Youthful indiscretions in the fiction section of your life

I am grateful for both of your blogs. I check both of them every day.***

On my query letter, should I note that I self-published a bad novel seven years ago that didn't sell because, basically...........

Iwas25anddidn'tknowanythingaboutanythingandjustwantedtosayiwroteabookandnowimreadytotakethisseriouslybutimsuperembarrasedaboutthatbook........

and if so how should I mention it? Or, should I avoid it on the query and address it honestly if an agent brings it up - assuming, hopefully, that discussions get that far?

You don't have to mention this in the query letter.
DO however, make sure that all evidence of your youthful fling are removed from your website, and from Amazon.

Do NOT reference this work you're querying for as a debut. You can be silent on that point until an agent asks for more info. Then you have to reveal the first book.

The first book is NOT a deal breaker at all. As long as you don't want me to try to sell it, we're good.

And truthfully, it's actually a plus for me. Now that you know how hard it is to sell and promote, hopefully you've been in training for the marathon of publishing for lo, these seven years.

Wait, what, you say? Training??

Yes, training.  If you want to write and be published, even though you're still at the early stages,  you should be training for publication.

By training I mean things like building contacts among other writers. Those writers will become your first readers and early champions.  The community that has grown up around this blog's comment section is the perfect example of that.

By training I mean you avail yourself of information on industry blogs so you learn terminology. You read more than the deals section of Publishers Marketplace. You ask your librarian for the copies of Publishers Weekly they keep behind the desk.

By training I mean you read widely in your category.

By training I mean you support your local bookstores. When you are published, they will be your bosom buddies.

You can do all this without a finished novel, without an agent, without a contract.  Then when you have those, you're tuned up and ready to go.

***While this blog updates most every day, QueryShark is much more irregular. 

If you follow QueryShark on Twitter, you'll see when that blog has new content.

Blogging about books

A recent question on the blog came from a writer who has found a degree of success in reviewing books online, only to find himself in a bit of a pickle when a book submitted for review turned out to have some pretty serious problems.


The ensuing comments had  interesting insights but also some questions about the etiquette of book reviewing, now that it's more of a Pro-Am sport than it was 20 years ago.

Since I tout the advantages of talking about books on your blog as a way of finding readers, I thought I'd weigh in on some guidelines for doing so:

1. You are under no obligation to mention or review any book. This includes books sent to you with the "received from the author with the promise of an honest review."  In fact, if an author asks you to agree to that: don't.  If an author wants to send you a book for a possible review that's all there is to it.

I know some authors at small presses, and self-published authors too, have very few review copies available.  They use this kind of promissory note to try to weed out people looking for free books. That's not your problem. It's theirs.


2. You are never required to send a book back to an author, publisher, or publicist. Not even if they include postage.

3. You get to decide whether to review the book, and you get to determine what standards you use.

4. An author who follows up on a review with anything but "thank you for your time and consideration" or "these are a list of factual errors in the review" is stepping outside the bounds of the social agreement on reviewing and should be blocked on social media, and not engaged in any kind of private email conversation.


5. You should send a link, or copy, of the published review to the person who asked for the review.

6. You are under no obligation to respond to anyone's criticism about your review, unless you make a factual error.  Errors of fact should be corrected and noted.

7. A fair review does NOT include a critique of the author's demeanor, behaviour, lifestyle, social media presence, etc.  A fair review is about the book, and can include mention of other books by the author.

8. One star "reviews" for ebook pricing, cover art, setting, or anything else that's not about the book is a cheap shot, and to be avoided.  Even if the cover art is supremely terrible. Melt your eyeballs, miss the point of the book terrible.

9. If you like to review and want to hear from authors, publicists and publishers, it's VERY helpful if you have a tab on your blog with your review policies (what you review, how often, where you post etc) and your contact information (NOT your physical address, your email.)

10 Tips for Encountering Agents in Social Situations

Gotta tell ya, I'm a tad nervous heading out for my first away game this year. (ThrillerFest, Bouchercon and LeftCoast Crime don't really count)

Why would I be nervous you ask?

Well, let's cue up the replay tape on yesterday's blog comment trail:

Ugh, I sometimes have nightmares about my first agent encounter at a conference. I ran into an agent whose blog I REALLY admire (not, thank all the gods, the illustrious QOTKU) at the cocktail party and managed to put my foot so far down my throat I was farting toes for days. (That's gross, isn't it? It is. And it doesn't even begin to cover my embarrassment.)

