The job interview I don’t know I’m having

I love being part of an online community. Apart from my blog I’m active on Twitter and Facebook and am involved with two forums devoted to writing for children. I love the fact that while my children are sleeping I can connect with other writers, friends and family around the world any time of the day or night. I mainly use Facebook for chatting with friends and family, catching up with people from high school I haven’t seen in years and checking out cute photos of my friends’ kids and puppies and houses. I use Twitter for everything writing related and have found many, many awesome blogs and resources. However, each time I post anything, anywhere, I must tread with caution because I never know who might be checking me out. And I never know when I might be sitting the job interview I don’t know I’m having.

I participated in my first Twitter chat session today called #askagent. I stumbled upon it while flipping through tweets from the various writery people I follow and decided to see what it was all about. Essentially, #askagent was a Twitter-based chat session in real-time with people from all over the world (mainly the US) and quite a few US literary agents. I would love to have a literary agent represent me and my work so I was keen to see where the conversation headed. I quickly worked out that you could ask an agent about anything at all , except query letters. I decided to jump right in and ask a question of my own: Do agents check out authors online before they make a decision on representation? The resounding answer was yes. Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Live Journal – all were fair game for agent research. In their own words the agents were looking to ‘avoid the crazies’. Although they didn’t specify what constituted a ‘crazy’ I’m guessing that it would be someone who was so dependent it would be like representing a limpet, so unreliable they need a leash to keep them in check or so ‘out there’ that any sort of agent/client relationship was out of the question.

It made me stop and think about a tweet I read earlier this week. An unpublished author was lamenting their lack of success thus far. That’s perfectly reasonable, and I no doubt have done the same. The way they did it however lacked forethought. Their tweet when something like this: “I can’t believe XYZ are publishing such rubbish when they rejected my magnificent manuscript. What are they thinking? I would so love to work with XYZ.” (All in 140 characters, of course.) When I read it I cringed. Didn’t the tweeter know that everyone, everywhere could read what he/she had just written? What if publisher XYZ was following them? What if a potential agent was checking them out? Given what I learned today in #askagent, that could be enough to turn an agent off.

And then there was an incident during #askagent that left me flabbergasted. I’m not sure if the person was trying to be facetious or was well-known amongst the group so it would be interpreted differently, but suddenly a tweet popped up that said, “This #askagent has been nothing but a waste of time as usual. I’m going to bed.” I just about choked. I’m assuming because the person was following #askagent in the first place they had some sort of interest in publishing, writing or getting an agent. And yet their sulky tweet may just have ensured they never get past the round recycling bin (aka the rubbish bin).

I’m not about to pretend to be someone I’m not and I’m certainly not advocating creating a false persona, but the fact remains that agents (and quite possibly, publishers) do their homework. They will google my name and see what they find. They will read through my blog, flip through my tweets and come to some sort of conclusion as to the sort of person I am. They will decide if I’m someone they think they can work with. And fair enough. Agents take big risks when they sign a new author. They invest clock-faces of time and a lot of money in what is essentially, a gamble. They will only ever be compensated for their efforts if they actually make a sale. Of course they’re going to want to know who they’re signing.

Like any real-time job interview I want to present myself at my best. I want to come across as professional yet easy-going. I want an agent to know I take my writing seriously but not myself. I want to show I’ve done my homework and am putting in the hard yards – I don’t expect to be handed anything on a platter. I want to show I’m not a drama queen or a prima donna; that I have great passion for children’s books and consider it a great privilege to write for kids. And I want to show that I have what it takes to be a career writer, someone who can write and sell books for many, many years to come.

At any moment in time – perhaps just now – I may have sat a job interview without even realising I’m having one. And the saddest part would be that I would never even know that an opportunity had been missed. I’m going to be 100%, authentically me. But I’m going to be the best me I can be, online and off.