After doing several thousand hours of internet research, it seems like the consensus is this: literary agents like when you have a central website. According to many of the blogs I’ve visited (well into the early morning hours), if something goes wrong with their email, or aliens land and beam up your contact info- they will need an easy way to find you. So, voila! A quick solution to both writer and agent is this: simply create your own blog space. The agent can now perform the all powerful ‘google search’ using your name, and click on the contact section of your blog or website.
*Please note, only include the contact information you want publicly viewed by the masses. If an agent can see your unlisted phone number, so can the creepy guy with the Power Rangers ‘figurines’ stashed in the closet. For serious. XO
Welcome on board, chica ! 😉
Hi and thanks chica! I’m really liking WordPress so far, but I’m sure I’ll need some help navagating 🙂
It’s pretty easy to use, believe me. I work with WP since 5 years now. 😉
I’m really liking it so far, I should have done this a long time ago! You’ve been holding out on me 🙂
Hello,
I have an e-mail address on my blog, and I check it routinely—only to find many attempted scams and presumptuous mail. If I want to find you, I’ll find you. I do not need your contact information. If I can find you, you can find me. It is kind of sad. Too many writers do any and everything that literary agents, literary books, and literary sites encourage. But as you warned in your own words, “What about the creepy guy with the Power Rangers ‘figurines’ stashed in the closet?”
Literary kill is the creepy guy. He preys on a writer’s desire to become a household name and then invents schemes to steal the writer’s dream.
Isn’t it better to live in reality? Dreaming is good, but we, writers, must know the difference. A publisher once told me he didn’t like writers but really despised poets. I asked why? He said writers are arrogant, but poets even more. I ask, whose problem is it anyway? Have literary agents and publishers escaped? Are they arrogant too? Do they watch the news? Whose responsibility is it to protect writers from vicious schemes?
It is my responsibility not to think more of myself than is necessary. I ride a small horsey with my feet dragging the ground. I write to me, for me, and from me. If I am unworthy of traditional publishing because I refuse to offer my vein to literary phlebotomists, what does that really have to do with me?
No disrespect intended, but if I want you, I’ll find you. That is, if I’m looking for gold.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the blog. It is true that many writers will take advice from literary agents, literary books and literary sites verbatim. However, it is up to the individual writer which path they would like to carve out for themselves. The beauty of being a writer, is finding out which method works best for you and casting all other opinions out that do not resonate with you.
If posting an email address does not work for you, then it doesn’t work for you. Trust your own instincts and do what does work for you. There are plenty of other ‘rules’ out there that don’t work for me, so I too, take what works for me and apply it to my publishing quest.
As far as the publisher who said he despised writers and poets, I just find that sad. That being said, everyone is entitled to have an opinion, whether we agree with them or not. Know that you are not arrogant and continue to have passion for what you write. Writers expose themselves to critics each time they share their words (even right here in a little blog), it’s just the nature of the beast, but the world is a better place having these brave souls in it. The more writers support one another, the easier it is to deal with the outside forces that try and drag us down.
Many writers may get a bad reputation because of their unwillingness to accept criticism. Editors and agents are just looking at manuscripts with ‘new eyes’ and can bring a new dimension to the story. Does this mean we should throw away parts of our novel that define our voice just for the sake of being published? Absolutely not. It’s all about compromise and doing what will make your work soar. Talk openly about your vision and then follow your gut instincts all the way to the finish line.
I know for myself, I do not care about becoming a ‘household’ name; I just want to make a living doing what I am passionate about. I love books. I love the way type looks scattered across the page and I can only hope that one day my own words will be strewn about my very own book. Some may like it, others may not, but I will be living the life I imagined and looking at my glass as half full…always.
Keep writing passionately and share what works best for you in the comment section.