Said agent was chatting with some folks and when I introduced myself and expressed my admiration for the agent's blog and clients, it became mortifyingly clear that the agent was not super pleased with said client at that moment and DID NOT WANT TO TALK TO ME. AT. ALL.

So there I stood in awkward silence for a full minute before backing away and finding the bottom of a glass (or two) of wine with my writer buds.

I definitely could have handled that more smoothly. Next time! 

When I read that, my first reaction was Bad Bad Agent Girl! Several blog readers said pretty much the same thing.

But, do you know how easy it is to be that Bad Agent? VERY.

What could be fatigue comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.
What could be preoccupation with something else comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.
What could be mortification from an earlier conversation in which the agent put HER foot in her mouth (yadda yadda) comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.

What could be a sudden urgent need to use the ladies loo comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.

In other words, you shy woodland creatures assume that anything less than enthusiasm is somehow not wanting to talk to you.

That's a pretty stiff social burden to bear dear readers.

So, let's go over some ways you can interact with agents away from their Lair to keep your foot out of your fangs:

1. Do not initiate conversation about your book, your project, your query.

2. Do not mention you've queried the agent and been rejected, not even if you think you're being nice about it, or you learned from it.

3. Don't ask if they're having a good time. Generally speaking, conferences are work for us. Would you ask someone if they are having a good time when they're at work?

4. Don't ask if they're finding anything good. That can be a very loaded question. I've been to conferences where every single project I saw was unpublishable.


So, that's what NOT to do. Here's what you can do:

5. Mention the books by her client. The more specific you can be the better. Despite the example above, this is really the most direct avenue to an agent's heart.  Sure you can trip up here, in that the agent may no longer rep that client, but you have to take some risks. This is a reasonable risk to take.

6. Mention the agent's blog or twitter feed and that you've learned something from it. Again, be specific here if you can.

7. Ask what they're reading for fun. Most agents have a book in their bag. Hopefully they'll like it and you can talk books.


Once you've served up a conversational gambit, it's incumbent upon the agent to keep it going. It's rude for anyone in a conversation to simply say "yes" or "no" and leave you hanging like a flummoxed interviewer on Good Morning Carkoon. It's also rude to make you feel like you're a plate of chopped liver (as the agent in the example quoted did.)

If you find yourself with an agent who is sending off the "I don't want to be here" vibe remember it's NOT YOU. How could it be? All you've done is be pleasant!

Here's what to do, rather than stand there and feel awful or that somehow this is your fault:

8. Say "it was lovely to meet you. Thank you for coming to the conference. Will you excuse me? I need to attend to my friend over there" and wave in the general direction behind the agent (contrary to popular opinion agents do not have eyes in the back of their head). Then you step away.

 9. If you're feeling particularly kind, ask "is there anything I can do for you right now that would help you out?" If the agent  needs to go to the loo, or can't figure out where she left her glasses, sometimes an offer of help is just the thing.  You're under NO obligation to offer help. You're not some sort of handmaiden in the Temple of Agents.

10. If you're feeling particularly evil, and at this point, who wouldn't, you can say "Janet Reid's July 22 blog post told me not to take hostile attitudes from agents personally and man am I glad I read that.  Have a great day!"


I can assure you that at least once in this coming weekend an author will come up to me in a social situation and do either 1 or 2 or BOTH.  Since I have yet to figure out a way to handle that gracefully, and I know that authors remember Every Single Thing an agent says to them, now you can see why I'm just a tad nervous about Writers in the Wild myself.

Query Question: I can't use social media, am I doomed?

Last summer, you covered a question about whether or not someone should bother writing when they have terrible social anxiety. When you closed out your answer, you added, "And if her writing requires her to have a public presence, well, we'll solve that problem when we get there." That's where my question comes in.

What suggestions would you have for someone who does not want (feel free to add capitals and emphatic full stops between words there) to use Twitter and Facebook and those kinds of tools? My reasons are personal -- a sociopath who worked a long, twelve year con on me and my family, something along the lines of a Janna St James situation -- and have soured me on dealing with the internet, even if it means having to work harder other ways. I was a private person before, but now, it's taking a big leap just to ask this question. Thanks to words like "friending", people tend to see even people they've never met on the other end of Facebook and Twitter discussions as friends. Details shared even in comments here make people feel like they're friends. It's oddly public and intimate at the same time and something, after what I went through, I can't open myself up to again.

