Many writers who joined Twitter after Emma Lombard (in my case in 2019), have learnt a lot from her. Not just about how to Twitter as a writer, but also from her blog posts and the example she’s set in areas like developing your author platform as an unpublished author. But Emma is no longer unpublished. I’m excited to say that her debut novel, historical fiction Discerning Grace (book 1) is out now, and to be posting this interview with Emma about it.
What inspired you to write DISCERNING GRACE?
I’ve always been a little nosy—I know, I know … curiosity killed the cat! But back in 2001 during one of my regular letter-writing sessions to my grandmother in England, I decided I’d like to know a little more about our family history from the older generation. Once they’ve passed it’s so hard to find out what kinds of people they knew and the sorts of things they got up to.
So, my darling late grandmother, whom I was incredibly close to, indulgently began answering my questions and documenting memories of her own childhood and stories of ancestors. All it took was for me to read the opening to one of her letters and I just KNEW I had to write a story about it! This is what the letter said, ‘Your GGG grandmother was only 16 when she ran away from home to marry a sea captain … her family cut her off and she sailed the seas with him …’
Come on! What author couldn’t resist a little bit of real-life inspiration like that?
And so, that is how my purely fictional, historical naval adventure— with a dash of romance—blossomed. I’ve been thrilled by the journey of writing it and all the research too, but most of all, I’ve loved imagining the incredible courage and fortitude it would have taken my ancestor to choose such a life! Plus, there is my GGG grandfather’s side of the tale to consider too. As my grandmother put it, they were ‘obviously a very enlightened couple, and she a very, very liberated woman.’
What was the best piece of writing advice you received when starting out?
To give my main character, Grace Baxter, more agency instead of her being a victim of circumstance. I was pushed to get her to create and direct her own circumstances. This was a bit more of a challenge having a female lead character in the early 1800s because of societal restrictions on women in those days. But I also figured that there had to be pioneering women, even back then, who broke the mould. Since Grace is inspired by my three times great grandmother, who indeed bucked the norm in her day by leaving her well-to-do family in England to elope with an English sea captain and live with him at sea, I felt I had a little more leeway to play with when writing Grace’s character. And besides, what’s a rollicking romantic adventure without a feisty heroine!
What is your favourite historical era and why? Do you have a favourite historical female? Why?
I’m open when it comes to reading historical fiction through the different eras, from Jean M. Auel’s prehistoric The Clan of the Cave Bear, to Vikings and Romans, through to later centuries like in Wilbur Smith’s Courtney series. As for writing it, I’ve been so immersed in the 19th century since I’ve been writing my own books, that I have a soft spot for this era. There’s a great balance of knowledge and information out there since it wasn’t too long ago—say unlike the ancient Egyptian era. I have huge admiration for historical authors who write about ancient times. The research required for that is mammoth (snigger)!
While there are many well-known historical females, my research unearthed a whole world of unknown women whose stories have not had a spotlight shone on them. These have been my favourite historical females to find—mothers penning journals about parenthood, sisters writing letters to relatives from the other side of the world, wives aboard ships keeping diaries that recorded tiny details of daily life not captured in a ship’s log books. It took me ages to find some resources that spoke about women aboard ships who were not just there to entertain the sailors, but who played a pivotal role in sailing the ship, raising a family aboard, and supporting industrious endeavours. These are some of my favourites:
Seafaring Women by renowned historian, Linda Grant De Pauw
Female Tars by Suzanne J. Stark
Hen Frigates by maritime historian, Joan Durett
She Captains by maritime historian, Joan Durett
What message are you sharing in your books?
The themes in my first novel, DISCERNING GRACE (Book 1), include:
an independent woman
the importance of love over money
appearances can be deceiving
love can conquer all
triumph over adversity
Does each book stand alone, or are you building a body of work with connections or themes between each book?
I love reading a long series where you can immerse yourself into another world and get to know the characters intimately through several books, so it felt perfectly natural for me to write a series too. It has been a joy to evolve my characters from their young and naïve selves in the first book, and mature them through their life experiences in subsequent books. Discerning Grace (Book 1) is out now. The second book is nearly ready to publish, and I have complete draft manuscripts for books three and four.
A movie producer wants to turn your book into a movie and you get to make a cameo. What would you do in the movie?
Ooo, isn’t this every writer’s dream!
Due to the nature of my story aboard a 19th century Royal Naval tall ship, there aren’t that many female characters, though I could play no role on the ship since I get hideously sea sick!
I would have to stick with a role that is safe on land, so perhaps one of the dinner guests in my opening scene.
You have created images for your main characters, how does that help you write them?
I asked my beta readers to send me images of real-life people who they thought most looked like Seamus and Grace. Those images, along with the descriptions from my book, created the basis for the artwork I’ve commissioned (because I can barely draw a stick man!) They turned out exactly as I envisaged them in my mind’s eye!
It has been marvellous to have them drawn so young and fresh when we first meet them. For the subsequent books in the series, I can envisage the deepening of Seamus’s smile line beside his mouth, or the crow’s feet around Grace’s aquamarine eyes. I don’t necessarily speak to my characters, but I do sit and watch them interact and play out scenes in my head (it must look like I’m staring into space, and not working, when I do this!) I only need to look at their body language in their artwork for an inspirational reminder about how they react physically and verbally to different situations.
Since I own this artwork, I’ve actually created my own Redbubble store called, By-the-Book (yes, like the name of my newsletter), where my readers can grab their own favourite keepsakes.
What do you do for fun? What does a perfect day look like?
In everyday life, I’m Mum to four teenage sons—my men children, all of whom are taller than me—and two cantankerous cats who often thrash it out for a spot on my lap! I live in the perpetually sunny city of Brisbane in Australia. I love building jigsaw puzzles (especially Wasgij, backwards puzzles), playing Candy Crush (my secret shame!), and playing board games with my boys—though gone are the days when used to I beat them, they whip me soundly now. And I totally suck at Risk! Having raised four rambunctious boys, my perfect day these days constitutes solitude and silence. It doesn’t matter where, as long as those two ingredients are present.
AUTHOR BIO
Emma Lombard was born in Pontefract in the UK. She grew up in Africa—calling Zimbabwe and South Africa home for a few years—before finally settling in Brisbane Australia, and raising four boys. Before she started writing historical fiction, she was a freelance editor in the corporate world, which was definitely not half as exciting as writing rollicking romantic adventures. Her characters are fearless seafarers, even though in real life Emma gets disastrously sea sick. Discerning Grace, is the first book in The White Sails Series.
What lies beyond querying, should we be fortunate enough to have a literary agent offer us representation? In this #Pitmad success story, Halla Williams describes how she came to write the March 2020 #Pitmad pitch which led to signing with her literary agent, and what signing and the early stages of working with her agent have been like, over the course of a year like few others (2020).
What was pitching your Epic Fantasy like?
My first experience of pitching felt like jumping in at the deep end without learning to swim first. After I’d got the manuscript as polished as I could, even getting a developmental edit to check the very complex multi-POV plot worked, I went to a writers’ day run by the SFF publisher at Gollancz. I paid £65 to go but it was worth it. Gollancz authors like Joanne Harris and Ben Aaronovitch and some agents and editors were doing panels and then they moved around the audience tables, heard what you were doing and gave you feedback. It was so useful. Jo Abercrombie loved the written pitch he kindly agreed to read. One of the Gollancz editors hated my very under-confident spoken version. I realised that I had no idea how to sell this book verbally.
I thought, ok, I need to slow down and think about what sells. What were the ideas that people could relate to and latch onto, that evoke what I’m offering – which is really complicated and multi layered, and doesn’t have clear main characters and doesn’t have a single clear plot? It was going to be a struggle.
I started writing my query then and foolishly sent it too soon to Joe Abercrombie’s agent and ‘said Jo Abercrombie liked it.” I got a form rejection. Those first few are hard because they just confirm that dread that it’s not going to be easy. So I took it slowly because I knew I didn’t know how to sell it. I only sent them out gradually.
Query Feedback
I started getting in touch with people on Twitter who were also querying. We talked and my query evolved. Then Flights of Foundry [an SFF convention that went online because of the pandemic] came up. There was a lottery for a critique of your query by Jose Iriarte and Elle Ire. I was lucky enough to win a place only 6 people got. I sent it off in advance and they were going to give feedback on the day but the connection was awful. They said, “We’ll email it and you can send your next draft as well.” Jose didn’t like it and Lisa loved it. She really related to the query and he didn’t at all. Then I re-wrote it based on that feedback and Jose said he was amazed at how much I improved it based on what they said. I thought, “Oo, I’m feeling a bit more confident now!”
What was your experience of pitch parties and follow up querying?
After that I wrote a few pitches in response and shared them on Facebook for people to respond to. I looked at feedback and went by my gut to choose which ones to pitch. I pitched in #Pitmad and got no likes. Then I pitched in #SFFPit and botched it. An American agent liked my pitch. He said on his Twitter, “Find out about me. It’s a wooing process. Don’t just send me stuff and don’t know who I am.” So I did loads and loads of research. I wasn’t aware of how far back in the past it went but I picked the most appropriate connection I found. I just got a form rejection back and was disappointed. But at the same con I mentioned earlier, Flights of Foundry, he said, not knowing I was there, “Don’t do what this stalker did and dig years into the past to find something that connects you.”
Elise: And you sat there going, “Awesome. That was me…”
Halla: Yes! I was mortified even though I wasn’t digging through his trash, or hacking his account! I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Just because you’ve got a like doesn’t mean anything. You still need to be able to connect with that person. Just be yourself. Have confidence that you’re offering something that will connect with that person. Don’t scrabble around like an idiot, trying to find a connection that isn’t there.
Query Length
By the time we got to the March Pitmad, I knew my query said what I wanted it to say. It was nearly 400 words – outside the guidelines for what people say is an appropriate length for a query! But the more good examples in high fantasy I see, the less I think it should go down to 300.
Elise I saw a post where an agent reported on average query length in their inbox. Some went up to 450 and the agent believed there were appropriate reasons for them to be that long. I guess that’s the problem with hard and fast rules -they don’t apply across the board.
Halla: It’s quite a long complex novel. At that point, it was 130k words of epicness.
You never know if someone’s going to like the enigmatic ex-mercenary, or the courtesan or if they’re going to be attracted to a rebellious Fae. Skimping too much means you could leave out the ideas that could appeal to the right person.
Getting that down into a Twitter pitch was hard but the same applies – get in the appealing ideas. Although there are so many pitches going by that you may not get seen by agents, it’s still great practice.
Elise: From the pitch parties I attended in 2020, I think if you’re writing adult there’s a chance, but for YA Fantasy the odds of being seen by the industry seem astronomical. I’ve had a few press likes in SFFPit, but that’s the only party my YA Fantasy has got industry attention in. I can see myself querying publishers and then self publishing.
Halla: That’s what I thought I was going to have to do.
How did you know that you have the right agent?
Good First Impressions
After I got the like in the March PitMad, I did some digging into him and I could see that he was a new agent. I liked what he’d been posting and how he came across on Twitter. When I sent the query in, he responded almost immediately. He rang me up and said, “I know people don’t normally ring, but I really like what you sent me and can I have the full please?” No one else had shown interest. He sounded really nice on the phone. We had a chat and a laugh. Afterwards, I realised I hadn’t sent the full to anyone, so I had to format it… chapters a third down the page… Times 12 New Roman 12pt. I worried whether I’d got the right, most up-to-date version. It only took me four hours, but it was really intense between feeding a small child and other things going on to distract me.
He emailed me the next morning and said, “I’m a few chapters in. I really liked when… has anyone else got it?” He was obviously really keen.
Three days later he said, ”Can I call you and talk to you about it?” I thought, is this going to be a revise and resubmit? A phone call was a good thing, but I didn’t know how good. I was having a hell of a day the day he wanted to call me, so I put it off to the next day.
More Good Signs
He called me up and said it was as brilliant as he hoped. He gave me some constructive feedback so I’d get a feel for his edits: “This is happening off stage and is reported. You need to write some actions scenes and get a thrill pulse going.”
He told me so much about my novel that resonated with me that I thought you get what I’m trying to do. We had a good chat and formed a good bond.
I got the references off him. He only had two other clients before me. He’d said, “I want to work with you for your whole career, not just this book.” That was what I wanted and needed. I thought he’s an agent with a small list, I’ll get loads of attention. And he seemed to be a rising star. I was pretty sure he was the one. But the other person who had my query was someone I was really interested in, so I did nudge her and she said, “Send me the full.”
Good References
Just after I sent her the full, I got his references and they were glowing. Both authors were keen to talk to me and sing his praises. Apparently, he’s got a great eye for edits!
I ended up emailing the other agent and saying, “I’m sorry, I’ve made my decision.” It just felt really right and I wanted to move forward. I contacted him and said “I really want to come and work with you. Let’s do it.” And he seemed delighted!
