Writer's Resource: Search Twitter for Relevant Information

Hello out there! This is our first Writer's Resource post in a while, but it's a good one.

I talked about how useful Twitter can be in a previous post (Twitter-ific: Twitter for Writers), but did you know you can also use it as a tool to find specific information?

I learned about this method from one of the Literary Rambles website's brilliant Tip Tuesday posts.

You can use Google to search through an agent's posts to see if they've said anything recently that might be relevant to you or your manuscript (such as "Even though my website says I like contemporary, I'm not the right agent for contemporary romance" or "You can send me queries, but I'm really not looking for new clients right now"--both statuses I've actually seen!). Often you'll find much more up-to-date information via Twitter than on an agency website or blog.

Here's how it works: in the Google search bar, type site:twitter.com/[twitter user name, without the @ sign]. Then type your search term.

Here's an example. Let's say I wanted to find out what Janet Reid (one of my favorite Twitter agents!) has been saying about mystery novels recently. I would type the following:

This takes me to a list of her recent comments on Twitter that include the word mystery.

Pretty cool, huh?