How would you help someone work around an internet presence to still be a worthwhile business relationship for you?

Your question comes at an interesting time. I'm having ongoing discussions with my publicist and with my clients about the utility of social media.

More and more I'm thinking that the old-fashioned tools, the ones we thought we wouldn't use again, are more effective.

And by old-fashioned tools I mean shoe leather.  Visiting bookstores in person, writing a newsletter for fans, going to bookstore events to support other writers.

I think many of us were willing to discard those tools because then (as now) we weren't ever sure how effective they were.  In fact, there's almost no reliable method to predict the effectiveness of publicity efforts (one of the things that drove me out of the field.)

Being unwilling or unable to do social media isn't a deal breaker, but you're going to have to be willing to do SOMETHING. If I love your book, I'll be willing to help you figure out what that something is.

Thus, the first step here is to write a really great book. I have to love it with the passion of a thousand suns cause there's going to be some heavy lifting here.

Query Question: A PitMad request with an open query

I have received a PitMad favorite, but I've already queried this agent. Do I, should I mention the previous query. My previous query was in late January, so the agent may not have reached it yet.

Yes. Just a quick note at the bottom of the query with the pages you're sending for #PitMad will suffice.  "I also queried you for this project on 1/29/15"

Congrats on the favorite!

And now, how's the #PitMad going? Do you like it? Does it seem to work better than queries? The attraction of this eludes me but it's probably cause I'm a fuddy duddy set in my ways.



 

Publishing question: showing your face

I'm a female writer in my thirties. My agent has just contacted me with a fantastic offer for my first two novels. I should be ecstatic, but there's an aspect of the book business these days that I perhaps willfully didn't think about until now, and I'm afraid it could foul the deal. 

The proposed contract calls for a heavy schedule of interviews, book signings, and so on. I've only communicated with my agent by email and phone, and I keep a very low profile online, so neither she nor the publisher know that several years ago I was severely disfigured in an accident. I only feel comfortable revealing my face to a few close friends, family members, and doctors, and never leave my house without either a wide-brimmed hat and opaque black veil (which I prefer), or dark glasses, a surgical mask, and a wig (as I no longer have hair).

I'm perfectly willing to be photographed, do signings, etc. with my face covered. I'm equally willing to let a model/actress/intern of the publisher's choice stand in for me. How likely is it that the publisher won't accept either of these solutions? If I disclose this before signing the contract, might they withdraw their offer and go with a more photogenic writer? If I disclose it after signing, can they sue me or attempt to force me to reveal my face? Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

First let me say that the publisher and your agent love your writing and thus they are going to love your face.

However. I can appreciate that you are reluctant to have a public presence right now. It will take another couple years to understand that people who are cruel to you based solely on your appearance are idiots and fuck em.

The trick here is to talk to your agent NOW. Share your concerns.  You will be instantly reassured because much publicity and marketing is done electronically these days, and you can choose whatever photo you wish to represent yourself.

In fact, there's a well-known agent who fancies herself a bit of a shark:

and uses that avatar for everything.

Perhaps you can be equally fierce

I myself have begged fashionistas to re-embrace theburka; perhaps you will join my quest?

All levity aside: a publisher has no desire to cancel a contract for failure to show your face. Publishers are money-grubbing whores [as we all are] and cancelling a contract Does Not Make Money.  Novels rarely require actual in-person promotion.  Debut novels require the least. You'll be much more effective promoting yourself right now from behind your computer screen. 

Don't be afraid. You're going to do just fine.

Question: Agent "failed to reply to my question on twitter"

Is it considered a faux pas to tweet a prospective agent to ask a question? In my case, an agent I follow has my first three chapters, but I've revised based on agent feedback. I sent a tweet to ask if she would like the revised chapters, or if she likes to make up her own mind about what needs revising. I've had no response. Now I'm wondering if I crossed a line. But if I didn't, and she is that dismissive, I'm wondering if this is an agent I want to work with.

That odd snapping sound you hear is my jaw closing in on your derriere.
DO NOT EVER DO THIS.

And by "This" I mean conduct business conversations on Twitter.

Don't ask about your personal queries on Twitter. Don't ask if she's read the manuscript. Don't ask if she's taking queries. Don't ask if she's behind on her reading.