What was signing your agency agreement like?
There were a couple of things I wasn’t sure about, so we talked through the contract. After that I was happy and celebrated and posted a picture of me and my contract – blurred out – on Twitter.
And the next client he signed after me won the Rivers of London Prize. So he’s been able to talk to editors he wouldn’t otherwise have been able to. That book is fantasy, so it has opened doors to talk about mine. I’m very happy about that.
What stage is your book at now, and when might it go on submission?
2020 was a difficult year in terms of getting things done and moving forward. I got my full edits in January (2021). We’re going to make the changes we need to make, then we’ll go on submission. You think you’re going to just do some revisions then it’s going to go out there, but because it’s a big, complicated book, it’s going to take longer than I’d imagined.
Elise: Did he give you feedback officially to do some edits earlier? Has it been multiple rounds?
Halla: He gave me some things to work on when we did the signing at the end of May. I got some broad comments in December. The people he’s signed since are behind me in the queue, so they’re going to take longer. Somebody told me a publishing house editor had hers for 5 months before she heard anything.
Elise: It seems to be the thing with traditional publishing – that it will take time full stop – at all stages.
Halla: However keen I am to push it on and hurry it, you’ve just got to wait for other people.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
How much of it feels like luck.
Just connecting with the right person at the right time is staggeringly unlikely. You’ve got to be good, but you’ve also got to be lucky. Lots of people saying no isn’t necessarily because you’re not good. There are so many reasons why people say no that have nothing to do with you.
I had been getting to the point where I’d queried for a while and I was wondering if it was the pages and whether I should cut the first few chapters. You get to a point where you feel like you should change something. I’m glad I didn’t because I didn’t need to.
What advice would you give people in the querying trenches?
Get lots of people to give feedback on your query and don’t believe everybody. Just take on board what makes sense to you and opens your mind to how other people are perceiving what you’ve written. You know the story so well that you can’t know what the words you’ve chosen are suggesting to other people. They may come across quite differently. Ask people to tell you what kind of person they’re finding that character to be. Are you finding that person engaging? What is charming about what I’ve written? What stands out to you? Really interrogate that.
[I was one who gave Halla feedback on her query. She wasn’t afraid to seek clarification or additional feedback from people who’d already given her feedback. I remember being impressed by how much her queries developed from one revision to the next.]
Different people are going to like different things about it. Take what seems to you to be good advice.
But if you’re trying to write lots of subtlety, you have to cheat it. Make your pitch not quite as complex as it is, to get an agent to read it. You’ve just got to get them to pay attention enough to get hooked into reading. Then they’ll see that it’s subtle and complex.
It is collecting together the ideas that make a good pitch, rather than trying to convey the essence of the story.
I think my pitch makes it sound a bit like a romantic relationship between Ashari and Westorr. That isn’t the case, but there is something about the ambiguity of that relationship which is intriguing. It doesn’t do what it says on the tin, but it was accurate as written and enough to pull somebody in.
More About Halla
Halla Williams writes high fantasy. She’s also a developmental and copyeditor and sings in an acoustic duo called Telhalla.
Having grown up in the small town of Nailsea in England, Halla studied Drama at Exeter University. She then toured as an actor for six years, performing in everything from Shakespeare to comedy musicals to children’s theatre.
Although she discovered many wonderful places, she came back to live in Bristol, near where she grew up, to work as an English teacher. After 16 years, she left teaching to become a proofreader and editor and finally finish Song of the Storm.
Total Page Visits: 4221
Bristol’s live music scene is a particular joy for her and she sings regularly at the ‘famous’ open mic at The Oxford pub in Totterdown. Her favourite local band is the Dusk Brothers.
As a fantasy reader, her favourites include Robin Hobb, Janny Wurts, Steven Erikson, Joe Abercrombie, Mercedes Lackey and Brandon Sanderson. She has a Facebook page and you can follow her on Twitter if you are interested in the writing/publishing process.
If you’re curious about the alternative -signing with Indie publishers- here’s my interview with three authors about how they found, signed with and knew they had the right Indie Publisher for their book.
Most querying writers hope for a literary agent, but what if you get a pitch party like and ultimately are offered a contract by a small press? How will you know if they’re the right press for you, or for this particular book? And what would signing with them be like? In these publisher signing interviews, I talk to authors Nikky Lee, Alexandra Beaumont and C.G. Volgars about their experiences of querying, determining that the press making them an offer was right for their book and signing contracts with their small presses.
What was your experience of querying?
Nikky
Which pitch parties did you participate in and what responses did you get?
Pretty much everything I was eligible for: #SFFpit, #Pitmad and #PitDark were the main ones.
All up I got 18 likes from agents and publishers across 10 twitter pitching events.
The most interest I had by far was at my first pitching event, #SFFpit in Jan 2019, where I got 6 likes in the one event. Unfortunately, I blew it because my book wasn’t ready.
Lesson learned: don’t waste your pitch party “debut” pitching a book that isn’t ready.
I had the most success at the #SFFpit events – 10 of my likes came from those. I was pitching under Adult and YA. My book sits in that awkward New Adult space ideal for 18-25 year olds, though it could happily be read by a mature YA reader or adults who enjoy YA reads [YA crossover being the latest term for this].
How long were you querying all up?
Nikky Jan 2019 to May 2020. But in that were two periods where I stopped querying to do a round of revisions. In hindsight, I started querying too early. The book was not ready and it became pretty clear after that first batch of queries. I like to think of that as my test run. I stopped querying and did some big structural edits and a lot of darling killing. When I came back a second time, it was in August 2019 and I queried fairly consistently with it until May 2020.
Was your contract a result of cold querying or a pitch party?
From #PitDark. I got two likes from my editor at Parliament House Press in that event.
How did the way you got it and how long it took compare to your expectations?
Nikky To be honest, I expected to be querying for a while. I’d read stories of people querying hundreds of agents until one finally said yes, and all up I barely queried 30. I was prepared to query 100 agents before shelving the book and working on something else.
Alexandra
I pitched in #Pitmad in Sept, #DVPit and #Pitdark in October 2020. I got more speed on it by the time I did #Pitdark. It suited me better because my book is dark fantasy. That was how I found the small press that is publishing it. The responses I got were pretty good. Someone on Twitter commented, “That’s like something Neil Gaiman would write,” and I thought, “Great. Publishers and agents looking at pitches might , if I’m lucky, see that someone thinks its like Neil Gaiman.” I thought, “No way is my writing close to as good as Neil Gaiman’s, but I’ll take it if it gets me the exposure.”
When did you feel like you got the hang of pitching?
Alex I think at my second party I got a feel for pitches. I’m quite a straight spoken person, so it took me a bit to get a feel for writing really evocative pitches. I think for the second one I upped the drama a bit more. Its high drama stuff, which I guess is how you get the attention.
I never assumed that this would go anywhere, partly because my partner is a development editor and has worked with books before, as have some of our friends, and everyone said it’s really hard to get a publishing contract. I went into it hoping it was going to go somewhere but also with a very realistic expectation that probably it wasn’t going to. That said, their support and experience really helped get me over the line and helped me know what to do.
C. G.
C. G.’s Querying Experience
Looking back, I can’t lie–it wasn’t the most fun time period in my life. Every time I got an email alert, my heart jumped into my throat. A twitter friend suggested using a secondary email purely for queries, so I wouldn’t have a mini heart attack at every Gmail notification. That definitely helped. But no, I didn’t really enjoy querying.
That said, I met a lot of talented writers through #AmQuerying and #StrictlyWriting and learned a lot about pitching and querying with them. Also, because I’m with an indie press I’ve been able to incorporate some of my pitches into promo materials and even parts of my query and synopsis into marketing copy. Querying was rough, but it made me practice explaining and selling my book to people. So, I guess I got something out of it. Meh.
When did you feel like you got the hang of pitching?
I felt a lot more comfortable pitching the second time I started querying Static Over Space. The first time I had no idea what I was doing: I didn’t know the rules of writing a pitch. I didn’t know what made my story stand out. I didn’t know how to connect with other #AmQuerying authors.
The second time was about a year and a half later. I had several killer pitches ready that I’d been retooling for months, I had a good group of writer friends to help me hone them, especially the #StrictlyWriting gang. Most importantly, I knew what made my writing stand out–VOICE. By the time I jumped back in, I felt really excited and pumped!
Which pitch parties did you participate in and what sort of responses did you get?
The first go-around I was doing everything under the sun–#Kisspit, #Pitdark, anything you could remotely fit a genre fiction under. The second time I knew I had to be real and narrow it down. My first pitch party after rebooting was April 2020 for #DVPit. I got 16 likes… three of which were actually people in publishing! [In Twitter Pitch Parties, liking tweet pitches is reserved for agents and publishers to request submissions, but some writers always forget and like pitches anyway].
How long were you querying all up?
My querying journey was spread over three years, but totalled two. The first year and a half, I got one full MS request from a cold query and no Twitter pitch love. After I stepped back and retooled, I queried for 6 months before an offer was made.
How did the way you got a publishing contract and how long it took compare to your expectations?
Interesting question. I don’t love that it took as long as it did… But there’s also no question in my mind that this version of Static Over Space is infinitely better than the first one. So double meh.
Querying Specs
Authors
Home Country
Genre
Audience Age
How long did you query and where before signing your contract?
Nikky Lee
🇳🇿 (New Zealand)
Dark Fantasy
YA crossover
1 year & 3 months Mostly in US, some UK.
C.G. Volgers
🇺🇸
SciFi Fantasy
YA Crossover
3 years, mostly US, some UK.
Alexandra Beaumont
🇬🇧
Dark Fantasy
Adult
4 months (NB: this is exceptionally rare) Uk, US & Europe.
How did you know you had the right publisher?
Alexandra
You kind of go with the one you’ve got the offer on right?
Elise not necessarily. [We had an off the record conversation about other writer’s experiences confirming this statement].
Alex I did get an R and R, with a publisher that was more of a coffee subscription box who published books on the side. I didn’t go with them.
When I researched Gurt Dog Press, they seemed very friendly and professional and I liked the artwork that they’d done and some of their other books. A lot of their other authors seemed to have good experiences.
Elise Was there any particular person you had contact with who made you feel that way about them?
Alex I spoke to the editor and the marketing manager. They seemed to be everything that I expected and were really friendly. They’re early on in their publishing house journey. It was quite nice in a way, having a first novel being out with a publisher that’s also starting out, both being in it together. They are working on expanding and have had some great successes in their first year, so it feels like a really exciting place to be.
Elise Do you know who they sell to?
I think it’s mostly Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and online, but they’re looking to expand. Some of the authors have got their books placed in local bookshops too.
Nikky
What struck me about Parliament House Press was they had a good range of books and they published regularly—they were clearly an indie press working towards becoming a mid-sized publisher.
They also had a “monster shop” section in their online store, which I loved. And I could see my book fitting into that. They also had very professional looking covers.
On the business side, they had recently teamed up with a digital distributor to help spread their books.
Audiobook rights were on the table too—I’m a big fan of audiobooks so that really sold it for me that this publisher was future focused and knew where the trends were.
I contacted three of their authors, and they had nothing but good things to say. There were the usual caveats of going through a small to mid-sized publisher e.g. you have to be prepared to roll up your sleeves and put in the effort to market and promote the book. But to be honest, you still have to do that anyway, even if you’re published with the big 4. And I work in marketing, so that bit wasn’t so daunting.
C. G.
I had sooo many signs Outland Entertainment was the right place for SOS! First, my editor, Alana Joli, made a really funny Avarian joke while we were discussing Outland’s offer. I knew right then not only did she understand the story, but really understood the characters and world. She also has a great sense of humor and a keen eye for what makes a story shine. Her idea to switch Yula’s gender (a big Wookie-like character) to female will forever be one of the most genius edits for Static Over Space ever.
The second sign was when I saw the Art Director and Founder’s art portfolio and larger career. Jeremy Mohler not only teaches art at the college level, he’s worked with some of the biggest comic book names out there- Marvel, Blizzard, and IDW Comics. His street cred and art style was exactly what I’d always dreamed of finding for SOS.
Third, I sent the contract to the Author’s Guild Legal team [the Author’s Guild offers free Contract Review to paying members]. They looked over the contract, gave me a few pointers, but overall agreed it was really fair and even-handed.
The final green light was from someone I trusted inside publishing. Through #LatinXpitch I’d made a connection with an editor from a prominent imprint. He wasn’t looking for a YA SciFi when we met, but he’d remained a trusted mentor. Later when Outland made the offer, he asked around and gave them the thumbs up!
What stage is your novel at?
I’m waiting on the full edits, and the book will be out in April.
I just handed off the MS to my editor [January 10th]. From here we’ll do initial editing, then copy editing, then layout!
