Agented Author: Promoting oneself before being published?

Probably a question best discussed with your agent. She'll have a better idea of what to do to publicize your work.

I'm agented but not (yet) published. I do a blog but haven't taken up Twitter.

There's a rather good sticky at the top of the book promotion forum you might want to take a look at, with lots of details on how to go about it.

It's never too early to get into book promotion through social media, even well before you have anything to promote. Because each form of social media (Twitter, Facebook, web sites, etc.) is an art and a craft and it will take time to become good at using each.

Too, for a professional writer what you eventually end up promoting is yourself and the various kinds of works you turn out. Thus you discuss topics which interest you and so inform your works and are likely to interest readers of your works. And this means a give and take with other writers and readers. That's why they are called SOCIAL media!

The best intro to this subject I've come across in more than a dozen years is at this AW link.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241431

Whoa there! Don't promote that book yet! If you read a lot of agent blogs, one of the things they warn against is promoting the unsold book.

If a prospective publisher sees you've been promoting your work for a year and it hasn't been bought yet, she's not exactly gonna see it as hot property. More like the shitty manuscript nobody has bought yet.

By all means, promote yourself as a writer, but keep quiet on the work you're shopping until the ink is dry on the contract!

+1 on what Treehouseman said. A good rule of thumb is to not talk about the book or its prospects in detail until you have the agent's/editor's okay. (Often that entails a Publisher's Weekly announcement, or some other big publicity.)

Some agents don't even want to see authors broadcasting their WIP book titles, or titles-on-submission, and I can see why. Especially if the agent is trying to delicately set up an auction or a pre-empt sale.

As an agent, I'd agree with those who say to hold off on discussing details of a book getting ready to be sent out or on submission. Time enough for cheering once the book is sold!

That said, there's nothing wrong with "coming out" as an author and talking about the thrill of landing the agent, or the trials and tribulations of writing/editing, or just, you know, your pets. ;-) Plenty of "pre-published" authors do social media very well without discussing the particulars of a project on submission.

Just realize that you are probably mostly going to be connecting with other authors at this stage, rather than FANS - those come later, once there is actually something out there in the world.

Connecting with other authors and getting a sense of community is a valuable thing! But just keep in mind that you are trying to CONNECT - make friends, have conversations, LISTEN and ASK more than TALK and SELF-PROMOTE - and you'll be fine.