Before you write it off, ask yourself if you’re using it to its full potential. It’s a resource for:

• Learning when you follow people you admire and read what they share
• Connecting when you use it to develop relationships with people you can learn from or who are in your book’s target audience
• Getting the word out about your book when you use it properly (meaning, don’t constantly tweet “buy my book” messages)

That should be enough, right? But Twitter is the social networking site that keeps on giving to authors in unexpected ways.

Here are two more valuable ways that Twitter supports your work as an author.

1. Agent pitch contests

Writers are connecting with agents through Twitter pitch fests with agents. Young adult author Brenda Drake hosts regular “Pitch Madness” events with the #PitMad hashtag (requires registration on her blog). The challenge is to pitch your idea in 140 characters or less. Pitches that made it through are listed online; use them for inspiration before you participate in one of these events.

Entranced Publishing is also hosting #FridayFrenzy Twitter Pitch fests during Fridays in April. Learn more and start the process at the Bende Books blog.

2. Twitter book clubs

Laura Moser shared her experience with Twitter book clubs in a weekend Wall Street Journal article, “Tweet Any Good Books Lately?” Moser explains what she was looking for in a Twitter club and offers helpful tips to Twitter book club participants.

She refers to three clubs:

• @PenguinUSA Twitter book club
• JBC/Jewcy Twitter book club
• The Atlantic‘s 1book140

I’ll add a few more:

• The book club
• The Guardian book club
• Huffington Post book club

Instead of viewing Twitter book clubs as an opportunity to get your book selected for a discussion (they are probably very competitive), use them, instead, as opportunities to gain insights into what readers do and don’t like about the work of others. Naturally, you’ll want to pay particular attention to books in your genre.

Do you participate in any Twitter pitch fests for authors and agents, or in Twitter book clubs? Have they been helpful? Please share links to them here.