I’ve just finished my first round of edits from my editor. There’ll be a few more to come in the next six months or so. My publisher has already set up the digital preorders for it.
We’re looking at a tentative April/May 2020 release for book 1. It’s still too soon to say for Books 2 and 3.
What Advice Would You Give Querying Writers?
Alex
I don’t have a lot of advice that I imagine people aren’t already doing, but perseverance is definitely a strong part of this. I was initially like I’ll just query 10 favourite agents and that didn’t go anywhere. My main one is everyone understandably thinks I’ll go through an agent, and my books will go to the big publishers and be published by the end of the year.
But that’s not always the case. I think there needs to be more recognition of other routes to publishing. Like it’s all valid. I came through it not knowing a lot about the small presses and only thinking about the big 5, but then I got into it and thought ok, there’s a mid band of publishing houses and a whole load of small presses as well. At the end of the day, getting your book out doesn’t have to be in that way. Getting a book out is still an achievement.
That’s the main thing i’ve taken away from it: not everyone’s going to be best selling authors and that’s ok. It depends what your ambitions are, but as long as your story’s out there, that’s the main thing for me.
The small press I’m going with is Swedish so I don’t think it needs to be in your own country. I was originally like ‘I’ll only query UK agents’ but someone said to me, “It’s a fairly international audience these days so you don’t need to pigeonhole yourself in your own country.” I think there’s no reason not to go wide.
Nikky
This is hard because everyone’s journey is so different. But based on my own experience, make sure the book is truly ready before you send it out. That means beta read -several rounds if need be, edited and proofed to the best of your ability. I blew my chances with several major NYC agents because I sent it to them before it was ready.
As for querying, I do think it is a numbers and timing game, and I do think it’s smart to try different avenues for getting noticed i.e. cold query, twitter pitching, conference pitching where possible.
C. G.
Find a great writer, preferably someone in the industry, to give you real, no-holds-barred feedback. After querying the first time I sent my MS to three #AmQuerying authors that I knew were amazing storytellers and Gina Damico, a YA author with several published books who offered novel consulting through Grubstreet.
I couldn’t afford to pay her to look through the entire MS, but I got her advice on the first chunk. She told me, point-blank: here’s what you’re good at, here’s what you have to work on if you’re going to break through querying. It was painful at first. I basically had to rewrite half my book! But in the end, it was worth it.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Alex
It’s become a Twitter #WritingCommunity cliche, but I never expected the level of support and community there is on Twitter. I’ve met some great people in a Query DM Group who have read the opening chapters. I’d say while the online presence is helpful, don’t worry too much about it.
Its easy to go down the rabbit hole of spending a lot of time thinking about your writing, and having an author platform -I work full time in a busy job, so my time is fairly constrained. Making sure you’re not spending all your time doing all of this stuff is important for your sanity.
Speaking as someone who both wrote a pitch and signed a contract within half a year, it was a big effort to do all that and I kind of gave my life over to it for half a year. So my reflection and advice to people doing this for the first time is: its great and do calve out time to do this stuff if you’re passionate, but don’t kill yourself, because the market will still be there next year.
C.G
Yes! Edelweiss.plus is a great way to find comps for books that have no comp. And trust me– I would know!
Alexandra
Nikky
Alexandra was raised on fairy tales, folklore and legends. She followed adventures at every turn: exploring the old parts of London, taking part in medieval re-enactments, and writing in every spare moment. When not writing, Alexandra has a wanderlust for exploring new places, roaming the countryside and taking part in Live Action Fantasy Role Play. (Meaning she’s often covered in mud, grass and leaves.) Her passion for exploring new worlds drives her creative endeavours. Her debut novel, Testament of the Stars, will be published in April 2021 by Gurt Dog Press.
On Testament of the Stars:
Astrologers govern the lives of both the blessed from the plateau of Gemynd and the downtrodden from the planes of Rask.
When Einya reluctantly joins the settlement’s ruling star-cult, she thinks only of the rights it will give her: the permission to marry her Raskian lover. Instead she is thrown onto a treacherous path of betrayal and political strife, trapped within the cult persecuting Rask.
Forced to drink the blood of the stars and steal their thoughts, Einya ends up at the heart of a fierce rebellion, caught between a fight for freedom and the strange luring power of the stars.
Nikky is a New Zealand-based writer who grew up as a barefoot 90s kid in Perth, Western Australia. With eight years in content marketing and copywriting, she’s published numerous articles on behalf of businesses and for magazines.
In her free time, she writes speculative fiction, often burning the candle at both ends to explore fantastic worlds, mine asteroids and meet wizards. She’s had over a dozen short stories published in magazines and in anthologies around the world. Her debut novel, The Rarkyn’s Familiar—a dark tale of a girl bonded to a monster—will be published by Parliament House Press in 2022. Nikky’s Website.
C. G. Volgars
CG Volars is the debut author of STATIC OVER SPACE, that Gender-Bending Scifi coming from Outland Entertainment in Spring 2022.
CG currently resides in California with her family and two grey cats—Skittles and Rosie. In her spare time, she writes, uses potty language and collects SciFi pins. Join the #SpaceShip today at www.StaticOverSpace.com.
Total Page Visits: 3787
Further Reading
For more information about Pitch Parties, see this post.
A great place to see other writers experiences with particular publishers is Absolute Write’s Water Cooler: OFFLINE for site renovations (last checked April 6). Updates on its return here.
Another useful site in researching publishers is Preditors & Editors, which is unfortunately in maintenance mode, but you’ll find their resources and updates on their Facebook Page.
Social media is an ideal space to think about how you present and to begin interacting publicly as a writer. Twitter and Instagram have thriving Writing Communities, where you can find your tribe. A Facebook page (or Instagram) are great spaces to share your writing life and books with personal contacts. Any of these plus Pinterest, Youtube and others are potential spaces to reach readers and promote your published works. And Tik Tok? If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know writers are selling books over there. So which social media is most appropriate to you as a writer, which account is best to start with and how do you get started on your writer social media?
Twitter
Twitter is a great starting point, because of its #WritingCommunity. There, you can meet and make friends with fellow writers, ask advice about all things writing related and gain insight into what lies ahead of you -at any stage- from writers further down the line. Because of the tight character limit on tweets and Twitter’s focus on text, and because people are more likely to retweet your tweets than share posts elsewhere, I found Twitter the fastest social media account to find my writer tribe on. Once I was established there, it was also a base to connect with fellow writers and to see how they used Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok to reach readers.
To get an idea of potential readers /demographics you can reach on Twitter (it’s a mix mash compared to Instagram and Facebook), see this statistic summary by Hootsuite. For detailed tweeting advice, see Getting Started on Twitterhere (the bottom of this post).
Twitter Alternative: Mastodon
This is a different category of social media, because it isn’t algorithm based. You can go offline as long as you like, and it won’t change your visibility or what content you see on your feed, unlike Twitter and Instagram. Unlike them and Facebook pages, you can’t even see how many impressions your toots get on Mastodon. Best of all, its crowdfunded, so it isn’t littered with promoted posts. Its decentralised, so you join a server and can view toots on its feed, or on the fediverse, which is every server linked to the one you joined.
It’s tricker to be seen there, as algorithms don’t boost you hours after you toot. But boosts (retweets) do share your tweets on both the feeds of anyone following people who boost you, and on the fediverse. As a nonbinary, neurodiverse person, I can also report that it seems to be a very friendly space to diverse people generally, especially in terms of accessibility. If you’d like to find out more about interacting on Mastodon, this post has some good advice.
Instagram
If you have a personal Instagram account and feel at home there, its #WritingCommunity are also welcoming. @adrienneyoungbooks and @kristindwyer launched #FindMyWritingCommunity in 2020, and it’s a great hashtag for posting a selfie and introducing yourself to writers on. Instagram also has #Bookstagram and is a great place to promote your books to readers. With Twitter under new management, its writing community is also taking on Twitter refugees.
Who can you reach there? According to Hootsuite, 67% of 18 to 29 year olds in the US use the site daily and its most popular with Gen Z and Millennials. If your books are likely to appeal to these age groups, but Instagram is outside your comfort zone, I’d leave it for now, but plan to set up a writer/ author account there eventually.
Facebook Page
I say ‘Facebook page’ as opposed to ‘account’ or ‘profile’, because if you want to use the word ‘author’ or ‘writer’ in your name, Facebook considers you a public figure and requires you to have a page. If you create a profile as (whoever) Author, you will have your account suspended, and probably deleted for ‘posing as someone else.’
Research on Facebook’s demographics by Hootsuite suggests it is still (as of January 2020), the single biggest social media platform for reaching an audience across all age groups world wide. If you’re active on and comfortable with Facebook, a Facebook Page (or group created by your page) is a good place to start book promotion. Alternately, you can use your personal Facebook account , f you just call yourself (insert first name, last name). For advice on choosing between using your profile or creating a page, see Facebook for Authors by Jane Friedman.
Pinterest
Pinterest differs from the above three media in a few key ways. Pinterest’s algorithms work differently, with the pins which appear on people’s feeds being determined by the topics each Pinterest user selects, as opposed to pins created or pinned by people they follow. On Pinterest, users are also more likely to use the search function to find particular types of pins, so how sees your pins isn’t limited by how small your following is. It doesn’t even require you to be active on Pinterest, or to make algorithms happy for your pins to be seen (unlike Twitter, Instagram and Facebook).
Pinterest Boards You can pin (create your own copy of, collect and organise) other people’s pins by pinning them to your own boards, using them to attract followers with similar interests. You can click and drag your boards, to position them in the order you want visitors to your profile to see them. You can also select the edit icon (on the bottom right corner of any board) to select (and position) which pin it displays as its cover. I have the boards I’ve saved my blog pins to across the top, where they’re most prominent, and inspirational image boards (for my writing and drawing) underneath.
If you’d like to create pins for your blog or site pages to embed on your WordPress (so visitors can pin them from there), here’s a Pinterest tool which makes that easy. (In my case, this an easy way around the problem of my site not allowing images on it to display on any social media). To learn about who you can reach on Pinterest and how often, here’s Hootsuite’s Pinterest statistics.
Tik Tok
I’ve seen a few posts in an author Facebook group (20Booksto50k -great for learning about marketing), noting an increase in their book sales which appears to correlate with an increase of their book promotion and impressions on Tik Tok. An advantage of Tik Tok is that hashtags are a big factor in how your posts are seen, so if you choose the right hashtags and use popular sounds, you can potentially be seen by far more people than your followers. Another advantage is that when you start typing hashtags on TikTok, it will tell you how many people post on that hashtag, assisting your visibility by hashtag within the app. (Hashtags do help on Twitter and Instagram, but they’re most useful for writing prompts and communities, and less so than Tik Tok for reaching readers).
Lastly, Tik Tok’s like of people being themselves, not the polished, scripted versions of themselves you may see on more formal youtube channels makes it friendlier to the budding writer who isn’t a budding actor. And if you don’t like showing your face on social media, #BookTok is fond of book trailers, and related videos, so videos of you aren’t necessary.
Hootsuite reports that 69% of its users are aged 13 to 24 and while it’s not as popular as Instagram (yet), its still growing and a likely space to reach readers of YA.
Youtube
This may not be technically social media, but Youtube is competing with Facebook’s levels of active monthly users in the US and Hootsuite has lots of encouraging statistics about audiences reachable on it. A few writer friends with established channels have recommended youtube. If you have an interest in film, acting or audio narration, or if your day job involves public speaking, this may be a natural platform to establish yourself as an author. An advantage of Youtube is that it basically functions as the Google of videos, with users regularly searching it for content, so again this is a space that doesn’t depend on a large following or interactions on the platform nudging algorithms to display your posts to more users. If it isn’t, again I’d get started where you feel more comfortable, and think about other content -possibly animation or filming books during readings- which you could produce on youtube down the line.
Whichever social media you start with, find and follow some writers, and if you like, people who share similar interests to you. Spend some time looking at what content they post, how they interact and getting a feel for that space and which content could resonate with potential followers and readers there.
When you start your second social media account, post asking other writers if they are on it and begin your platform by connecting with and learning from writers you already know on the new platform. I see periodic tweets about this for anything you could follow authors on, and this was my entry point into Pinterest. I also met writers to share ideas about Instagram and Tik Tok content with on Twitter.
Social Media Names and ProfilePhotos
I’ve read that your name is your brand —not your book title— so my name on all my social media profiles is @ElisesWritings and my first and last names appear on all of my accounts. My first and last name are also the dot com name and header of my site. My social media profile photo and the most prominent head shot on my site are the same. Consistency across all these spaces lets you build your brand —you— so when choosing a user name, think of something appropriate across every social media you plan to use. I’ve seen some writers develop logos as profile photos, but I find logos easy to forget, while faces are memorable, so I prefer self portrait profile photos.