Twitter is a PUBLIC forum. You have no control over how your tweets are perceived.  I cringe every time someone says on Twitter "hey, I sent you an email did you get it" because I think it makes me sound like I'm a slacker about answering my email.  While it's true I AM, do you really have to tell everyone?

The other thing to realize is she may never have seen the tweet, or she may not associate your twitter handle with your name or your email.  You can't make ANY assumptions about her being "dismissive" based on not replying.

If you've made revisions to your partial or full there is ONE and only one way to ask an agent if she wants the revised version: email her. And use the same email address that you used to query her with. Many of us sort by email address, NOT NAME.

The short answer to your question "Is it considered a faux pas to tweet a prospective agent to ask a question" is YES it is. Don't do it.

Question: book promotion on twitter

Is it my imagination, or is there a point where tweeting about your book tips over from promotion to spam?

It is not your imagination.
The trick is to not tweet about your books more than once  every ten tweets.
(and yes, a score sheet helps)

The other trick is to let OTHER people talk about your book.

And when other people talk about your book, you don't retweet it. You REPLY to the person who tweeted, thanking them.  And if you're super clever, you put a dot in front of their Twitter name:

.@janet_reid

so that your reply to them is seen by all your followers. Subtle promotion is a better strategy for the long haul. And Twitter is long haul promotion.

Those other nine tweets:  that's when YOU talk about other people's books.

Some other Twitter promotion nuances:


(1) Don't sync your Facebook and Twitter feeds. Twitter and Facebook are different audiences, different strategies.

If you want to post a link to your Facebook page on Twitter you write: There's news about the Runner audio edition on my Facebook page (link)

What doesn't work "I reviewed a book: (link)"

(2) Don't treat us to a running commentary on number of followers. Don't run contests to build the number of followers.  Don't talk about this stuff at ALL. No one following you cares how many other people are. They ONLY care that you say something of interest to them.  This is the single biggest mistake people make on Twitter.

(3) Be super super careful what you live tweet. The reason for that is live tweeting by definition is  a LOT of tweets and if you fill up my tweet stream with stuff I'm repeatedly not intersted in, I'll unfollow you (and other people will too)

(4) Cat pictures and local weather pictures are the things that get people's attention for the first time.  Use that info to your advantage.

Promo Tip: "How's Your Book Selling?"

I understand these writers' annoyance at this question. To them it feels like someone is asking a more personal question than one should.

I STRONGLY urge you to look at this from a different perspective, particularly if you are self-publishing and thus your very own sales department.

There is only ONE correct answer to that question:

"Just great, thank you for asking!"

Why?

Because people are your buyers. Even people who ask these kinds of questions.  And people respond to positive encouragement.  If your book is doing well, clearly the implication is the person should buy and read it.

But more than that, it gets you in the habit of being positive about sales.


As the face of your book in the world, you want to get right to the heart of the matter too:  everyone should buy and read your book, so of course it's selling nicely, and here's a bookmark with how to order.

Someone asking about your book is an opportunity, not an intrusive personal question.


Talking about your book is business NOT personal.

Question: What the hell am I supposed to blog about?

I have read that in this day in age, it is best for aspiring authors to try to get their names out there.  One method being to maintain a blog.  I was wondering what would be appropriate for an author's blog.

A non-fiction writer could obviously maintain a blog about the subject their books cover, pulling an audience of those interested in that subject.  As an unpublished novelist, I have thought of writing a blog, but my writings do not focus on any one subject.  I do not want to blog about nothing; writing about what I do in a day is of no interest to anyone.

I have considered posting short stories, but I honestly do not do short.  I also considered posting the chapters of one of my works, but wasn't sure if that would be appropriate or helpful.  I know you can not give me a single focused suggestion, but could you give me direction or possibly direct me to what other authors have done successfully?

A blog used to be the only way you could have interactive contact with other people in close to real time (aside from chat rooms, and those were largely run under noms de plume, thus useless for your purposes.)  Now it's just one of many ways to build your profile (aka "get your name out there".)

I will tell you from first hand experience that blogging regularly is a whole lot harder than it looks.  It's not just writing blog posts and putting them out there.  For starters: you revise blog posts just like you do writing. Trust me, I find mistakes when these things sit here for 24 hours, and a few more are found by other people a little more often than I'm comfy with.

