{"id":1617,"date":"2010-07-06T00:51:39","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T05:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2010-07-06T00:51:39","modified_gmt":"2010-07-06T05:51:39","slug":"tweet-or-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2010\/07\/06\/tweet-or-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Tweet or Die?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We’ve all heard people touting the importance of that ever-present writing buzzword: platform<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We’ve all heard that without <\/em>a platform, you may as well give up writing, no matter how good you are.<\/p>\n

We’ve all heard about how writers need a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a Foursquare account, a Gowalla account, a YouTube account, a Tumblr account, a Goodreads account, a blog on Amazon.com, a– well…you get the picture.<\/p>\n

Without all these things, a writer stands no chance, right?<\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

I recently attended the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I attended sessions with agents, many of whom have sold books for bestselling writers and work for agencies representing some of the biggest names in fiction out there.<\/p>\n

And what did all these agents say about a writer’s platform?<\/p>\n

We really don’t care. If a writer has a blog or Twitter following–fine, but a <\/em>great debut novel from somebody with <\/em>no online presence is easier to sell than just a <\/em>good debut novel from a writer with a <\/em>strong platform.<\/em><\/p>\n

Granted, I didn’t hear every agent in attendance talk about how they view a writer’s platform, but all the sessions I attended featured agents, and this feeling about a writer’s online presence was unanimous.<\/p>\n

This differed greatly from the general consensus at sessions focusing on social networking, where the feelings about a writer’s platform ran along the lines of this:<\/p>\n

Without a Twitter account, you’re as good as dead!<\/em><\/p>\n

(Disclosure: I’m basing this off of recaps I read and what I heard from people who attended sessions focusing on social networking–none of which featured agents.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

So who’s right?<\/p>\n

I’m going to lean more toward the agents, since they are the people representing writers and selling their work.<\/p>\n

Several agents said they encourage their writers to blog, but said if the writers didn’t, that it was no big deal. The only instance in which agents said a writer must <\/em>have a platform is for those writing non-fiction. But if you’re writing fiction, the best thing you can do is just write a great book.<\/p>\n

If you do that, it doesn’t matter if you blog, tweet, or let the world know you’re the Mayor of Taco Bell…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve all heard people touting the importance of that ever-present writing buzzword: platform. We’ve all heard that without a platform, you may as well give up writing, no matter how good you are. We’ve all heard about how writers need a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a Foursquare account, a Gowalla account, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[33,7,32,16,59],"tags":[61,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}