Twitter Hashtag Helps Authors Identify Agents and Editors

I just learned about the #MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) hashtag on Twitter — a thread for agents and editors to tweet what they are looking for.

And, wait, there’s more. An enterprising person (whose name I haven’t yet discovered) has compiled these tweets on a blog on Tumblr — http://agentandeditorwishlist.tumblr.com/ — and you can even search by genre. (For FAQs: http://agentandeditorwishlist.tumblr.com/about)

Now everything is not done for you. You still have to play detective, finding the book submission info by first finding the agent or editor’s site via the Twitter account of the person tweeting or a Google search or the like.

And, of course, you have to follow the individual submission instructions, write a good email, send a good writing sample, etc. Then usually wait weeks for an answer.

Still, I have found the info in these tweets usually more informative than the website info that lists an agent’s interests or an editor’s interests.

I have been using this information to query agents regarding my work-in-progress, the dystopian thriller THE MOTHER SIEGE. Here is the beginning of the pitch I am currently using in my query emails:

Imagine the future of 2049 and the government has just decreed that, in 30 days, all children from the ages of six months to 18 years will be removed to group homes. And as a mother you are already a subversive — having falsified the death of one of your children at birth to avoid the child being “eliminated.”

If you want to read the beginning chapters of this novel, you can do so on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/MSWattpad (and comments are appreciated).

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy story CIA FALL GUY.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com