What Should I Post? Getting Started on Instagram, Pinterest & Facebook
(for Twitter see below)
Marketing 101 —don’t only post book adds! Your account will look like spam and you’ll put people off following you. Vary your content. A ratio a few authors like to use is 80% give, 20% ask. That could be 80% entertaining posts —quotes, photos, jokes, discussion questions related thematically or by genre to your writing. It could be posts about writing, some personal interest or update posts and some work-in-progress posts. Then 20% ‘sign up to my newsletter’, ‘here’s my latest review,’ ‘please vote for my cover,’ or ‘my book is currently on pre-order/ discounted’ posts.
On Instagram
Yes, if you’re time-pressed and mostly write tweets, you can just share them on Insta. But Insta is a visually focused space. My favourite posts to view and read are ones with thoughtfully selected quality photos or images, which compliment a thoughtful personal update, or someone’s reflection on life or writing.
Insta is a great place to share mood boards for your works in progress, character art or sketches. Posting a good photo of yourself can signal a personal update or a reflection on your writing post. You might also like to post photos of and write about some of your other interests —especially if they tie in to your books— and make those connections clear to your followers.
Whatever content you choose, Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags to boost your posts visibility. It has multiple equivalents of #WritingCommunity hashtags and many hashtags for posting about books. Here’s a list of around 70 writer and boookish tags to get you started.
#Bookstagram is full of book covers artfully arranged with props, coloured fabric backing, glitter ect. So if you’re posting book reviews or adds on Insta —be creative. Make your cover the focus of a visually pleasing scene, or explore short animated video add options.
If you want to share quotes or questions, I suggest getting on canva and designing an Insta post image with a coloured (or photo) background and a nice font. Using the same font on all Insta posts helps them become recognisable by it, as well as looking good.
An Insta book promo post by Marion Blackwood of her Storm Series.
No, you don’t have to do the above
Yes, people will follow you if you just take photos of your cat or not-very-visually-pleasing photos of your device with your work in progress on its screen and write comments about those. But if you want to gain (and retain) followers, and to attract potential readers to your account, I suggest making full use of the space by creating visually interesting content and taking book add inspiration from #Bookstagram.
How Often Should I Post?
Until I hit around 500 followers, I routinely got unfollowed by multiple people if I didn’t post for a week or 2. You’ll gain the most followers posting daily —and may keep them if you post popular content like motivational quotes, but you’ll attract a lot of people follow for follow-backs unfollowing you too. For me, posting every second or third day was the best balance to gain the kind of followers who stick around and not be unfollowed for not posting.
Following & Bots on Insta
There are quite a few bot accounts on Insta —particularly those of single men following women— and some bots which write generic comments on your posts. (Twitter thankfully deletes bot account periodically, but alas Instagram has no such clean up system). The bots aim seems to be the same as that of people who follow you, wait till you follow back, then unfollow you —to gain followers. Its annoying. You can get apps to track follows and unfollows, but there’s a LOT of Insta following apps, so I’d choose one carefully. (I don’t use an app, I ignore bots and follow back carefully, screening my followers by taking the steps in When Following Backon Twitter and Instagram below.)
Promoting a Blog On Instagram
The provider of my social media share button (Social Warfare) doesn’t include an Instagram share button. Their research shows over 80% of Instagram users stay on Instagram and don’t want to visit other sites advertised there. However, having found great quality photos on unsplash to illustrate and promote my blog posts with, I post those on Instagram. I write a blurb relating to my personal experience of the blog topic and I include a discussion question for people to reply to. Then I paste the text of the link (which people have to copy and paste into their browser, as Instagram posts don’t do hyperlinks). Generally my Insta posts about my blog get more likes than links on Twitter (though less blog visits). So if you have a blog to promote and you join the Writing Community on Insta, I encourage you to experiment with posting about it.
For more advice on creating an appealing look and on what to post, see:
Because Facebook allows link sharing, your Facebook page is a good place to share interesting articles of topical or thematic relevance to your books. Most commonly, I’ve seen writers posting updates about their latest work in progress, favourite quotes (of other writers and of their own works), character art, cover reveals, reviews of their books and some book advertising.
There’s plenty of room for Facebook Page and Insta content to overlap, and I tend to post the same poetry (sometimes with different travel photos to illustrate) on My Facebook Page as on my Insta. I post occasional work in progress updates on both, but tend to go into more detail on Insta, where I have more writer followers interested in more detail about writing than the personal contacts following my Facebook Page.
I recommend using canva.com to create full pin size images for Pinterest (as I did in my pins), and to add text to pins (if applicable). Hashtags are also used on Pinterest. I tend to choose 5 on my pins, and to search terms I think would be popular tags in the Pinterest search bar to help me choose them. Some popular Twitter or Instagram tags aren’t used at all on Pinterest, so its worth checking your choice of tag has a chance of boosting your pin impressions and isn’t just taking up space in your pin description.
As Pinterest is also very visual, you may like to use the same images to create pins as mentioned for posts above on Instagram. If you’re looking for photos on Pinterest to inspire your character or setting descriptions (something I plan to do), you may like to save these as public boards, as they may also draw interest to your account.
When creating pins for blog pages (if you have one), you may like to use photos from unsplash.com (as I did with the pin on the right). I’ve also made pins of my sketches of Lord of The Rings characters, because I write fantasy and some people interested in those drawings may also be interested in my books. As with Insta, thinking of photos or images from other interests which relate to your books may be give you content ideas.
You might feel great gaining your first Twitter or Insta followers, and be tempted to follow them all right back. Don’t. Most writers following you in Twitter or Instagram’s #WritingCommunity are probably fine. I’ve only blocked 4 jerks on Twitter in 2 years -so I didn’t unwittingly follow them- but its always a good idea to screen accounts before following back, in case they happen to be a troll, a jerk or to post content you dislike. So before following back, check the account:
🔸has a bio and has posted (writing a comment and using hashtags on Insta, not just posted a photo) -so you don’t follow a (primitive) bot account.
🔸look at posts and see if you want that person’s content on your feed.
🔸check if the account is only following a few hundred but followed by thousands -they’re probably going to unfollow you after you follow back.
Also be aware that while some writers will always follow back fellow writers, others may follow or follow back through interaction only (in my case when replying to people’s tweets). If you follows lots of people, they may not follow you back, and if you’re following 5,000 on Twitter and only have 4,000 followers -you won’t be able to follow anyone else until you have 5000 followers. (Twitter jail is a thing 😉).
Further General Social Media Reading
Social Media Tips by Marc Guberti is aimed at businesses generally, but has some useful tips for writers.
Would you like to discuss author socials, newsletters and other aspects of author platform with fellow authors? My Strictly Authoring Discord Server is dedicated to this. Let me know you’d like to join it by tweet or use my contact form and I’ll send you an invite link to access it!
Some writers are partial to following writers of the same genre. The easiest way to let us know what type of writer you are is to state your genre/ text type and audience age in your bio. If you have a website, you may like to put a link in your bio to make it accessible through your @ (and by extension through your tweets) instead of just your profile page. Beyond that, try to inject some personality into your bio, as well as telling us about your interests, so your bio gives us a sense of who we’re potentially following.
First Tweet
Introduce yourself to the #WritingCommunity. Tell us who you are, what you write, that you’re new and anything else you like. I suggest asking other writers a question to encourage people to interact with you too. My first tweet said:
Hi #WritingCommunity. I'm Elise, I write YA fantasy and I created this account to connect with my fellow writers. Who are you, what do you write & how can we help each other along the way? #myfirsttweet
— 🇦🇺🏳️🌈 Elise (they/them) Writing Book 3 🌧⚔️ (@ElisesWritings) January 6, 2019
I can’t promise you the same response my tweet got, but it’s a great way to ‘meet’ people. (I don’t recommend #MyFirstTweet -you get some weird/ random responses).
Before You Tweet
You might like to ask; why am I on Twitter? I assume many of us hope to sell our books, but do you want writer friends/ colleagues to share the journey and seek help and advice from along the way? If so -will you tweet as a companion in the writing/ revising/ querying trenches?
Will you tweet writing motivation and encouragement, or humour or tips and advice? If you want to connect with readers, will you tweet discussion questions related to themes in your writing or share links to topically relevant articles? And what and how much would you like to say about yourself, your life and your opinions on your writer/ writing focused twitter account?
Before You Retweet
You may consider, am I going to retweet everything of interest to me, or just things topically/ thematically/ genre or generally related to my writing? Will I retweet things which are helpful, useful, encouraging or entertaining to my followers? Will I retweet to help the writer whose tweet I’m retweeting?
It’s also worth considering how often you retweet. Retweeting anything which interests you many times a day may make your account look like a bot, and put people off following you.
What Should I Tweet?
Tweets with images tend to get more impressions, but writing or reader related quotes, jokes and clever or just well-timed comment tweets about writing, reading or life can get lots of interaction. Asking a few questions to get to know your followers and encourage people to interact with you is also a good way to start.
Don’t forget, social media isn’t just about producing organic content. On Twitter or Instagram -reply to and interact with others- especially if you’re looking to find your #WritingCommunity on either. Even if you’re not -reply to people who reply to your content, to connect with your audience.
Promoting a Blog or Book On Twitter
Include a blurb (as I have on the right). Don’t just tweet a link. No-one will click it if you don’t give us reason to. And don’t just write, “My book is out on Amazon now!” Sell it to us, with a pitch.
Example: “George thought he had problems. He’d lost his job and the house might be next. Then his city vanished, taking everyone he knew with it. If he can’t work with out-of towners to find his city and bring it back: he’ll truly lose everything. #BookBoost #SpecFic #BookPromo.” (Yes, these are actual Twitter promo hashtags.)
— 🇦🇺🏳️🌈 Elise (they/them) Writing Book 3 🌧⚔️ (@ElisesWritings) October 31, 2020
How Do I Get Tweets Seen or Interacted With?
Short answer -use hashtags. By algorithms no-one I’ve spoken to can fully explain, hashtags help your tweets get onto people’s feeds, but they can do more. Specific, relevant hashtags can act as subheadings and incline people to read and interact with your tweets. Savy Twitter users may also find and interact with your tweets by searching hashtags. For a list of hashtags to connect with writers and find tips, help and prompts on, see this post.
Tips for Getting Tweet Impressions & Interactions
1.Be Concise
My two line tweets often get the most impressions, whereas 3-4 lines often get the least.
2. TweetSome Questions
Few of us have the gift of being able to write statement tweets which go viral, so ask some questions most writers/ readers can answer (unless you’re seeking specific information). This encourages people to interact and is a good way to get to know your followers. The odd poll can help too, especially if your question is thoughtful or a research question.
3. Use 1-3 RELEVANT Hashtags
Lots of hashtags hurts eyes and puts people off reading tweets. No hashtags means we don’t know what the tweet is about. Using vaguely relevant hashtags clutters that hashtag’s feed with tweets writers searching that tag for information or tweets to interact with may find irrelevant and or annoying. So stick to 1-3 relevant tags. Here’s a list of 80, popular, categorised tags to choose from. Using a popular, umbrella hashtag like #WritingCommunity will also boost impressions.
4. Interact
Don’t just ❤️ others tweets -some of us only look in ‘Mentions’ and only notice replies -so reply. Help when you can. Answer questions. Play tag games or respond to prompts (these are listed in my Hashtag Guide.) Reply to familiar faces on your feed and log in at a regular(ish) time of day. Doing this increases your chances of seeing and being able to interact with the same writers, and their chances to interact with you, making it easier to get to know people.
What do the Community Acronyms Mean?
WIP= work in progress
CP= critique partner
POV= point of view
Antag= antagonist villain/opposing force
Protag= protagonist, likely
MC =main character
MS= manuscript
PB= Picture book
MG =Middle Grade
NA used to mean New Adult -which no longer a marketing category (aside from Romance), but some people use it because they don’t know about YA Crossover (the new thing).
YA = Young Adult
SFF =Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction
Synopsis: means ‘book summary’ -including the ending- generally 500 words for literary agencies. But some agency websites call a query letter pitch (which is ideally around 300 words, ending with an impossible choice the MC must make or point of tension after main conflict and stakes are revealed -but not the ending) as… a synopsis.
‘Short synopsis’ tends to mean ‘query letter pitch.’ ‘Long synopsis’ tends to mean book summary. Unfortunately, ‘synopsis’ can mean either. (Unsure? I’d ask others how they interpret that agency’s guidelines, or email the agency to clarify).
A Blurb is NOT a pitch
Blurb =back of the cover description, which can say anything to entice a reader to read the pages.
APitch must include: MC intro, MC role in conflict, MC personal stakes, (MC impossible choice) and anything unique about those. It can include other interesting things, eg lists of crazy situations MC must overcome to resolve conflict, but omitting or not making any of the 3 clear is likely to see your query letter rejected, or your tweet pitch ignored (rejection/ no industry likes having many other causes too).
