4 Reasons to Follow Agent Twitter
When I was querying, I found following agents on Twitter to be enormously helpful.
And when I say follow, I mean follow, not obsessively interact with. Liking everything an agent posts, or commenting on all of their posts pitching your novel, is not going to help. In fact, it could hurt if you cross the line into unprofessional behavior and make the agent feel uncomfortable.
That said, agents post useful professional information on twitter all the time. For example:
New #MSWL requests. While you can find this information by searching the hashtag, I found it helpful to have these requests pop up in my feed.
Information on when they’re closing to queries, or when they’re reopening. This was extremely useful to me, especially when agents tweeted that they were closing to queries soon. I was able to make sure that I rearranged the order of my batches to accommodate that agent’s closing date.
Information on agent preferences. When I saw agents tweeting about books they’ve enjoyed (or hated), I was able to get a sense of whether the comps in my query letter would resonate with them, or whether I should use a different set.
Giveaways and other opportunities. I frequently see agents and editors posting critique giveaways, raffling off opportunities to zoom to support a good cause, or advertising panels or events they’re taking part in. Not only can events be interesting, but you may also stumble upon panels which give you an opportunity to pitch agents, or ask them questions during Q&A.
So if you use Twitter, go ahead and make a list of all the agents you’re querying, and start following their accounts!