Obtaining agency representation is your first step toward getting profitably published. Most publishers won’t even look at unsolicited manuscripts.But, before approaching an agent to represent you, you should finalize
presentation of your book.
Agents don’t have time to waste dealing with publishing ‘wannabees’ who don’t have, and may never have, a concrete project to represent. To busy agents, dreams don’t make it.
If you approach an agent before you’re prepared, you may never be able to contact them again. They’ll consider you a ‘dreamer’ and disregard you emails and phone calls.
Elevator Speech
Before approaching an agent, prepare an ‘elevator speech’ describing your project in less than thirty-seconds it takes for an average elevator ride. If you can’t, your project probably isn’t ready for prime time.
Your elevator speech must answer four major questions:
- What is your book about?
- Who is going to buy it?
- How does it differ from existing books on subject?
- How are you going to promote it?
1. What is your book about?
Finalize your book’s title and contents before contacting an agent.
The title is crucial to your book’s success. It must attract attention of acquisition editors, book reviewers, bookstore managers, web surfers and readers. The title is often your one – and only – chance to make a sale.
Finalize your book’s table of contents and prepare a brief description of contents of each chapter. You should also know how long your book is going to be and number of illustrations, graphics or worksheet
Prepare two – three, if you’re a first-time author – sample chapters and hire a professional editor to fine-tune them. It’s better to show three perfect chapters than a finished manuscript filled with spelling errors.
You don’t have to write your whole book before approaching agents. And your sample chapters don’t have to begin with first chapter, nor do they have to be in sequence. But, they must represent your writing at its best.
