These days, it’s far easier to catch the common cold than it is to obtain a suitable agent to represent your work to publishers. All the top agents are closed up – zipped tight – not reading new stuff at all.

Ah! But you have heard about writer X whose first book sold for a squillion dollars through one of the best agents in the biz. How did this happen?

Well it happens in a number of ways. The most common is that an editor saw the work, made an offer to the author who then ran to an agent with the contract, who signed the author and negotiated the deal. Hence, new author added to agents’ list. It’s always easier to get an agent when you have a contract in your hand.

Another way is through referrals. Remember, in this business it pays to have contacts throughout the industry. What can happen is that someone connected to the industry reads the unpublished author’s work, they like it and tell someone else about it, soon agent B wants a look. Ta da! New author added to the closed list of big agent B.

For most writers landing big agent B is near impossible. You submit your query to a few dozen agents, one answers with, “Send me more,” you send more and then a polite form-letter saying, “No thanks” lands in your letterbox three months later (and that’s a fast reply). Does this sound familiar to you?

Then how DO you get an agent? As an agent who does still look at new writers – increasingly fewer as the weeks go by – I need to be startled by the whole approach to the writing business as well as by the work submitted.

For me, and just about every agent worth his salt, the submitted manuscript needs to drip professionalism while the actual writing has to be better than is currently on the bookstore shelves. There is no point writing as well as published author X, because unlike you, published author X is selling thousands of books while you are unknown. The book you submit to the agent has to be BETTER.

In my years as an agent I have seen some remarkable submissions and some of the poorest writing possible arrive on my desk. I have seen Harry Potter clones, retellings of The Lord of The Rings and bad Stephen King stylists. These efforts will not influence the agent, they definitely will not influence the publishers – all this stuff has been done before and done many, many times over. As an author you need to strive for freshness in the story you are telling – there are no new ideas, but you can still be fresh with your approach, clever with your writing.

So, the old adage of ‘show me something I haven’t seen before’ still stands true today. Research your market, read extensively in your genre and ensure you are not submitting another clone of what is already out in the market place. Readers are not dumb, and genre readers are amongst the most intelligent readers of all literature – agents know this, publishers know this and now YOU know it. Before sending something to an agent, any agent, be sure that what you are sending them is blindingly brilliant.

Many of the ‘lower’ agents, myself included, will take on an author whose work is good, but might need some direction. Again, this is getting rare as the whole publishing industry grows tighter each year. Knowing this perhaps still offers some hope to the new writer and all is not lost.

Some simple advice:

When writing a query letter to the agent be short and direct at all times. No full-page explanations of the book, or that you have a cat named Boris, or that you have had a story in the online magazine Xerox. The agent isn’t interested.

Open the letter with, “I am a first time author,” don’t play out the letter and then drop this in on the last line, as this can really p*ss an agent off. If you are willing to mislead them now, they may think you could do it later. Be honest from the outset – it always works in your favor.

So, the letter explains you publishing history, the genre of your novel, a very brief outline of the novel’s content – one short paragraph.

Include all contact details including a self addressed and stamped envelope.

The actual chapter submission with synopsis (only a two page synopsis at all times) needs to be of the highest professional manner: double-spaced, easy to read font in 12 point, wide margins etc.

Querying after submission. Don’t even think about it until 3 months have passed and then do it via mail, not email, again including return post. It is also good at this time to put any additional credits you might have obtained on the query letter. This shows you are not sitting back and waiting but are actively working.

Don’t send out the queries, chapters etc without first sending the book to publishers that are still open to unsolicited material. Remember, it is easier to get an agent with a contract in your hand.

Why get an agent after you have the contract? Because they can negotiate a far better deal than you will be able to.

Once the book is out, the letters and samples have been sent, get down to work on the next book. Agents sign authors AND individual books, so if you have a ready body of work behind you, the potential for representation becomes stronger.