Navigating the Twitterverse: Advanced Tips
Note: This is advice for you to use once you already have an established Twitter account. By “established” I mean a minimum of 1000 followers, which you should be able to get within only a few months of actively engaging on Twitter with the writing community. If you don’t yet have this, I encourage you to review my first post on the Twitterverse before you try these steps.
Follow literary agents that you are interested in (and even agents you are not interested in!) A lot of literary agents share great information about how to write query letters, how to build relationships, and maybe even how to get published.
Engage with agents, but be very professional. It is considered a faux pas to directly ask them to represent you or even to ask about submitting a query to them, via Twitter. Make sure your comments with them are relevant, friendly, and not “needy”. See it as a way for them to get familiarized with your name, but nothing more.
Never try to promote yourself to an agent on Twitter.
Never tag an agent in posts, especially things like follow/writer lifts. Seriously, do not do this. You will be blocked.
Find and follow the authors that write in the genre you are interested in. The fewer followers they have, the better, because you will get more opportunities to converse/engage with them. You might some advice on publishing from them. Don’t ask them for it, though. Also, be respectful of their time and commitments, even if you think they are a relatively unknown author. That doesn’t mean they have time to sit and DM you about every question you have. A great way to ensure you aren’t a nuisance is to spread out your questions and ask multiple people for advice, or to ask it as a general Tweet not directed at any specific person.
Find and follow small press publishers. You can find names of small press publishers via Google, i.e. “small press publishers Seattle” or “sci-fi publishers” they may also be called “boutique publishers”. These small/independent presses will often share advice for new writers and usually post great content for retweets, such as new book releases.
Feel free to ask questions, but do it from your own account. One of the ways I ended up getting a manuscript request was I tweeted something along the lines of “has anyone been published by a small press? I would like to learn more about your experience”. Not only did I connect with authors who had done exactly what I was hoping to do, but one of them connected me directly with an editor, who requested my manuscript! This is rare, and won’t happen every day, but if you put questions like this out into Twitter, you might get more than you’d expected!
Participate in pitch contests. There are many websites out there that will explain pitch contests to you (better than I can), but here’s my advice:
Come up with a few Tweets that give details of your book UNDER or EXACTLY 280 characters. Make sure you include the hashtags you are going to use for the contest. For PitMad, one of the biggest contests, there are specific hashtags.
For example, I’ll use The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: “Lucy had no idea that the wardrobe was magic. Now she’s inside a kingdom where animals talk, a lion reigns, & an evil witch turns people to stone. But she’ll need her sister & 2 brothers to bring the thaw and leave the world that’s “always winter, & never Christmas”#PitMad #MG #F”
Okay, that pitch might need some work, but here’s what it has: a hint of the universe, the stakes, some interesting/unique elements, and the correct hashtags. For this particular pitch contest (PitMad) the hashtags are located on the Pitch Wars website here: https://pitchwars.org/pitmad/#hashtags
A week or two before the pitch contest, ask to swap pitches with other authors. You can give each other feedback and critiques to make sure you are conveying what you hope to with your pitch Tweet.
Check over your Twitter profile and make sure it looks professional and represents you well. An extreme example of what-not-to-do would be if your pitch is about a Christian self-help book, but several of your recent tweets are things like “I can’t even get out of bed without a White Claw #alcoholic”
In addition to these suggestions, there are a LOT of resources you can get through writer Twitter, if you are persistent to ask and you are able to network well. Here are some of the ways I’ve used it for my benefit:
Beta readers
Critique/collaboration partners
Anthology submission
Short story contests
Information about what an agent is looking for (sometimes called “Manuscript Wish List” or #MSWL)
Quotes from editors
I am certain there are even more benefits. What ways have you been able to use Twitter? Leave me a comment, below!