Once you’ve met people, don’t be that person who notifies 50 people when talking to the one person who tagged them. When you hit ‘reply’, check if above it says ‘replying to @___ and 48 others’. (Like it does on the right).
Select the ‘and’ before ’48 others’ then untick the ‘others in this conversation’ option from the menu, to reply to the one person who tagged you.
Or re-tick/ re-tag the 3/50 people below you’re speaking to (below ‘others in this conversation). If the blue box is ticked -like above- you’re about to notify (in this case) 48 people of your reply. It’s much easier to stay connected if our notifications aren’t bursting with replies of people not speaking to us. If others don’t do this for you, hit the top right 3 dots on any tweet in the thread clogging your notifications, then select ‘mute conversation‘ from the menu.
This means you won’t get notified when someone replies to your tweet in that thread. To see those replies, go to your profile, select ‘Tweets and Replies’. Then scroll down the ‘tweet and reply’ feed to your reply in the tag thread. Selecting your reply will display replies to you.
Staying In Touch: Twitter Lists
The easiest way to remember who you’ve met and something about them (eg. genre, where they live in the world, etc) is to add them to a twitter list by a category of your choosing (using the left menu in your profile page). This will store people’s twitter handles for you and create a list feed which only displays list members tweets (which is how I find my friends tweets out of tweets by the 10k writers I follow.)
Staying in Touch: DM Groups
If you want to talk regularly, or easily ask questions in a private group, or find out what friends are saying without sifting through public Twitter feeds, you can make or be added to a group DM. That’s when someone starts a new Direct Message, but after pasting one person’s twitter handle into ‘search people’, and selecting that account from the drop down menu, you paste another twitter handle in, and continue adding up to 75 people. (Then select ‘Next’ -top right- then type your message). See below for DM etiquette.
Total Page Visits: 6614
NB: twitter etiquette is to speak via public tweet and agree to DM people, not to jump straight into people’s DMs. So if you’re creating a DM group, I’d tweet publicly asking who’d like to be added.
Shortcut: scan your feed for writers offering to add you to their DM groups (which is what many of my friends did with mine 😉).
I hope this helps you get started. To navigate Twitter’s #WritingCommunity and find out which hashtags to use in your tweets, see my Hashtag Guide. If you’d like a more detailed Twitter introduction (including Twitter etiquette), seeEmma Lombard’s comprehensive Twitter Tips for Newbies.
As a member of a querying writers group, I’ve watched writers wait 6 months to receive full manuscript rejections, or go months without receiving so much as a form rejection for queries. I’ve learned a lot about having realistic expectations and how to tackle the querying process. In these querying interviews, I interview some of those writers, with the aim of giving newly querying writers insights into what to expect on your journey, and advice. And to give those of you already on your querying journey a chance to reflect and possibly tweak your approach to querying.
Where Are You Querying From & Which Genres?
(Scroll right to see Debbie Hadad’s details).
Cheryl Burman
Alexandrina Brant
Susan Waters
JulianaSavia Clayton
Melissa
Debbie Hadad
From
🇬🇧 UK
🇬🇧 UK
🇨🇦 Canada
🇺🇸 US
🇦🇺 Australia
🇮🇱 Israel
Genre
Historical 🗝
Fantasy 🐉
Scifi 🚀
Dystopian 💣
Scifi 🚀
How long for?
3 years
2 months?
5 months
7 months (Tapered off July to write second).
1 month
1.5 years
What did you Think Querying Would Be Like?
SusanWay, way back I thought it was going to be every door slamming before I could get near it, but then when I learned that normal people can get literary agents, I realised I could be one of them. But at any point you get reminded it’s going to be hard and you’re going to get lots of rejections.
AlexandrinaThis is not my first time querying. This time round I wanted to go in with my excel spreadsheet and make it as ordered as possible. 10 queries at a time, wait 2 months, do another 10. I came into querying with a definite plan. I didn’t stick to it.
DebbieI think I underestimated how disheartening it could be and how much emotional energy it takes to keep going. If only you could just hand it to an agency to keep submitting or if there was an app like Book Tinder! Put your query up and if an agent likes it they swipe right and get your pages!
Melissa I did a lot of research and had an idea of agents taking a long time to respond, or not at all. I knew it was pretty hard to find an agent -if at all. I never planned to write a picture book. I’m not relying on this to get an agent.
It would be wonderful to be traditionally published for that kind of validation…
–Cheryl
What has Querying Actually Been like?
Susan’s Querying Experience
I definitely know now that literary agents are normal people. Some of them have giant egos. Some of them are very, very humble. You learn which one you might want to work with.
And Twitter is a good way to see, at least, from what they choose to put out there, what they might be like. You still get an idea of their sense of humour and professionalism. It’s a good place to look for red flags, if nothing else.
SusanPersonalisation, I don’t know what to do with that. Eg. “I saw on September 17th that you like spaghetti”. [My blog on query letters will address this later this week, and be included in my newsletter going out Oct 23rd].
Cheryl’s Querying Experience
In the UK you can only really query agents directly. The big publishing houses don’t take direct submissions, like some of them do in Australia. It’s a really time consuming process, just hunting down agents who potentially might be interested.
“Because that one (Cheryl’s second novel) is totally in my control… I have made the decision to self publish that. It could have been a minimum of four years before Keepers got on the market. I’ll be on my walking frame by then, so I just want to get it out there. I’m not interested in making gallons of money. That would be nice, though that’s not going to happen.
Alexandrina‘s Querying Experience
Every rejection you get is a knock back. That feeling of ‘do I need to leave this for another month? Do I need to hold back on my next batch? And re-work it and look for more querying partners?
EliseDo you feel like you’re overthinking or being a bit too cautious?
I always go by the reactions I have per round. If I haven’t got a reaction out of ten or from agents with similar things on their list then something’s not quite right.
AlexandrinaFor my third round, I’m focusing on the whole novel, not just what could be wrong in the opening. There’s always a chance I could get that full request, so I want the whole novel to be the best.
EliseHow long do you think querying might take and how long are you prepared to pursue traditional publishing?
AlexandrinaI could send 100 queries then call it quits. It depends how much feedback I can get.
Debbie’s Querying Experience
I sent out a few, then waited a few months. It’s like, will you please reject me? I rewrote my first chapter 6-10 times after letting it sit for a year. Then I got a request.
Juliana’s Querying Experience
Querying my novel was big because it was like a piece of my soul. I didn’t get my first full until June [she started in January]. I’d heard the stories. I thought I was going to beat the odds. I thought my first book was really good. And it is. But it has to be better than good. It has to be marketable, and timely and no-one wants a dystopia when the world is on fire.
–Juliana
When I got that request after 10 queries I was like, “I did it! I’m in. This isn’t so hard. What’s everybody talking about?” And then it was almost a year before I got basically a form rejection.
When I get a rejection I would have a cookie or a shot of bourbon to take the sting away.
I tried to send out a query for every rejection I got, but then you start running out of agents on your list. My list only had 100 agents.
I have 3 full requests out. Two with agents and a like from an Indie Publisher in #Pitmad. I was pretty solid (through the 7 months.) I’m pretty competitive.
To me taking a break wasn’t an option. Which may not be the best thing for my mental health. It naturally tapered to a halt when I started thinking my next book is better and not a dystopia.
Juliana
What’s been Your Experience of Twitter Pitch Parties?
AlexandrinaI’ve not had any likes on pitches, which is always disconcerting, as I feel like I’ve re-worked my pitches several times. This year I’ve made sure I was in DM Groups, commenting on other people’s pitches and being more social about it. It helps with the community.
Cheryl
[In September #Pitmad, Cheryl and her co-writer’s first novel] got 2 likes and… [two agents] asked for a full. We’ve now been waiting two months… [to hear back from one]. It took her two months to ask for the full after the first fifty pages. [The second agent asked for a proposal, then pages, then rejected the manuscript. Cheryl’s longest full rejection took a year to come through.]
DebbieAt the first few I didn’t get agent requests. I kept doing them and I got better and more attention. I’ve had agent responses. I’ve had fulls requested through this. I’ve had a weird experienced where agent’s heart my pitches, I’ve started researching them and they have nothing on their list that has anything to do with what I’m writing, like no Scifi [Debbie’s main genre 😉].
Being in a query group has really helped, so you don’t feel alone. I think commenting boosts signal from an algorithm point of view. I like the fake likes… just this guy from somewhere. A kind soul or whatever. I feel better seeing five hearts and one real one than nothing at all, because nothing is so sad.
What have been your Biggest Learnings so far?
Alexandrina Be more social. I never actively searched for a critique partner via Twitter. I never found DM groups. Pitch parties… I feel like I have more confidence to say, ‘Hi. I see you’re doing x, y, z. Do you want to swap pages?’
Susan How much you should be ready to put yourself in a box. They want you to be clearly one thing. I wrote a book about an 18 yo, and it’s not really a dystopia… but it might be, and there’s serious situations, and comedy, and I don’t really know how to do comps but please just read this!
MelissaIt’s well worth paying for services like Query Tracker. I learnt the value of it when it was discussed in my query group. Looking back, I probably queried prematurely. I had revised a lot. I did have feedback. But I think I needed to go through again.
Juliana’s Learnings
I didn’t make too many tweaks. I know a lot of people make many on their first pages. I think that way lies madness. At some point you have to let your baby go.
About a month in, when I wasn’t getting the response that I wanted I reached out to an editor, @AmQueryingH, and she’s amazing. She did my query and first five pages. I had the bones of the query, but she really amped it up and that was the query that got me a couple of responses.
I didn’t realise how competitive the market is. Its more about being better than good enough. And a million other things that you don’t know about.
That was such an eye opening moment. It wasn’t my writing. It wasn’t that it was a dystopia. It wasn’t that he thought it wasn’t marketable. It was just that he already had that book.
You don’t have all the reasons why (for a rejection). Sometimes that makes it sting a little less. Sometimes the bourbon makes it sting a little less. And cuddling the cats and a very supportive husband…
Debbie’s Learnings
People always say don’t take it (rejections) personally. To pick yourself up after a rejection is hard. After a while you develop fatalism. It’s like “has my rejection come through yet?”
The more I learned, the more I realised I didn’t know. I learned you need to let it (your manuscript) sit. You are completely blind to the first draft. You have to have other eyes on it. When you read for someone else you pick up patterns. You need someone to help you notice yours and break you out of them.
Listen to feedback you trust. Listen to your gut. If you listen to feedback from everyone, you’ll go mad.
Be willing to implement advice. Get rid of things you really like if it improves the story. You need to be confident enough to think you’re good enough and humble.
You’re blind to your manuscript’s faults because you’re so in love with it that you can’t see what’s wrong with it.
Like phrases you use too much. I removed characters and rewrote from third person past tense to first person dual point of view.
What Advice would you give to Writers Beginning Their Querying Journey?
MelissaI don’t put all my eggs in one basket. You can’t rely on one path to get you through. Have a process for dealing with rejections. (Some writers)… have a dream agent or a few dream agents in mind and I feel like that’s setting yourself up for disappointment.
AlexTake on feedback. Actively look for feedback. Know this agent looks for this because of this interview.
SusanEven if you do fit into more than one category, you have to know how to make yourself fit into the boxes the agents want to fit. Accept that you’ve got to follow the established rule for comps. Actually read at least enough of them to understand why you’re comping it. Ask people who have experience with querying… who’ve gotten to have informal conversations with agents (at conferences). Go to any conferences available to you. If not, find people who’ve been there (not stalking 😉).
Cheryls’ Advice
Do not start querying until you are super, super happy with your manuscript. Give it to as many readers as possible and beg for their honest views. Re-write. Re-write.
-Cheryl
Tell them you’re not just interested in where the commas are. You really want to know if the story works and how do the characters come across. So ask questions. [For an example of possible questions, see my chapter onecritical reader checklist.]
Think about your comps very carefully. Think about style, tone, voice -is it similar? Don’t be too specific about the story.
Make sure you read the submission guidelines very, very carefully. If they ask for 50 pages, send 50.
In terms of getting your manuscript ready, make sure you’ve actually written it technically properly… point of view… dialogue.. make sure you learn those things from other writers. From reading books like Dave King and Renee Brown’s Self Editing for Fiction Writers.
Because an agent’s just going to throw it out the door… they need just the slightest excuse to move on to the next one.
Juliana’s Advice
After living the rejections, it gets easier. It really does.
By my 80th rejection it was, “well at least I heard back. That was nice.” I had 5 agents say, “That wasn’t for me, but I hope you’ll keep me in mind for future work.” So make sure you read your rejections all the way through, because it usually comes at the end if they say that…
If they say “I’d love to read this”, that means they want the full…
Keep track of it. Query Tracker is a really good website.
For my future queries, I have that sheet with who wanted more and whose responses were kind and personalised. I got a couple that were kind of scathing like, “consider joining a critique group.” Like, I am. I got one that just said, “Thank you. This isn’t for me.”
