Guide to Literary Agents

Anyone remember the book Caps for Sale?

One of my all-time favorites. I’m trying to remember back to when I was a kid, but I think I related to both the monkeys (I mean, how could you resist?) and to the peddler (SO frustrating!). And I do remember thinking…All those caps! On ONE head!

Well, this month, I’m mostly relating to the peddlar. Not with the frustration, but with all those caps! With high school starting, I’ve been wearing my mom cap a lot (although very subtly and sneakily, I assure you). I’ve been doing more critiquing for clients–so there’s an editor cap. Got the house tidy for my parents’ visit–that’s a housekeeping and daughter cap. Baking cap goes on later today to make my husband’s birthday cake. And I’m prepping for the Central Coast Writers Conference next week–look at that sparkly speaker hat.

I’m having fun with all of it, but I seem to have misplaced my blogger cap for a bit. *Checks behind computer–nope* So…I’m going to look around the blogs & share what some other cap-wearers are up to!

If you’re even thinking about writing historical fiction, or if you like reading it, don’t miss this post by Jeannine Atkins about Tracy Chevalier’s new book, Remarkable Creatures, a novel about Mary Anning. Jeannine is the author of the picture book Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon, and she does a lovely analysis of the different choices she and Chevalier made about how to deal with the unknowns of Anning’s life.
Here’s a fun guest post by Susan Henderson over at the Guide to Literary Agents blog on when (NOW!) you get to call yourself a writer:
Kate Messner guest posts at lesleysays about how to find time to write. Kate’s success in the last couple of years is proof that she does exactly what she’s talking about–she makes it happen.
I love the idea of a treadmill desk, and here’s Helene Boudreau’s post, with video, about how to make your own.
Emma Dryden posted some thoughts about verse novels on Facebook, inspired by questions from Susan Taylor Brown. I love this: “A verse novel is – and should be – first and foremost a novel, with a compelling storyline and plot, richly developed characters, and a distinctive narrative voice.” Oh, yeah.

Enjoy your week. And I’ll keep looking for the monkey who stole that blog cap.

Well, I’ve been tweeting for a few weeks now, and on Facebook longer than that, and I thought I’d take a few minutes and do a comparison here–at least from my perspective.

Overall, I’d say I like Facebook better. I am TOTALLY open to persuasion from Twitter-folk, (like this post from WriterMomof5) as to why I am wrong and what I’ve missed about Twitter.

Here are the pros and cons as I see them.

Twitter

Pros

Twitter seems to have more people. I could be wrong about this, but it seems really popular right now.
It’s very easy to “follow” people on Twitter–there is no approval issue, and they don’t have to follow you back. In fact, Chuck Sambuchino at Guide to Literary Agents has this post, talking about how agents may prefer Twitter for just that reason.
I seem to be running into more info/links about the publishing industry on Twitter than I do on Facebook. This may be coincidental, somehow connected to who I’m following, but maybe not.

Cons

I don’t really like the layout of Twitter. Everything shows up in one place, and I can’t easily see how one tweet follows another. I downloaded Tweetdeck, which makes it a bit better, but not completely user-friendly. Or maybe just not Becky-friendly.
It seems like people do more tweeting on Twitter than they do updates on Facebook. And it’s not easy for me to sort out the tweets with substance from those without. Now, I’m not complaining about the substance-less tweets; I do my own share of those and many I find fun. But I like to be able to do a quick scan and mental sort as I read.
People cheat. Okay, pet peeve here. But all the squawk (pardon my pun) is about the 140-character limit. As a writer, editor, and word-player I kind of like that challenge. I’m not so pleased with the people who just go ahead and spread their news over 3 or 4 tweets. Yes, I’m being petty. Or anal. Take your pick–just do it in less than 140 characters!

Facebook

Pros

This is completely emotional, not factual, but it feels cozier. This may be my group of “friends,” but maybe it’s a factor of it NOT being so easy to hook up with people. Of course, I’ve friended people that I don’t really know, and vice versa, but there’s always some reason–I can see from their other friends what genre they probably write in, or I know them through an offline friend…something like that.
All the replies to a status update (the equivalent of a tweet) are kept with the update. One of my in-town friends and I were just talking about this, that you can get a real mini conversation going and follow it easily, seeing everyone’s comments one after the other. It seems more fun this way.
Different posts and announcements look different. They’ve got little icons, etc, to differentiate–say–an update from an event. This helps with my skimming.

Cons

The quizzes. Facebook seems to have gone crazy with this lately. I went a little crazy with them myself, when they first showed up, and I have fun checking one out every now and then. (Did you know the female historical figure I’m the most like is Elizabeth I?!) There are just too many of them, though, and they can pretty much take over the page at any given time.
The gifts. It’s really sweet when someone sends me a virtual cupcake. This, too, can go quickly into overload, though, with people sending around pretend flowers or green things. Yes, I can turn mine “off,” but Facebook shows you all the things that all your friends are sending around. Again, this takes up a lot of page space.
This last one is just from the new Facebook. They’ve moved the birthday announcements to the bottom of the page. They used to be at the top. My guess is that they do this so you have to page down and look at the ads. (Don’t worry–I’ve tricked them. I DON’T LOOK!)

I’m wondering now, looking back at the post, if I’m whining. If you’re all thinking–then why is she out there? Well (she says with a bit of an embarrassed wince), it’s fun. Oh, yes, there’s the whole marketing thing and promotion whatchamacallit, but those are extra. I do love being connected with other writers & seeing what they’re up to (even if it IS just getting a third cup of coffee for the day).

It’s just that, you know, I want all the social networking sites to do it my way!

What about you? Are you on FB or Twitter? What’s your preference? Usually, I try and keep things mannerly here, but today is your chance to argue–convince me what I’m missing on Twitter. 🙂

Tag: Guide to Literary Agents

Around the Blogosphere: Who’s Got their Blogging Cap On?