter so they can help promote their authors - they link to their authors' blogs, post news about their books . . . wouldn't you like your agent to also help promote your work?

Toothpaste:
Guys . . . the twitter theory . . . not a great one. More and more people are going on Twitter, and I have to tell you, as an active user myself, it takes NO TIME out of my day. There are top agents on twitter, good, amazing, talented, kind agents.

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For myself, I'm not questioning the ability of agents who use Twitter and I don't have any negative feelings about their use of it. Like you said, it's potentially a very good marketing tool for their client's work.

My comments are led by the that I'm not a fan of Twitter, so I don't follow anyone who Tweets. It's a personal preference, rather than a qualitative judgment.

MM

Same here. I'm beginning to wonder why in the fark I even bother with Facebook and MySpace.

Yeah, but saying 'I'm not going to query agent X because they use twitter' is foolish IMO. If they're making good consistent sales who cares if they use twitter or blogs? I don't like twitter at all and don't use it (and don't want to really), but I'm not going to avoid a perfectly good agent just because they use it.

Momento Mori said:

For myself, I'm not questioning the ability of agents who use Twitter and I don't have any negative feelings about their use of it. Like you said, it's potentially a very good marketing tool for their client's work.

My comments are led by the that I'm not a fan of Twitter, so I don't follow anyone who Tweets. It's a personal preference, rather than a qualitative judgment.

MM

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Well I'm confused then. If you don't mind agents using twitter, don't question their abilities, and that you agree it could be a good forum for them to promote their authors' works, why would you not want to submit to agents on twitter? Don't forget, you agreed to Blacbird's comment of: I stay away from anyone on twitter.

What does your personal preference about twitter have to do with anything? I would understand it better if you had a real moral judgment about twitter: Anyone who uses Twitter is evil, and I can't be represented by anyone who's evil.

But I sincerely don't understand why when you don't think twitter affects their job you wouldn't want an agent on twitter. You do know that you can have an agent on twitter and not be on it yourself right? That you are under no obligation to follow them on twitter if you sign with them.

Oh and btw, I'm on twitter. Does that mean you have to stay away from me too?

I'm guessing you were merely using blacbird's comment as a launching pad to discuss why you don't get twitter, not to reinforce the idea that any agent on Twitter is someone to stay far away from. But that's me reading further into what you said, so I can't be sure.

Truly I am really confused.

Toothpaste:
Well I'm confused then. If you don't mind agents using twitter, don't question their abilities, and that you agree it could be a good forum for them to promote their authors' works, why would you not want to submit to agents on twitter? Don't forget, you agreed to Blacbird's comment of: I stay away from anyone on twitter.

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Because:

(a) I've got an agent, so I'm not submitting to anyone; and

(b) I took blacbird's comment as a tongue-in-cheek comment about the evils of Twitter generally, rather than an indictment on agents who Twitter, so was responding in kind. If I misunderstood blacbird's comment then I apologise for inadvertently diverting the thread.

So I don't think we're actually arguing here, but in case we are (and because Alex holds a v. scary sword):

1. I would have no issue with submitting to an agent who Twitters or blogs if they've got a good track record of selling the type of fiction I'm writing. In fact, checking out Twitter and blogs can be a good way of keeping track of what they're looking for and tailoring accordingly;

2. I don't personally like Twitter, so don't follow anyone on there, regardless of who they are or what they're doing. I don't even follow Stephen Fry. And I love Stephen Fry;

3. I do read blogs like a hardcore addict - if I could inject blogs into one of my veins, then I happily would.

Erm .. so yeah. No drama here.

MM

Okay cool It seems my conclusion then was correct. Love it when that happens . . .(would like it if it happened more frequently)

Twitter is an interesting beast. At first I really didn't like the concept of it at all. Then when I felt the pressure to join to self promote I started to get to know it. I still don't get the people who feel like sharing deeply personal things with the world on it (but the same can be said of blogs etc), but I have grown to quite like it. I've met a lot of authors on twitter, networked very well. I've had people review my books because they found me on twitter. It's been quite good for me as an author. I'm not sure I'd be on it if I wasn't one though.

Anyway . . . I'm taking this thread down a totally different path so I'll stop.

Oh and do not fear Alex and her sword, she only decimates evil. Which you clearly are not.

I don't know, Toothpaste.

She looks awfully shifty to me.

You might have Alex warming up, just in case. *grin*