Twitter

Less than a week after becoming 'blogger extraordinaire' I'm now on Twitter. The only platform left to conquer seems to be Facebook. Ok, with a handful of blog readers and a meager 7 followers on Twitter maybe I've still got some conquering to do on those platforms.

Isn't it funny that a few years ago I would've said "Facebook or Myspace?" Some how I don't think Justin Timberlake is going to bring that one back.

I watched a Dateline NBC episode last weekend (the program of last resort since the DVR has run dry at the bottom of the summer tv crapheap. It was Dateline or one of the thirteen Covert Affairs saved up, and I'm still not ready for the much camp). The topic was cyber bullying and the case was a mere 3-4 years old (the normal murder to trial timeline). Every time they mentioned the online spat between the two girls there was an ominous shot of a computer screen showing Myspace. I knew it was ominous because the shot was at a skewed angle. It was inadvertently comical. Each time it popped up my first reaction was, 'why are they using Myspace?'

I digress. I'm now on twitter @I_read_books. Follow me in the column to the right. You can also receive email updates. I must confess that I'm finding this social networking thing more complicated than a Millennial generation boy should. (Fun fact: I had to look up what generation I belong to. I thought it was gen. X, but apparently they're getting old and I'm not there yet). There is an endless stream of tweets, functions I'm not familiar with, and more apps to link me to the site that I can count. But using an app seems to be the best alternative to safari on my iPad, which freaks out and performs a disco page show--opening and closing new pages at random--when I try to use twitter. I'm using the official twitter app now, but I've seen tweet deck and others. If anybody has a suggestion I'm open.

This all leads me to my main point: Mr. or Ms. Perfect Literary Agent, if you are out there reading this and you have some spare time between query rejections and are looking for a manuscript to read and love, please come forward now. Spare me this all consuming process of integration into modern times. I read your comments on the addictiveness of twitter and the difficulty of unplugging. I know you don't really wish that pain on another. The only way to save me is to represent me now!

Not sold yet? Here's my query, if you want more let me know:

Sam Oak has has been tasked with succeeding where the FBI has failed. The mysterious theft of a high tech weapon from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has the FBI counterterrorism division on high alert. When a news making attack is carried out in Manhattan and the FBI is unable to make headway in the case they're forced to hire Sam as a consultant.

Sam is an Ex-Marine with a Private Investigator's license, a quick wit, and an issue with authority. His reputation for digging just a bit deeper than his peers has snared him the consulting gig, whether he likes the bureaucracy or not. Sam arrives at DARPA headquarters and quickly finds that the FBI has left him no leads or suspects to work with and a rookie agent as his liaison.

Sam pokes at the case until he strikes a nerve, manifested in an attempt at his life. When he finally does unravel the case he finds the motive for the crime morally ambiguous and is forced to weigh his duty to justice against his compassion for a sick child in need of treatment.

The case has taken Sam away from his native San Francisco and placed him three thousand miles away in Arlington, VA--far away from his childhood love. Ellie Porter is ten years removed from her relationship with Sam and a year past leaving her abusive husband. When her soon-to-be Ex starts an escalating pattern of harassment just weeks before the divorce is final Sam wishes nothing more than to be close enough to protect her.

Mind Games is a story of suspense and mystery, love and greed, and the secrets that can be revealed with a little bit of extra digging.

Page 99 Test

I've got at least fifteen page views now. One of them is confirmed as not having been me! Thank you, crabcakes.

A friend of mine recently turned me on to a great website called Page 99. Authors can upload their page 99 for review and commentary. It's set up to mimic flipping into a book at your local bookstore and appraising whether the page catches your interest.

10/18/11 update: my page 99 has been removed for manuscript updates. Look for a fresh sample by the end of the year.

Blogging - The Final Frontier (aside from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and any number of more current social media)

Blog
Noun
A website that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the author
___________

So the conversation I had with myself went something like this:

Skeptical Everyday Me:
Why do you think anybody wants to know your innermost reflections? You lambast the social media platform for encouraging uninteresting people to share their thoughts with the world, deluding them into thinking it cares.

HeWrites (Desperately Hoping to Succeed Author Me):
You're right. You're right. I concede your point from the start. But I'm a struggling writer. Everything I read says build a following.

Everyday Me:
If you're a struggling writer you might want to focus on the writing part before you find a following.

HeWrites:
Maybe I used the wrong term. I'm not struggling to write. I've written an entire novel.

Everyday Me:
Really?

HeWrites:
Yeah. So maybe I should used the term struggling author.

Everyday Me:
A novel. Wow. Have you published it?

HeWrites:
And there's the rub. In my naïveté I thought that writing the book would be the hard part. In fact it was. But finding an agent to take it on is harder.

Everyday Me:
What's this agent talk about? Are you looking for an insurance policy? Find a publisher.

HeWrites:
They won't talk to me without a literary agent.

Everyday Me:
Then find an agent.

HeWrites:
They won't talk to me without a publishing record.

Everyday Me:
That sounds a bit circular.

HeWrites:
Like a hamster on a wheel. Each of the 600 or so reputable literary agents in the country receive thousands of queries a year. Because of the wonders of email these queries are now easier than ever for an author to submit and correspondingly easier for an agent to reject (hit the delete button and it's gone into cyberspace forever).

Everyday Me:
What's a query?

HeWrites:
A 500-600 word teaser to get the attention of the agent and make them want to read more. It's often followed by a 500-600 word synopsis--the literary equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment wherein you get to take your 94,000 page manuscript and condense it down to a few paragraphs.

Everyday Me:
If that could've been done wouldn't you have written a short story?

HeWrites:
You'd think.

Everyday Me:
What about a good old face-to-face? Knock on some doors. Go the extra mile. How will they know what a charming, intelligent, dare I say, handsome--

HeWrites:
--Thank you--

Everyday Me:
--Man you are if you don't put yourself front and center?

HeWrites:
Face time is a great idea. But half of the literary agents are in New York. That's a long walk or an expensive flight. Plus they don't want to be overrun by authors showing up at their offices. They'd see me staring in the entrance window, sweaty hands cupped to my eyes and pressed against the tinted glass to see inside, nervous ragged breath fogging up said glass, and call the cops to drag me away.

Everyday Me:
Don't they ever come out to mingle with the unwashed masses?

HeWrites:
Sure--at writer conventions. But unless you've got more vacation days and spare change lying around than I think (and I know you don't, since you're me, after all) that won't do you much good either. They are usually three day events, starting at a couple hundred bucks for registration alone. Add lodging on top of that.

Everyday Me:
I checked my pockets and I don't carry that much on me.

HeWrites:
I know.

Everyday Me:
So where does that leave us?

HeWrites:
Writing a blog. Maybe with the aforementioned charm, intelligence, and humor--

Everyday Me:
--Nobody mentioned humor.

HeWrites:
You know our philosophy; if one person laughs at a joke it's funny enough. And that's not exclusive to one other person.

As I was saying--it leaves us writing a blog, gathering followers, and askng those followers to read, comment on, and mold our work as they see fit. And if any of them happen to be authors ready to recommend the work, or agents filling the wee hours of their mornings trolling about erstwhile authors' blogs in search of hidden treasure (or amusement), all the better.

Everyday Me:
Let's blog! But do it well. I'd like to transition fully into you.

HeWrites:
Wouldn't all mere mortal-unpublished writers.
____________

So there you have it. I'm a blogger. I'll post updates on my efforts, snippets of my work, and (since I now have the platform anyway) maybe some opinions on current topics. Please feel free to email, post comments, and participate in any way you like. If my success comes it will be on your backs.

-Steve