I can’t emphasize enough: have a support system. Nobody gets it like a writer gets it.
Debbie’s Advice
Seriously, make a list of 50 people. Collect 100 rejections. Treat it as an exercise. Be persistent. It’s a long long process. Finding an agent by Friday is like walking down the street and finding a bag of gold. It’s like going on a first blind date and expecting that person to be the one. You need to date a lot of weirdos before you find the one. It’s the same with querying.
Agents have to practically marry your manuscript to represent you. They’re going to be going over it so many times and pushing it to other people.
I need to make a decision if I’m going to keep querying or self publishing. I really love my books and I think they are publish worthy. I believe they will find a home in readers hearts. You can’t know if there’s a cavern of gold and you’re centimetres away. We don’t know how far we are from the cavern or if there is a cavern.
I kind of want to say don’t give up because you could succeed tomorrow, but you don’t want to be querying forever.
Debbie Iancu Hadad
Two short stories of mine appeared in the anthology ‘Achten Tan: Land of Dust and Bone (Tales from the Year Between, Book 1)’. Currently querying a couple of YA SFF novels, participating in three different anthologies, writing vss on Twitter and buying way too much stuff on Aliexpress. For my day job I give lectures on humor and serve as a personal chauffeur for my two teenagers. Residing in Meitar, Israel. You’ll find her on Twitter @debbieiancu.
Susan Waters
lives in Ontario, Canada. Her writing, however, usually features her east coast roots, whether by landscape or by culture. Her first novel is an upper YA Speculative Fiction she hopes is the first volume in a series. Currently she’s penning an adult romantic comedy while plotting half a dozen stories, most of which blend science fantasy and humour. You’ll find her on Twitter @storiesbysusan.
Cheryl Burman
lives in the beautiful Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, UK. Her first novel was a fantasy middle-grade trilogy but she has since taken to adult historical fiction. Her co-authored novel The Shanty Keeper’s Wife is currently being queried and she has also written a romance set in Australia in the 1950s. Her current WIP uses the Forest of Dean as its backdrop and is a magical realism novel about a young woman who becomes a hedge witch – and a little bit more.At the end: She also writes short stories and flash fiction, a few of which have won prizes. She also writes short stories and flash fiction, a few of which have won prizes. You’ll find her on Twitter @cr_burman.
Juliana Savia Clayton
I write young adult novels and picture books. Currently, I’m working on a YA Romcom. I am an active SCBWI member, serving as the Indiana chapter’s Volunteer Coordinator. I am also a member of the Indiana Writers Center. In my day job, I edit environmental documents, and I have one published non-fiction article in my field. You’ll find her on Twitter @kidlit_writer.
Alexandrina Brant
Raised on a diet of Tolkien, Doctor Who, and Agatha Christie, Alexandrina Brant grew up around the city of Oxford, England. After graduating from the University of Reading with joint honours in Psychology & Philosophy, she hightailed it to London to study a Master’s in Linguistics at UCL, where her focus was sociolinguistics and dialect blending. She currently lives in Yorkshire with her husband and two warring cats. Her short stories have been published in several local anthologies and she is working on a Steampunk novel about a linguist’s journey to rescue her fiancé and a Doctor-Who-esque sci fi about lesbian aliens trying to save a corrupt planet. She keeps up with the bookish community on Instagram @lingua_fabularum. You’ll find her on Twitter @caelestia_flora.
Melissa-Jane Nguyen
is an Aussie freelance writer and editor and mum to two little ones. She has writing published in Kidspot and Essential Baby, she sends out a fortnightly newsletter that combines aspects of writing and parenting, and she runs a short story publication with her sister. Melissa is currently working on querying and writing picture books, planning a middle grade novel, and letting a young adult manuscript marinate for a while before turning it on its head and rewriting the entire thing. Melissa is (sort of) becoming an expert at juggling lots of projects simultaneously. If you can get her to sit down for a chat, she’s partial to any kind of tea and will happily relate all she’s discovered about celebrities and topics she has no real interest in but has researched thoroughly as a result of falling down rabbit holes. You’ll find her on Twitter @MJEditing.
Total Page Visits: 1603
Related Reading
For a list of Twitter pitch parties to pitch your novel in, see this post.
For advice on crafting query letter or tweet pitches, see this one.
For a list of resource links spanning Query Letters & Synopsis to Finding and Communicating with Literary Agents, see this post.
I know of 9 confirmed and others survival in doubt parties on Twitter (and 1 on a blog) to pitch your novel to literary agents and three author mentoring programs. In this post you’ll find links to each pitch party and mentoring program website, and parties and programs listed by calendar month. You’ll also find detailed advice on effective pitch and party preparation and on making the most of #WritingCommunity support. (Hint, RTs are the beginning -not the end!).
But First… Is your book Ready to Query?
Have you edited your MS for every aspect of character, conflict, story tension etc you’ve read up on? Have you received constructive feedback from critical readers focused on making the book a better reading experience? Did you edit again and possibly get a second (and third round) of critical readers? (Especially if you’re a fellow pantser 😉). Is your query letter up to scratch? Have you researched its contents, how to ‘sell’ the book to literary agents or acquiring editors in your pitch, and received critical feedback? If not, see this post to kick your query letter into shape!
#KidLitPit Children’s books from PB to YA. January 26th 11.59pm in your time zone (all/ any), 2023. Website
#SFFPit Fantasy, Sci-fi, Speculative Fiction. August, 8am-6pm EST (Not yet scheduled for 2023. Its unclear if it will continue). SFFPit Website
Savvy Authors Pitchfest begins 9am Feb 15th 2023, June & Oct TBC. This event is by registration on theirSavy Authors Site.
#PBPitch -Picture Books- February 16th 2023, June 15th & October TBC, 8am-8pm EST. PBPitch Website.
#PBParty Picture Books. March 1 2023, midnight to 1am EST OR 6pm -8pm EST via Google Form. PBParty Website.
#WMPitch -Picture Books through to YA- April, 8am-8pm British Time Cancelled? Website no longer exists.
#MoodPitch Fiction, all audience age ranges and genres. April 6th and November 2nd 8am-8pm EST, 2023. Moodpitch website.
#Smoochpit Romance. This is pitching to a mentorship program, not literary agents. 8am-9pm EST May 12th 2023. Website
#SWANAPit writers from South West Asia & North Africa (countries listed on website). May?Cancelled? Website no longer exists and Twitter account inactive since 2022.
#Pitmad Most fiction & non-fiction. (2022 TBC): March, June, September, & December, 8am-8pm EST. Pitmad Website Pitmad is discontinued as of 16/02/2022.
#LGBTNPit Authors in the Queer Community, special focus on trans & non-binary authors. April 14th 2022, 8am-8pm. LGBTNPit Website. Discontinued as of May 2022.
#CanLitPit for Canadian authors. June, 9am to 9pm (2023 in doubt as the organiser switches jobs. Latest news is this event is currently suspended). CanLitPit Website.
#PitchDis for authors with a disability & neurodivergent authors, June 22nd, 2023, 8am-8pm, PitchDis Website.
#DVpit -Marginalised Writers- August children’s and YA, Adult has moved to Discord (announced here, as of May 2023). Discord invites will be delivered via their newsletter. DVpit Website.
#JoyPitch The opposite of Pitdark, for ‘light hearted feel good fiction and non-fiction’ of all categories and age ranges. June 1st, 8am -8pm 2023. Joypit website.
#FaithPitch -Christian Fiction- September (2022 TBC). FaithPit. websiteDiscontinued as of March 1st 2022.
If you haven’t taken this step, chances are there’s a lot you don’t know or understand about how to write a successful pitch. If you don’t know where to find tweet pitch advice, mine is here for starters.
Reading as many strong tweet pitch examples as you can also helps. To find them, search the pitch party hashtag and the hashtags you plan to pitch on. The ‘top’ feed may have some great examples, but it also has rather ordinary pitches by people with lots of rts them, so I also suggest skimming ‘latest’ too. A third source of inspiration and understanding is successful query letter pitches. Here’s a spreadsheet of 600+ successful query letters by genre.
2. Comparison Titles & Formatting
Use comps in your tweet pitches. They can indicate more about tone, setting and themes than you have room to indicate in your pitch. For tweet pitches, you’re not limited to books published within the last 5 years (unlike query pitches). Film or tv series and older books are ok. Ideally your comps will be recognisable to agents and publishers, and or contrast with each other (e.g. my MG tweet pitch comps were MATILDA X kids INCEPTION). Alternatively, you could have a notable twist on a comp, e.g. gender-swapped (fairytale/ well-known story) or for example Downton Abbey —with witches. Putting your comps in ALL CAPs at the top of your pitch can help them stand out and encourage industry folks to read and pay proper attention to your pitch.
3. Party Hashtags
Agents and publishers will search genre, audience age and marginalised writer hashtags to find pitches of interest to them. Parties like SFFPit have their own official hashtag lists, which aren’t always the same. So whichever party you’re pitching in, check if it has its own hashtag list and if so, use hashtags from that list, so your pitches are seen by industry professionals. I’ve linked every pitch party I know of’s website above.
As you’re identifying the main relevant hashtags for your pitch, and having already chosen comp titles, now is a good time to type your pitch and hashtags into a tweet or do a character count to check each pitch with comps and hashtags fits Twitter’s 280 character limit. If you’re struggling with this, you might want to skip to step 4.
4. Get Feedback on Your Pitches
There are a few options for doing this, the first being great if you’re new to Twitter and don’t know many writers yet.
Pitch Feedback Parties
Like pitch parties, practice pitch parties run on a particular hashtag, day and time. Some general ones are #Mockpit (dates on their website), or #Pracpit ( #Practpit’s website), while some parties have their own practice pitch event. Eg. #WMPitch has #PeerPitch and #DVPit has #PreDVPit. These events are a great way to get pitch feedback if you’re new to Twitter and have few contacts, or want additional opinions on pitch revisions.
Asking For Feedback
If you can’t find or can’t participate in a practice pitch party, you can also tweet asking for feedback, or search your pitch party’s hashtag for anyone offering feedback. Or you can or do a Twitter search of ‘Discord’ and ‘#AmQuerying’ to look for servers which may have pitch feedback channels. If you’d like to join my Craft & Query Discord Server (which has pitch, query letter, synopsis & beta reader channels), let me know by replying to this tweet.
5. RT or Comment Lists
Tweeting offering to add writers to a twitter list where you can RT or comment on each other’s pitches is a good way to encourage each other and to boost your pitch visibility. With so many people pitching in parties, its also an increasingly popular idea. If you don’t want to make your own Twitter list (which stores handles of people pitching so you can check their feed or pinned tweet), I suggest searching the pitch party hashtag for people offering to put writers on their lists.
6. Join a DM Group
Pitch parties can be lonely, stressful and discouraging affairs on your own. Creating or joining a Group DM on Twitter, or a Discord Server to share pitches for RTs and comments, and to chat, commiserate, celebrate successes and cheer each other on makes Party Day much more enjoyable. It gives you a community, whereas spending time on the party’s hashtag feed on your own may give you the feeling of being a drop in the ocean.
If you’re new to pitch parties or have questions about anything, including agents or publishers who like your pitches, a DM Group gives you a bunch of people to ask directly. And as many people in my DM groups have said: pitch parties are more fun in a DM group!
To find people creating DM groups, search the pitch party hashtag in the Twitter search bar. As of August 2022 I still have a pitch party dm group going, so if you’d like to join it feel free to tag or dm me @ElisesWritings asking to be added to it.
The easiest way to share your pitches in a DM is to hit this button
on the bottom right of your tweet after you pitch it. Then select ‘Send via Direct Message’ and select the name of the DM group from the menu. On computer, you can also copy the url from your browser, paste it in the DM and hit ‘enter’ to share it in the group.
7. Tweet to Explain Pitch Party Etiquette
It never hurts to tell your followers you’re pitching and that they can support you by boosting your impressions and visibility on hashtag ‘top’ feeds to industry professionals (you may like to include a mood board for your wip in this tweet). Your followers can boost by comments (which are more effective for Twitter algorithms) and RTs (which make your pitch more visible to writers, who can then comment on them). If you don’t have many followers and aren’t getting many comments or RT’s, the other hashtag feed industry professionals can search is ‘latest’, which shows up EVERYONE’s pitch at the time they tweet it.
The other important thing to tweet is the explanation that during a pitch party a ❤️ is how literary agents and indie publishers request submissions, and that non-industry likes cause disappointment, or leave us fighting hope as we sift through tens of ❤️ ‘s wondering if even one is an actual request.
