Nathan's Blog Post on Agents and Social Media

[jkmcdonnell]

For me, an agent not having a blog/social media connection is almost a turn off. I like the feeling you get from reading agent's blogs before submitting to them, as though you know what you're in for and what their personality is like (especially Nathan's warm, friendly blog, or Kristin Nelson's courteous and informative style). Not to mention, all the fantastic information on everything from query mistakes to where publishing is going as an industry.

However, this is a fair point:

My New Year's resolution is to stop following 90% of the agents I follow on twitter. Today's tweets were mainly geared toward displeasure with getting back to work, picking apart people who resolved to 'get' an agent this year (we shouldn't assume that we'll get one; we should resolve to make a better effort) and sarcastically apologizing in advance for rejections while wishing everyone a happy new year.

If other professionals acted like this, they'd be sunk. If doctors, lawyers, and engineers tweeted about being less than thrilled about being back to work after the holiday (which everyone on earth is), they might as well turn in their licenses.

... which is why it's important for an agent to be sure they want to blog in the first place, and not see it as a requirement of modern publishing. You can see it in the agent's tone and subject choices when they really love what they do and who they work with - and helping beginners/struggling writers out.

[authorgirl1485]

I personally like agents in the social media. I actually use it to connect and talk with them. In fact, even if my work doesn't get accepted, they actually help me by giving valuable information. It's actually humanized the whole querying process for me. I'll actually follow a blog of an agent for awhile before I'll query them now. (And it works. Two queries=two fulls.)