By W. Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Every writer needs connections to other writers—whether you are brand new or like me have been in publishing for decades. Last month in part one, I encouraged you to use LinkedIn to expand your publishing network and gave you some ideas about positioning your profile and other aspects

In this article I want to give you some deeper ideas about how to use LinkedIn connections.  Throughout the publishing world, there is a great deal of movement. An editor you loved at a publishing house, could suddenly join a literary agency or move to a different publisher? Or any number of other changes could happen in their publishing life—yet here’s the key: when people change positions, they take their LinkedIn account with them. In fact they may have a Gmail or yahoo address on their LinkedIn account which makes it the best way to reach them.

As I mentioned in part 1 last month, I have over 19,000 LinkedIN connections. A number of editors, bestselling authors, agents and others are my long-term friends from my decades in publishing. Many of these people I haven’t called or spoken with in years. One of my classic writing books has a revised edition that will release this fall called Book Proposals That $ell. In 2004, I wrote this book as a frustrated editor who wanted to help writers but also who wanted to receive better submissions. The first edition has helped many writers and I completely revised this new edition with different endorsements. 

Many writers wonder how you get endorsements for your book. The simple answer is to ask but you have to ask in the right way. The right way is a short email and even offering to draft the endorsement for the person. But how to you reach them in the first place?

I made a list of people I wanted to approach for endorsements.  A number of these people had changed publishing positions and I had not spoken or emailed them in many years. I turned to their LinkedIn profile for their contact information and used that information to reach them. 

To be transparent, not everyone I approached responded. Some responded with a no and yet others did respond with an endorsement. Even though I’ve been in publishing for decades, I still hear no. The key is to have the ability to ask and have the connection through LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn has tools to help you expand your connections. Because of my large number of connections, I receive several invitations a day to connect with individuals. I do not want to be connected to spammers or individuals who I don’t immediately recognize. Each time I check their profile and:

—If blank or only starting their connections, often I do not connect with them.

—If they are outside of the U.S. and I see no immediate relationship, then I do not connect with them. Sometimes I mark the person as spam and if so, LinkedIn will not allow them to send me another invitation.

—If I see they have connections with other publishing people that I know, like and trust, then I will often connect with those individuals.

Notice several things about how I used LinkedIn:

1. I do not spend much time on the site.

2. My profile is completely filled out—and LinkedIn lists me as an “all-star” with my information which has a great deal of detail.

3. I’m cautious and thoughtful about the people that I do connect with on the site.

There are many other ways to use LinkedIn. There are groups and other tools on the site. I have not chosen to get involved in these aspects because my time is focused mostly on being an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing and helping other authors get their books into print. If I receive an invitation to connect with someone I do not recognize, sometimes I will reply to that invitation. The email goes directly to their inbox. In my short email, I ask them to remind me of our connection or relationship.

There are probably many more effective ways to use LinkedIn. I suspect many of those ways I’m not using involve large volumes of time (something I do not have to spend on LinkedIn at the moment). As an additional resource, I encourage you to grab this 35 page report on LinkedIn from my friend John Kremer.

I hope I’ve given you some new ideas how you can connect with others in your profession and increase your use of this site.

View Part 1 of this series here.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in Colorado. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s newest book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.