8. Mind Set
2021 March’s #Pitmad saw over 570k tweets on the hashtag (yes this includes LOADS of RTs). Its possible your pitches won’t be seen by industry professionals and its VERY common not to get industry requests. Some agents and publishers made under 20 requests -period not just per genre- in March’s Pitmad. But if you go in expecting nothing from the industry, and prepare with the goal of improving your pitch craft, making writer friends, and of testing how your pitches are received by fellow writers to learn what works well for future parties and query editing- you’ll be all set for a positive experience.
9. Decide Which Pitch to Tweet First
This is important because your first pitch will get the most impressions, as people who are supporting pitching writers are most likely to retweet and comment during the first hour. So try to identify which pitch sells your character best, makes your conflict and stakes the clearest and most engaging, and ideally also the pitch which has the most voice. To get maximum retweets and or comments -pitch it in the first 1/2 hour. If you’re not sure how to write a pitch, or don’t know the difference between a pitch, a log line or a blurb (book pitches are different to both and must include certain things to be successful), here’s my post on tweet pitch crafting.
But when do you tweet your other pitches?
Hourly for some parties, but only 2 or 3 pitches max for others. Parties tend to get increasingly quiet after 1pm -especially in the finale hours- so you may wish to tweet all your pitches by as early as 1-3pm. That said, I saw a few agents tweeted that they were beginning to check Pitmad pitches in the last few hours of March 2021’s Pitmad, so if you are online during the party, checking when agents are online is your best way to decide. You’ll sometimes find their ‘I’m checking out (insert party)’ tweets on the party hashtag’s ‘Top’ feed, including agents searching party hashtags the day after the party. If you have particular agents or publishers in mind, you could also check their twitter profiles, as they will normally tweet when they start checking pitches.
9. Schedule Your Pitches on Twitter
Yes, you can use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, but now you can use Twitter to schedule, so everything is in one place. Whether you’re home all day and awake during a party, sleeping because your timezone isn’t compatible with the US east coast, or working -or both- scheduling pitches takes pressure off you during the party. If you’re online, scheduling lets you focus on retweeting and or commenting on others pitches.
To schedule pitches on Twitter
1. Hit ‘tweet’.
2. Type your pitch.
3. Select this button (beside the emoji button).
4. Select your time and date.
Timezones: If you’re not on US EST time, most parties run on it, except for #WMPitch, which runs on British time and Latinx Pitch. So check your party’s times above (its often 8am to 8pm but again, not always) and convert them to your timezone! If you’re pitching from Australia or New Zealand, remember it’s often the date after the party because we’re a day ahead 😉.
5. Hit ‘confirm’ (top right).
6. Then you’ll see your pitch again. Hit ‘schedule’ (bottom right).
10. Pin your Pitch
This is so writers you know and kind random strangers can easily find and retweet it -if you’re also retweeting other writers and your feed is cluttered with RTs. I’m hearing a lot about how comments do more for Twitter’s algorithms, so I suggest commenting on pitches if you can and asking others to do so for you. (Bear in mind this only works if they’ve got time and it isn’t midnight or 2am in their timezone -fellow Aussies -and Kiwis- I feel your pain!)
To pin your pitch to the top of your profile, after its tweeted, hit the top right ̇ ̇ ̇ then select ‘pin to your profile.’
11. During the Party
Get in your DM group and or the party’s hashtags to comment on each other’s pitches. When you find pitches of writer friends, associates or pitches you like, reply saying what you like about them. We’re all nervous, so acts of kindness like words of encouragement can really make people’s days. And yes, hopefully you will get some of what you have given -and you will have earned it.
12. After the Party
Celebrate, commiserate -ask how writers how they fared and share anything you learnt or ideas you have for next time with anyone likely to participate again. If you pitch in a future party, try and connect with the writers you’ve met this time and see if you can continue supporting each other in future. This is also a great chance, via DM group, Discord or tweet, to offer to trade query letter and synopsis feedback with querying writers.
Whichever pitch parties you participate in, Good Luck!
If you’d like a concise PDF of most of these steps, you can download it on the right.
For a list of resource links spanning Query Letters & Synopsis to Finding & Communicating with Literary Agents, see this post.
Total Page Visits: 7861
Writer Mentoring Events
There are three mentoring programs which involve matching writers with mentors, who will provide manuscript editing notes and help writers hone manuscript for submission, #Pitchwars mentors also help with query package edits. For #AuthorMentorMatch and #Pitchwars the mentors are authors, for #Revpit they are editors.
#Revpit is Revision & Editor Mentoring for MG, YA & Adult Fiction, which begins with pitching on Twitter in April. For more details, visit the Revpit Website.
#RogueMentor is a new mentoring program offering mentorships in Northern Hemisphere Summer, Spring and Fall. For more details, visit the Rogue Mentor Website.
#Pitchwars mentors profiles can be viewed and the submission window for writers to submit via email opens in September. For more details visit the Pitchwars Website. Discontinued in 2022.
Critique.#PassorPages by @OpAwesome6 is for query critiquing. For details on which genres and audience ages you can receive feedback on and when visit their website. Round one is in February, with rounds throughout the year, the last in October.
Like many writers, one of the things I loved about joining Twitter’s #WritingCommunity was the opportunity to discuss the craft and to learn with other writers. But as I followed more writers, questions about the business of writing virtually vanished from my feed. I created the hashtag #StrictlyWriting to make these things more visible.
#StrictlyWriting‘s goal is to act as a space to ask for writer or wip help, talk nitty gritty of writing craft and reflect on outlining to querying). Its also to tweet advice to help each other on our writing journeys, and share opportunities like workshops and festivals. Self Promo and Follow Threads are NOT welcome. Here’s many topics which are.
Strictly Writing Community -on Discord
Hashtags are hard to maintain on Twitter. To get around this and make detailed discussions about our writer journeys, and helpful resources more accessible, I’ve created a Strictly Writing and a Strictly Authoring Discord.
Discord began with gamers. It creates private, invite link only groups. Instead of viewing posts via a personal profile, you enter a Server (like an old school forum) with group feeds (channels), organised under Categories. Everyone comments or asks questions on topically relevant channels, so you can go straight to channels whose topics interest you and ignore channels which don’t.
The Strictly Writing Discord Community is a supportive space. It has channels for writing craft discussion and seeking critical readers, query discussion and query package feedback. There’s also a companion server, Strictly Authoring. Its channels are for discussing self publishing, newsletters, social media, author profiles and book marketing.
Both servers are open to fiction writers. Most of us write novels and or shorts, for audiences of all ages, many being SFF and quite a few queer. If you’d like to visit the Strictly Writing and or Authoring Server, reply to the tweet below and I’ll DM you an invite link. Or email me via my contact page. (I share links privately so we don’t inadvertently let trolls in 😉).
✍️Discord Update✍️ I've now got 2 Servers, for supporting each other with:
— 🇦🇺🏳️🌈 Elise (they/them) Writing Book 3 🌧⚔️ (@ElisesWritings) September 3, 2021
#StrictlyWritingResources
This tag has fallen into disuse, but selecting#StrictlyWritingResources shows many great resources relating to craft, querying and more. Feel free to add resources you’ve found helpful or you’ve made on it or to tweet them on #StrictlyWriting.
Total Page Visits: 4027
Which Other Writer Hashtags Exist? Many.
If you’d like hashtags to connect with specific types of writers, prompts, live chats & tip tags (on Twitter and Instagram), I’ve cataloged many in Writing Community Hashtag Guide. If you’re interested in questions about wip content (eg. characters, setting etc), and writing, a good tag for this is #WritingQ.
If you’re new to Twitter or Instagram, you’ll find advice on what to post and getting started on both in Social Media for Writers.
Am I selling my book to the best of my ability? Photo by Maico Pereira
With thousands of pitches set to pour through Twitter’s #Pitmad feed for literary agent and indie publisher perusal on Thursday, it’s time to tell you everything I know about crafting a quality book pitch. I’ll include tweet pitch examples, and advice which applies to query letter pitches and advertising material aimed at readers. If you’re writing a pitch as promotional material for your book, bear in mind that this post focuses on pitches aimed at literary agents and you will have more wiggle room with readers.
BookPitch vs. Blurb
On Twitter, you will see people use ‘pitch’ and ‘blurb’ interchangeably. A pitch is NOT a blurb. A pitch aimed at literary agents or publishers will not get you requests if it doesn’t include specific ingredients, address them clearly and well (see below). Pitches often conform to particular formulas, like ‘Character is X, but when Y happens character must A or else incur terrible C.’ There are variations, which include essential pitch ingredients (see below). Whereas, a back-of-book blurb may or may not include all the essential ingredients of a pitch. A blurb may also include bonus details to appeal to readers, like thematic statements. (Thematic statements are mostly NOT included in pitches because they take up limited space and are usually not what sells a book to industry professionals).
Book Pitch vs. Log lines
You may see people advising, ‘Don’t name characters in pitches. State their role or what makes them unique instead. Definitely state their uniqueness, but I suspect this advice confuses log lines with a pitch. A log line is generally telling the audience (eg. at the movies) they’re in for a wild ride or a fun journey. It’s not trying to get a literary agent or publisher to care about or take interest in a main character. Its not trying to persuade busy agents and editors that they like this character so much or relate to them so well that they want to spend their limited time reading about this character. ‘Little Timmy’ is more likely to generate sympathy or to be relatable than ‘little no-name’. So I advise against log lines in Twitter pitches (in a query letter it may work), and for either, I say name your main character!
Basics
Over the past year, I have critiqued an estimated 100+ tweet pitches for various parties (not including revised pitches). This has helped me note patterns in essential ingredients and maximise opportunities to hook a reader. However, quality ingredients don’t guarantee a quality end product. So I won’t just list ingredients, I’ll explain why it’s important to address them well, then give advice on how to do so.
Essential Book Pitch Ingredients
–Main Character –Inciting event, central conflict & stakes –Character growth that must occur for the MC to resolve conflict and avoid stakes or impossible choice the MC must make
Before we dive in
Remember that your pitch isn’t just saying ‘this is a great novel’. You’re telling an industry professional why they want to represent your novel. So how does your novel differ from others in your genre? What is unique about your character, inciting event, conflict, stakes & character growth? As you draft and revise your pitch, keep checking that it highlights what is most unique and compelling about your novel. Try to be as specific as you can in your pitch.
Note For SFF & Multiple POV Writers
It’s tempting to write an opening which introduces the wonderful world you have created -but don’t. In a tweet pitch and even in a query letter, you aren’t selling your fantasy or scifi setting. You’re selling an intriguing character, with a compelling personal role to play in a conflict involving significant personal stakes. This is why it’s so hard to pitch multiple points of view. Its also why, if your novel has multiple points of view, I recommend giving the main characters a pitch to themselves, to do justice to each character’s arc. You may also write like to attempt a 2 pov pitch. A two pov tweet pitch normally has a sentence to introduce each character and a third sentence explaining their roles and stakes in the conflict.
Character
Photo by Ferdinand studio
Your main character is your hook. Your goal is to introduce them that piques interest and or invite a literary agent or publisher to connect with them. (Do name your MC- thats a mental hook for details about them to hang on and makes more sympathetic than ‘random, un-named office worker’.) A character description could be a single adjective, or a job title. Ideally, it will show or state what your character draws on to help them confront the conflict and be specific to your character. Eg. fear of swimming from near-drowning as a child, in a story of personal growth in which she sees a child drowning offshore at a deserted beach. However you introduce your character, consider: what is the most unique thing about them? What helps them resolve the conflict and what are the most engaging word choices to show or describe that?
Character Intro Examples
“17 YO Jorden’s specialties are baking apple pie, hand to hand combat and leaping before he looks.” -Debbie Iancu-Haddad @debbieiancu.
“Elective mute Ashari remembers nothing before the void in her mind.” -Halla Williams @hallawilliams1.
If you’re struggling to find space for an engaging character introduction, you could use the inciting event as your hook and frame your introduction with it, as I have done here. “Thrust to power by death in the family, peace-born Ruarnon…” -Elise Carlson.
Inciting Event and Tension
You might like to frame your character introduction with ‘when’ to lead into the inciting event. ‘When’ is a good opening to lead into a collision of worlds, desires or wills etc. It amplifies the fact that the character we’ve just met and connected with is about to have their world turned upside-down and leaves us wondering how and what the outcome will be. (Try not to use the phrase ‘turned upside-down’. This phrase is common to many stories and can sound generic. If you use it, highlight the way in which that character’s life is changed. Or their emotional response/ reaction, to keep the focus on what is ‘unique’ about your story). Ending with a clash of wills with another character, or clash of morals between the character’s beliefs and actions -with an obstacle to their goal or resolution of the conflict- is a good way inject tension.
Inciting Event Examples
“His suicide mission: Build a bomb, destroy a space ship and save the world.” -Debbie Haddad.
“Having lost her memory in a storm, she chooses the unlikely safety of becoming a mercenary for the enigmatic Captain Westorr.” -Halla Williams.
