Tag Archives: twitter

The madness of #PitMad, or how to be rejected many many times in a few hours


There’s this Twitter thing. For twelve hours, four times a year, people madly pitch their books at agents. Agents look on and “favourite” pitches they like. Authors can tweet two times an hour and can retweet their fellow author’s pitches.

I have a young adult book almost ready to go, so I thought, why not try this? Why not try to pitch a book to an agent in 140 characters or less?

So I wrote up my pitches and timed them to run, but then got busy and forgot the essential bit, retweeting other’s pitches. In the spirit of fellow support, those retweeted retweeted back, which meant more appearances of your pitch in the stream.

And I’m not sure how many agents made an appearance. One posted at the end of the day that they were still looking for submissions, so that alone was worth the effort. I’ll be looking into them.

I didn’t retweet too much – had other things going on in my day – but I’ll know for next time. It’s too depressing to look at the end of the day and see you have no likes, no retweets, no indication you ever rippled the ether. 

Sigh. Live and learn. If nothing else, it gave me a chance to try and describe my book in an elevator pitch.  Need more practice at that, too…..

Dangerously irresistible


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Where are the heroes? Where are those wonderful people in the world? And on a more petty note, where is my individual hero, the fellah who will rescue me from myself, carry me off, love me? But I digress…

Apparently there are quite a few heroes in Boston. I saw the videos. 1. Explosion and screaming 2. Immediate images of people running towards the explosion to help. TOWARDS the explosion. Amazing. Heartening.

Especially in a week when we’ve heard so much about rape and bullying and terrorizing and ridiculous political leaders waffling all over the place and general despair here and nastiness worldwide.

It’s all pretty discouraging. It’s especially discouraging on Facebook, where people of small minds use every tiny comment to throw abuse at someone, particularly a certain president, or some hapless high school,student, while offering nothing but bleats of sheep rather than ideas for alternatives.

I met another hero this week, in a small way. He rear-ended my car. And instead of shouting or being rude or whatever, he reacted like a human being. He was pleasant, even though his car was crumpled.

I’ve got nothing to offer about the world situation, except maybe some profound wishes and prayers that it resolve. And hope that people stop killing each other, whether by gun or bomb or starvation. And my VOTE, of course.

But I can’t help but think the go-to response of the Boston rescuers, the ability of my crash partner to see past himself and be kind and polite, the little niceties of life – well, that sort of thing seems like a good way to face the world. It might even spread and make the whole world better.

Positive, cheerful, kind. Now I find that combo “dangerously irresistible”.

If an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, then maybe a smile for a smile would make the whole world kind. Yah, it’s Pollyanna-ish, but I’m clinging to straws here. How about you?

C’mon! Show me that dangerously irresistible smile.

Self-Love, or geez, some writers need to get a sense of perspective!


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http://www.hiller.org/flying-platform.shtml

Okay, writers out there – here’s the thing. I KNOW we’ve all been told we have to develop our “platforms” and get known and be followed and all that such stuff, but we need to stop the self-adoration long enough to realize a few hard truths.

1. If you are self-published, make good and sure someone else has edited your writing for you at least a couple of times before you start flashing it about. It’s like smiling with spinach in your teeth to wave an unfinished book in people’s faces.

2. Be perhaps a bit certain that your story has merit. Have you read lots of books in your genre? Are you writing good stuff or are you trying to catch the latest curve – zombies, erotica, whatever? Unless you are insanely lucky, this will not make you rich or respected. I say “perhaps a bit” because a lot of tripe gets sold in huge numbers and while that makes me gnaw my fingers to my elbows, I can’t be responsible for the taste of the audience. So the best of luck to you if you can write sloppy derivative garbage and sell it.

3. Cross postings are boring. And annoying. I have one dear friend or two who posts their announcements in a variety of places, OFTEN MORE THAN ONCE. A lot of these places have the same members, so we poor facebookers get an onslaught of postings all about the same thing and see nothing else for days. This makes me want to go to your home, pick up your computer, and smash it on the ground with extreme prejudice. Spread announcements out if groups overlap. Keep track of them so you aren’t posting the same thing everyday. And don’t be so damn unrelenting about yourself. You may be interesting but no one is that interesting. Don’t post every damn blog posting in every Facebook group. If people like your writing, they’ll follow your blog.

4. Develop a sense of humour about yourself. Giles Blunt, a man who writes grimly dark and wonderful mysteries, and who is a success at it, has a hilarious self-description on his blog. I’ve always loved his writing, but now that I’ve read his blog, I want to meet him. Which means, since imprisonment for stalking isn’t my favourite thing, I will have to buy more of his books. (Many thanks to Judy Penz Sheluk for steering me to this blog, and hers.)

See, here’s the thing. We readers WANT to like new writers. I WANT to get to know new people, ideas, approaches. I read probably seven to ten books a month, easy, and I’m one of those good customers out there. So you don’t need to beat me over the head with stuff.

Write well. Post rarely. Have something to say. Whisper funny stuff in my ear and I’ll follow you anywhere.

Sending all of you wonderful writers out there much love for Valentine’s Day.

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What is your Blogger Personality Profile?


What is your Blogger Personality Profile?.

Interesting post, though I’m not sure of its accuracy.

By the way, my results were:  Do you agree?