I now follow a number of literary agents who use twitter, thanks to a recently distributed list. It has turned out to be quite an education. Amongst the personal messages and posts about the day, are sprinkled some real gems of information for the searching author.

Interesting tips, valuable insights, even the odd rant, help to build a slightly more colourful picture of an agent’s day to day life than one might discover in a reference book or a formal website. I have found it interesting and educational.

One would-be author (Chuck Weinblatt), decided the apparent accessibility of contacts via twitter could short-cut his path to having his book published. You can see a small sample of the many identical messages he sent to agents and publishers.

It’s not hard to research

Approaches to an agent or publisher must be handled with professionalism and, most of all, respect. Researching agents in particular is critical to ensure you are not offering them a type of book they simply do not handle.

It’s not difficult to do some basic research. The book 2009 Guide to Literary Agents provides ample information to select a number of agent or pubisher targets, propare and format an approach, and handle the process with dignity and professionalism.

On the other hand, there’s always the option of alienating an entire list of agents and publishers through ignorance of social media.

[The typewriter] bears an anti-apartheid sticker on one side of the object and is boldly signed across the front casing by Adams in his unmistakeable hand. It comes housed in its cardboard box which Adams used to transport it, namely packaging from Simon and Schuster, originally containing copies of Adams and Terry Jones’ collaboration ‘Starship Titanic’. An address label to Adams’ office at the Digital Village, London, remains stuck on the box too. —- A posting from neildixon.com

The most interesting part of the description is this:

The keys of his typewriter all still bear the marks of Adams’ tortured labour. Significantly, the ‘x’ key is particularly discoloured.

The only thought I have is that he skipped past words or passages to return to them later. I have heard a number of writers who on coming across a potential block, simply enter a long string of X’s to visibly mark the place to which they need to return. It helps to avoid stalling the workflow altogether on just a minor point, coming back to it once there has been time to give it more thought.

I’m not the collector type, but this would be a remarkable item to own. Now all I need is to find just under $27k – keep using my GoDaddy codes, people!

Tags: cool, History, memorabilia

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