“Monsters live under beds, but Julie is sure there’s one in her ceiling.” -mine.
An important thing to note with conflict is that in a pitch you don’t create conflict by saying ‘there’s a war on.’ Conflict here doesn’t refer to external plot events. It refers to your main character’s personal struggles within those events. Or to struggles in relationships necessary to achieve story goals, or to moral or ethical dilemma’s your main character faces. Again, inclusion of these personal elements creates opportunity for readers to connect emotionally to your character and story and for your pitch to hook them.
Of pitches I’ve critiqued, I would estimate that half do not clearly state the external conflict and or the main character’s role in it. Author bias really kicks in here. You know your story so well that your subconscious fills holes in your pitch. But critical readers can point them out, so you can fill holes and clarify that pitch for industry professionals. This is where I highly recommend trading pitch feedback with other writers.
Conflict Examples
“But falling in love wasn’t part of the plan…” -Debbie Iancu-Haddad.
“There’s only one way to find out and stop being scared -climb the tree beside the house and meet the THING!” -my picture book pitch.
Stakes
Once you have introduced a character and conflict which has hooked our interest, we need to know not only the external stakes, but the personal stakes your character faces. A pitch in which the stakes are ‘or the world will be destroyed’ is generic. Also, the world/ fantasy kingdom x’ is an anonymous entity the reader knows nothing about, so it has little impact on us. A character however, is someone we can connect with, so when you threaten that character, we feel something. If external conflict is key to your story, be sure to state the character’s role in it and the personal stakes their role entails.
(Conflict and) Stakes Examples
“…completing his mission means sacrificing the girl he loves.” -Debbie Haddad.
“But ‘safe’ is a relative term. For both of them.” -Halla Williams.
Character Growth and Impossible Choice/ More Tension
Perhaps the greatest place to hook a reader into your pitch emotionally is when you state how your character must grow or develop to overcome the conflict. If main character Jane hates estranged uncle Tom, but his knowledge is crucial to preventing granny’s murder, and Jane must forgive Tom’s past mistakes to enlist his help in saving Granny -that adds tension.
Specific demons from your character’s past (or other obstacles/ shortcomings) they must overcome to resolve the conflict are often what makes me lament your book not being in print yet. Think about how your character must change to overcome the conflict they face and try to include it in your pitch. If you struggle to identify how your character changes (I did in my first Pitmad), this may be a sign that your novel isn’t ready to query. It may signal that your main character’s arc needs another structural edit (as mine did.)
Impossible Choice Example
“…she must use her voice or let her captain perish.” -Halla Williams.
But Wait, There’s More
The Save the Cat Formula features an addition that may be difficult to fit in a pitch, but can make a pitch highly engaging to read. This final ingredient to kick your pitch up a level is adding a complication to your character’s ability to resolve the conflict. Then indicate how this complication raises the stakes. What factor makes it even harder for your MC to achieve their goal? Does a friend betray them? Do they lose an asset crucial to success at the eleventh hour? Can you jam this complication and an indication of how it raises the stakes into your pitch?
“When a monster army invades…” (the second conflict in my novel).
Tweet Pitch Examples which got Agent Likes
The above pitch elements may seem like a lot, and you may only fit some of them into each pitch -which is why it’s great you get 3- so you can highlight different elements in each one. Here’s the pitches I’ve referenced above -each reference is often sections of 2 different pitches.
The day teen eco-terrorist Jorden Lund left Earth he had 4 months left to live His suicide mission: Build a bomb, destroy a space ship and save the world But falling in love wasn't part of the plan and completing his mission means sacrificing the girl he loves#YA#SF#pitmad
17 YO Jorden's specialties are baking apple pie, hand to hand combat and leaping before he looks. Just his luck, when he finally meets the perfect girl he's on a suicide mission to save the planet. She doesn't remember Earth. He's dying to save it. #pitmad#YA#SF
Late June update: Halla is now agented -congrats Halla!
RUIN OF KINGS x PRIORY OTOT Elective mute Ashari remembers nothing before the void in her mind. A mission with mercenaries takes her into the marsh: a place she fears for reasons she doesn’t yet understand. There she must use her voice or let her captain perish. #PitMad#F#A
Rebellious fae Ashari wields a voice that can harm or heal. Having lost her memory in a storm, she chooses the unlikely safety of becoming a mercenary for the enigmatic Captain Westorr. But ‘safe’ is a relative term. For both of them.#PitMad#F#A
Monsters live under beds, but Julie is sure there's one in her ceiling. Every night it scratches and scrapes. She lies awake, worrying what the THING could be. There's only one way to find out and stop being scared -climb the tree beside the house and meet the THING!#PBPitch
— 🇦🇺🏳️🌈 Elise (they/them) Writing Book 3 🌧⚔️ (@ElisesWritings) June 18, 2020
Total Page Visits: 7908
How Do I Achieve All This in a Book Pitch On My Own?
You don’t. Whether you’re writing tweet pitches or a query letter pitch: tweet on #AmQuerying and #WritingCommunity asking who’s happy to trade pitch feedback. Offer to give others feedback in exchange. Most of what I’ve learnt about pitch craft came not from reading blogs like this, but from reading MANY tweet pitches. It also came from reading query letters -critically- and providing feedback to help other writers strengthen their pitches. Not all of this knowledge applied directly to my own pitches (to date), but all of it has given me valuable insights.
If you’d like to join a Discord Server focused on querying and including tweet pitch and query and synopsis feedback channels, let me know by replying to this tweet or using my contact page.
Another way to learn from other writers is to enter ‘#Pitmad’ (or other parties hashtag), and the genre tags you will pitch on into Twitter’s search bar, then reading the top pitches from previous parties. Some will unfortunately be rough and in need of editing, but many will be jaw dropping and great mentor pitches to learn from.
More Book Pitch and Related Resources
I’ve listed the pitch parties I’m aware of, which months they’re held in and links to Pitch Party websites here.
You’ll find resource links spanning Query Letters & Synopsis to Finding and Communicating with Literary Agents, in this post.
If you’re new to Twitter, the bottom section of my Social Media For Writer’s is full of advice to help you get started, and I’ve cataloged other #WritingCommunity hashtags to help you navigate the community in this Guide.
Hashtags boost tweet and post impressions, and on Twitter and Instagram alike, they can help you connect with writers in the #WritingCommunity, and with readers. There are specific hashtags for writing stages, genres, types of writers, promoting books and more. I’ve categorised hashtags by type and purpose to boost your visibility and help you find whatever you’re seeking in Twitter and Instagram’s Writing Community, via hashtag.
Umbrella Writer Hashtags
First up, to find fellow writers to share the journey, share information, exchange beta reads etc, you need your tweets seen by writers. There are some popular, broad-in-purpose hashtags for this, including those below. Unless you’re posting on a niche topic (eg. steam levels in romance), I’d use at least one of these and a couple of specific hashtags (further down) as well.
Hashtags which say ‘I’m the kind of writer you are/ the writer you like to read’ are more likely to stand out on a Twitter feed and prompt us to read and reply -because they suggest we will relate to your tweet. Hashtags which say ‘I’m feeling your editing/ querying hopes/ agony’ also signal who will relate and invite a response. (If you use a few, well chosen, easy to see tags. For tweeting tips see this post.) Some hashtags to give these signals with are Writer Type Hashtags, Genre tags and Wip (Work in Progress) Stage tags. I highly recommend the latter -most of the writer’s I’ve made friends and stayed in touch with on twitter are at similar stages of the writing process and tweeting about your wip’s stage on relevant hashtags is a great way to make those connections.
Some writers tweet regular prompts to which other writers respond on specific hashtags. Mini writer communities can grow up around these, so if you like a prompt, I recommend viewing its feed (by selecting its hashtag) and interacting with other writers tweeting on it, as well as tweeting your prompt responses on the tag. (It’s not a prompt hashtag, but #StrictlyWriting (mainly on Twitter) has a small community talking about writing craft and the writing process on it, so you may like to search and reply to or tweet on it. For its companion tags & Discord Group, see this post).
Twitter Tags
Instagram Tags
Writer Prompts
#SFFWrite (DM me if you’d like to take over this prompt!)
On Instagram, you don’t tend to get daily (or weekly) regular prompts. Challenges are more common, and they tend to run for set time periods. To find them, try typing #WriterChallenge in Insta’s search bar, and see which challenge hashtags that turns up. Check dates on posts in your search results to see if the challenge is still running.
NB: for more Insta tags see below Twitter Prompt & Twitter Help tags.
TwitterShorts/ Poetry PiecePrompts
If you enjoy writing shorts or poetry, you’ll find regular prompts and fellow shorts writers and poets on these tags. In this case, appreciating (and perhaps sharing via retweet) each other’s writing is a good way to connect. #WritingPromptsis used by a range of writers for a range of prompts, whereas the tags below have a single host tweeting prompt words on them, sometimes daily, sometimes on a particular day.
Whether you’re writing, revising, editing or querying, there are specific hashtags you can search to find tips and practical help. (In Twitter, selecting or pasting any hashtag in the search bar will display a feed of only tweets on that tag. All tags below are linked to those feeds).
To Tweet for Writer Help you’re welcome to use #StrictlyWritingor, if you’re searching for resources, #StrictlyWritingResources. For asking for help or tweeting to writers generally, #WritingCommunity is the best umbrella tag to use, which I tend to use with topic specific tags like genre or writing stage tags. Writers tend to tweet any subject on #WritingCommunity now, but the tag helps your tweets get impressions, so its still worth using.
To seek Critical Readers, you can ask who’s interested by tweeting on the Critical Reader Tags below.
To find you genre, put your it/ your subgenre/ audience age (maybe with the word ‘books’) onto a # in the Twitter search bar, and see which variation of relevant tag is most popular.
More Instagram Hashtags
WriterCommunity
Hashtags
#WritersCommunity
#WritersSociety
#WritersHelpingWriters
#WriterSociety
#WriterCommunity
#WritersTogether
Tags to talk to
Writers
#WritersOfInstagram
#WritersOnInstagram
#FellowCreativeMinds
#WritersOfig
#WritersOfInsta
#Writers_Den_
#WriterGram
Author Type Tags
#IndieAuthor
#BlackAuthors
#AuthorsOfColour
#Authoress
#AuthorMom
#WattPadAuthor
#Authorpreneur
Talk to Authors
#AuthorLove
#AuthorsOfIg
#AuthorOfInsta
#AuthorOfInstagram
#AuthorsOfInstagram
#AuthorCommunity
#AuthorsCommunity
Tags to Talk About
Writing
#WritingANovel
#WritingABook
#StrictlyWriting
#JustWrite
Tip/ Help Tags
#WritingAdvice
#WritingTips
#AuthorsSupportingAuthors
Blog Promo Tags
#BlogPost
#InstaBlogger
#WriterBlog
#BookBlogging
#InstaBlogging
#BloggingCommunity
Critical Readers
#BetaReader(s)
#CritiquePartner(s)
Author ContentTags
#AuthorGram
#AuthorQuotes
#AuthorMemes
#AuthorLife
Author Activity Tags
#AuthorTalk
#AuthorVisit
#AuthorEvent
#AuthorInterview
#AuthorSigning
Book Lover Tags
#BookLover
#BookWorm
#BookAddict
#BookNerd
#ILoveBooks
#Bookish
Tags to talk about & or promotebooks
#BooksAndCoffee
#BooksBooksBooks
#BookPhoto
#BookPhotography
#Bookstagram
#AllThingsBookish
#BooksThatMatter
#BookLove
#InstaBooks
#FantasyBooks
(YourGenre)#books
Reader Tags
#BookReview
#ReadersOfInsta
#BookCommunity
#IgReads
#BookLovers
Poetry People Tags
#Poetry_Addicts
#PoetryLovers
#PoetrySociety
#PoetryTribe
#PoetryCommunityOfIg
Poem Tags
#Poetry
#MicroPoetry
#PoetryGram
#PoetryOfIg
#ByMePoetry
#PoetryIsArt
#PoetryPorn
#PoetryIsLife
#PoetryCorner
#PoetryForTheSoul
#PoetryIsNotDead
#PoetryOfInstagram
Total Page Visits: 4518
Instagram has many more tags and new ones developing. Searching any of the above tags and seeing which other tags people posting on them are using will turn up more related hashtags.
Related Posts
If You’re New(ish) to Twitter or Instagram’s #WritingCommunity, here’s an Introduction and some tweeting and posting tips.
For Twitter Pitch Party and Mentoring Program Hashtags, details & website links, see this post.
G'day! I'm an Aussie (they/ them) who graduated from playing imaginary games in my extensive backyard to writing YA Fantasy. In between educating energetic, enthusiastic minds as excited about life as I am —kids— and adventures in Europe, North America, South-East Asia and locally, I enjoy writing adventures and epic conflicts for the young and young at heart.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