And then there's moderating comments, and responding to comments. And deleting the spam comments (cause there's nothing worse than a blog that's filled with spam comments)

I'm going to suggest that a better way for you to get your name out there is to be active on Facebook.  Find the people you like, and make friends.  "Like" their pictures and posts.  Focus on the not-too-famous writers; the ones most likely to be doing their own Facebook management.

Do the same on Twitter. Talk to people. Talk about books you like.  Respond when people suggest links.

Post pictures of your cat. Or dog. Or python. (No, not THAT python---the Colt python) ...need a visual?

In other words, post pictures of things you're researching (Gary Corby has some good stories about that.)


When someone posts a review for their book, read it and congratulate them.

There are lots of ways to make friends now and that's what getting your name out there is really all about.

But if you want some examples of successful author blogs:

Tawna Fenske is probably one of the best I've ever seen.

Kari Dell's blog is also a must-read for me.

$0

I've given money to a number of crowd-sourced funding projects, many run by people I don't know, or know only tangentially.

Recently I got the worst announcement for a fundraising campaign I've ever seen:

please forgive the spam and be warned that if i have you in more than one of my email accounts, you'll get this more than once

i've launched an indiegogo campaign to raise money to cover my expenses while i transform the script into a book (sic)

If you want to raise money for anything, you need to actually believe in the value of what you're pitching. Calling it spam tells me you don't.

And then actually spamming me (by not vetting your mailing list for duplicates or even for appropriate audience) says you don't value me or my time either.

Ineffective.
Blocked as spam.
Blog post fodder.

Bingo, bango, gone-o

@aboy!

I'm a devoted fan of twitter and the world it offers to us.  Here's a wonderful blog post by, of all people, a medieval scholar, about how he started having fun and being productive on Twitter.

The only thing to say is @aboy!

(thanks for the heads up on this Mrs. Grant!)

How to find yourself blocked from my twitter feed

It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that I am surly, curmudgeonly, and quick to bite any fingers trying to pet me through my cage door.

Twitter is an amazing tool for social networking and used properly you can find yourself with a cordial relationship even with the surliest in the twitterverse.

Used properly as *I* define it of course.  These are not hard and fast rules for what not to do on Twitter (yes they are) but they are the things that get you blocked by me:


1. Block your own twitter feed. I go through my list of followers every so often, usually late at night when I'm most surly, and I block everyone who has a padlock next to their name.  I won't ask permission to follow you; you don't need mine to follow me.  If you block your twitter feed I see no reason you should get to come to my party in the invisibility cloak.


2.  Ask me housekeeping questions about queries or submissions.  Twitter is a public forum.  I'm not going to tell you to take a fucking hike in public.  I'm just going to remove you from my line of sight.

3. Ask me to read your book, your query or go to your website or follow you.  It's an even easier decision when your ENTIRE twitter feed is asking people to read your work or follow you. Again: Twitter is a public forum.  I'm not going to tell you to take a fucking hike in public.  I'm just going to remove you from my line of sight.

4. Your twitter feed appears to be you retweeting everything I say. And ONLY that. Write your own damn tweets.


5. Including @janet_reid in tweets that have nothing to do with me. I see all those. If you're using that strategy to include me in a conversation, it doesn't work.


If you want my attention on twitter, you're MUCH more likely to get it organically. Follow my clients, and engage them in conversation such that I see who they are talking to.

There are at least two writers I first fixed my beady eye on solely because @byseanferrell and @jeffreysomers talked to them and liked them.  

Twitter is the long game. Play wisely.

what she said

yea, this.

I'll expand the advice to include this:

Keep your query process off your blog.
Keep it off twitter.
Keep it off Facebook.

Talk about what you love to read.
Talk about how much you adore Game of Thrones.
Talk about the weather.

Do not talk about your query travails in public.

No one cares, and it could will come back to bite you in the tail.

Effective use of Twitter

You just gotta learn to use the tools of social networking.
There isn't any other option.
Saying "it's stupid; it's boring; I don't understand it" is like saying you don't want
to give up your horse in 1918.  You may not want to, but the world is moving ahead without you, and you're going to be left behind.

Here are 10 Tips on Using Twitter Effectively. 

Read them, know them.

Twitter works for book promotions.  Don't get left behind.

do not thwart the Mer-Bear

Mer-Bear,
of The Lair,
wants to know
if you're 'ere!

