By Dawn Frederick
My two cents: Twitter and the query process don’t belong together. Not in a sentence. Not as the primary way to query an agent. Ever.
The obvious reason is that most agents provide clear submission guidelines in print and online. It’s not something any agent takes lightly. Once an agent states his/her representative categories, please remember that this took lots of time and an already strong knowledge of those predetermined categories. Thus, one should assume the submission guidelines (also explicitly stated) were given the same attention.
I’ve yet to meet an agent who accepts submissions via Twitter. Twitter is a great tool in building and strengthening our publishing community, and more – but that’s it. In the larger sense, Twitter is a great outlet to reach out to others, 24hrs/day, 365 days/year. During the good times, as well as the bad.
I personally have several uses for Twitter:
- To talk about books
- To learn about new books
- To interact with writers in a more casual atmosphere
- To get new updates in the publishing community (and other news)
- To keep in touch with the many amazing folks in publishing
- To keep in touch with friends
- To occasionally take a break when working nonstop (and needing to step away from a task)
- To meet new people that share this same love of books & publishing
In short, queries need to follow submission guidelines, while Twitter is a great social tool for the publishing community.
