Q07: Social Media & You

(This question is part of a larger subseries called Perpetual WIPs: Querying Writers. For the remaining questions, see here.)

How important do you think building your own social media presence is as part of the querying process?

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It can hurt, help, or do nothing. Obviously if you’re bad-talking publishing or broadcasting rejections, that can be bad, but you can also develop a rapport with someone who will recognize your name on a query, it could really help. In most cases, it probably doesn’t make a difference because in the end it’s all about what you’ve got on your pages.

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I think it’s a great way to meet other writers and stay sane in the face of rejection. It’s a little tough for me because I tend to be shyer on the Internet than in real life, but I figure that I might as well get started now on building that platform.

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Honestly, i don’t know. I have a blog and it has close to 500 followers and on many days I kind of hate blogging. But I know some agents look at it and I really really really want to be able to write the “I got an agent” blog post. But mostly, I wish I didn’t have to do it as much so I could write more, but also, I know, KNOW I’m a better writer now because of the people I’ve met through social media.

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I really don’t know how much it affects querying. I would hope that an agent would request pages regardless of whether or not you have a presence, but I just don’t know if that’s the case. I just figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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I think it’s becoming more and more important, but of course I have no idea if an agent is checking out my media presence or not.

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Very important! I’ve found and queried quite a few agents from #askagent, #pubtip etc. and have even received some requests. It’s also awesome to have querying twitter pals you can whine with 🙂 I follow lots of people who just like to read, because Hey….I might write something they may wanna read one day.

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I think it’s helpful, and you can make great connections with other writers and agents. I know I’ve gotten several agent requests via twitter as well, which I would never have gotten otherwise. That being said, I’m still a bit too shy to interact with many agents directly, for fear of bothering them. I think more than
anything, it’s helped established some amazing friendships and created a support structure.

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I think it’s very important to build followers but also to make sure you’re professional, enthusiastic, and a real representation of who you are. If we’re checking out agents that way, it’s probably a two way street.