Here is a good example of you do talk about the query process

There have been some examples of what NOT to do here on the blog recently.


Here's one that works well.

It works for a couple reasons:

1. it's funny

2.  the tone is bright

3. there's not a single word of complaint in it

4. it's got some good solid tips for writers in the query process

5.  It's funny.

And one of the things I like is that it shows you do get to break all the rules sometimes, and the query police not only don't show up at your house, if you write well enough you get an hour in the bar with the ever delightful Agent Lady (yes Diana, I intend to call you that now forever!)

what were you thinking?

So, you join twitter, and you're all aflutter with How.Many.People you can talk with! Or if you can't talk with them, you can talk to them, or about them.  It's all the same right? With/to/about? Heck, just tweet something to @SharkForBrains, and you'll have the attention of the shark herself.

Wheeeeee! Good times!

So what do you do?

You write a blog post about your rejections.

"I'm working hard, but oh man, I got rejections, and I can't figure out what they mean"

Then you tweet a link to the post to the agent who rejected you.

@SharkForBrains Hey, I mention you in my blogpost here:  www.don'tdothisI'mnotkidding.com

Then you write a blog post about the fact you're waiting for a reply from an agent.

"I'm still waiting, it's so hard to wait, I know she's busy, I'm just so excited; it's hard to wait"

And tweet that to the agent you're waiting to hear from.

@SharkForBrain, Hey, I mention you in my blogpost here: www.NoIreallywasn'tkiddingwhenIsaiddon'ttdothis.com

And just to make sure EVERYONE in the entire world sees it, you tweet it to a couple other people as well.

@SharkForBrainsDeputy @SharkForBrainsTrainsandAutomobiles @RemorasAreUs  Hey, I posted some stuff mentioning you here at www.thirdtimeisnotacharmandI'mstillnotkiddingdon'tdothis.com

what the heck are you thinking here?

I'm very perplexed.

This is wrong on every single level.

If you're a writer at the query stage:

1. Keep your query process OFF YOUR BLOG.

2.  Don't call attention to your rejections.

3. Don't post something on your blog about waiting for  an answer  particularly if the wait time is well within the posted guidelines.

Of course we see the tweets.
Of course we click on our names. (once)
Of course we read that blog post. (once)

It doesn't do you a damn bit of good of course, because all we see is someone who seems to be complaining.  At length. And then, if you ever tweet to us again, there's no incentive to click. Your blog post wasn't funny; it wasn't charming; it didn't entice me to come back again, or to to subscribe in my google reader. 

You may not think it's complaining; you might think you're "just talking about the process."  Please trust me on this: it looks like complaining from where I sit.  And honest to godiva, I'm not parsing out each sentence in your post. I'm looking at the first three, skimming the rest, and thinking "egad."  Essentially, I'm getting a quick first impression. And that quick first impression is not good.

Why are you doing this?

There is a place for writerly angst. It's NOT ever a public place.  Disagree with me if you care to about whether that's fair, but this blog post isn't about fair.  It's about how to not shoot yourself in the foot.


Save your ammo for the 1-star reviewers on Amazon. 

Another reason you want to be on Twitter

It's where people hear about your book.

If you don't believe me, here's the latest piece of evidence:

It's funny how we decide to pick up books sometimes. I was introduced to David Eddings by some fanboy-types I knew while going to college. I think I'm grateful I wasn't running with the Oprah-crowd back then. I don't think I could handle the angst. 

Anyway. The Breach by Patrick Lee is a book I wouldn't have even known about if it weren't for John DeNardo over at SF Signal and I might still have passed it up if it wasn't for the occasional tweet to remind people that it might be worth checking out. 

So I picked it up over the holidays and I probably read it faster than anything else I picked up in the last year. 

Read the rest of the blog post here.


If you are an author and you want to reach your audience, there's no substitute for an effective twitter presence.

Is one of your new year resolutions to be more connected?

Media Bistro has a list of reasons people won't follow you back on twitter.
 I think it's a pretty good list.

The only thing I would add is that if you protect your tweets (ie you require someone to ask if they can follow you) you won't get followed a lot.

I never request permission to follow someone, and I block people who do from following me. The whole point of twitter is to expand your network, and protecting your updates doesn't do that.




(yes, this post was up at QueryShark this morning. For some reason, I didn't click the correct blog. Argh! Morning!)