When agents receive a written submission from a potential client, their first thoughts are, “Is this a book that I want to handle and can I sell it?”

Despite instructions on their Web sites etc., a large majority of the contacts agents receive are surprisingly not about books or subjects they handle.

“For all authors, first time or established, what it all comes down to is having a marketable book idea,” according to Jill Alexander, senior acquisitions editor at Adams Media.

“A marketable idea is something that fits with the house and is something that can be positioned and sold. Authors should focus narrowly. Is it saying something new to an established demographic, or, conversely, is it finding a new audience that is out there that hasn’t been addressed that’s actually pretty sizable? Many first-time authors mistakenly try to be everything to everyone. Instead, find out who your audience is-men or women, what age group, where do they work, what is their income level, what is their lifestyle, do they go to bookstores, how do they get their information, do they buy books or magazines, do they get their information from TV? Think about those questions,” Alexander suggests.

The first thing agent Edward Knappman looks for is “a grabber in terms of the topic. Something that really grabs my attention in the first few lines or a topic that interests me personally. The grabber should excite me and be the same kind of hook that you would use in a proposal. Other important items that I look for are the writer’s credentials, writing history and platform. For business books, first-time writers need to have a platform,” Knappman continues, “because the field is so competitive and it’s hard to break out a business book when the author doesn’t have a platform. Publishers want to know that they have some kind of following.”

When agents receive submissions from writers they’re interested in, they send them their author/agent agreement, which they ask the writer to sign and return. Most agents try to get the author/agent agreement signed early in the relationship, before they perform a great deal of work.

By Rick Frishman
Reprinted from “Rick Frishman’s Author 101 Newsletter”
Subscribe at http://www.author101.com and receive Rick’s “Million Dollar Rolodex”

When I started writing Marines in the Garden of Eden, my goal was to have it published by a traditional publishing house and stocked in every major bookstore in the United States. I signed a publishing contract with Berkley Publishing Group, part of the Putnam/Penguin global publishing giant. Marines in the Garden of Eden appeared on bookshelves throughout the U.S. on June 6^th, 2006.

I was very lucky to team up with Berkley, but I must say that I worked very hard to find an agent and publisher. I thought it might be helpful to other aspiring authors to provide a brief discussion of how I made my dream a reality.

In order to become a successful author you must, first, get your attitude in the proper zone. You must believe that you are an author. You must think, eat, and drink as an author. You must believe that you will be successful; for if you do not believe in yourself, you won’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of convincing anyone else. Once you believe that you are a writer, you must start building your team.

I could never have done this on my own. The first professional you need to recruit to your team is an agent. Acquiring an agent takes preparation and hard work. Literary agents make a living representing good authors. They are the gatekeepers of the literary domain. So, what can you do to attract a good agent?

Good agents receive queries, proposals, letters, manuscripts and just plain gimmicks by the truckload. There are not enough minutes in the day for agents to read all the crap they receive, so most of it is pitched. If I were an agent, I would pull out each one-page query for review and discard the rest.

There is a science to writing queries. They must be clean, crisp and concise. They must convince the agent that he or she needs to look further into your work and they must do it in a paragraph or two. I am not going to attempt to tell you how to write your query, suffice it to say brevity will get you everywhere. I will provide an additional piece of wisdom – convince the agent that you can make them money by selling your book.

Once you have written the perfect agent query, you need to decide whom you will send it to. I simply Googled “Literary agent list,” and more hits popped up than I could have ever looked at. The first website alone had contact information for hundreds of agents. Here is where you need to become restrictive. I used several factors to narrow down my personal agent query list.

1. I only picked agents who were in New York City. I reasoned that NYC is the center of the publishing universe. I also believed that the publishing world works like all other businesses. People do business through their personal connections. It is much more likely that an agent in New York City will know the right editor at the right publishing house for you, than an agent in Dallas, Texas. So I focused on the Big Apple.
2. Only select an agent who belongs to a major trade organization: Association of Authors Representatives (US) or the Association of Authors Agents (UK). Agents in these professional organizations adhere to strict ethical standards.
3. Never deal with an agent who asks for a reading fee. Legitimate literary agents earn their fees through commissions.

Those are my three hard and fast rules. Also, it might be helpful to select an agency that deals in your genre. If you are writing a gardening book, don’t pick a military history agent. You may also think of creative ways to narrow down your own list.

Send your queries out all at once. I used email and snail mail. Some agents love their computers and others avoid them like the plague. So, it is wise to query everyone on your list with a letter and an email.

Then wait. Rest assured, if an agent is interested, he or she will contact you. There is no need for repeated follow-ups. A single follow up telephone call after about two weeks could be helpful. Ask if they have received your query and be prepared to deliver the query over the telephone. If the agent remembers your query and politely rejects your work, ask for constructive feedback.

NOW LETS PREPARE

Stop writing and direct all your attention to your query and proposal.

I found Guerrilla Marketing for Writers to be a great resource. It has a section on queries and proposals and much, much more. Let me try to excerpt it and add in a few other hints I have learned along the way.

First, and foremost – Publishers want to make money.

You need to convince them that your book WILL make money. Here is how you can start. (The authors of Guerrilla Marketing actually suggest that you do these first few steps before you ever start writing. I waited until I was half finished before I did these things and they still helped me)

1. Identify your audience – FIRST. I actually have many audiences but my primary audience is family members of the men and women who have served in Iraq.

2.  Write a hook for your book. Mine is:

Marines in the Garden of Eden tells the story of America’s sons and daughters who fought, bled and died in a dusty desert town on the banks of the Euphrates River.

See how my hook is directed at my audience. The hook should be used in your query and again in your proposal. I am finding myriad uses for my hook during the marketing of the book as well. Keep your message integrated.

3. Then, write a one-page synopsis that links your hook (promise to the reader) to your plot/story.

Keep the hook and synopsis close at hand and make sure you don’t wander too far from your audience. Make sure you deliver on your promise to the reader (the hook).

4. Write a one, or two page analysis of the market and your competition. This will take some research but the time spent will pay large dividends. Find out rankings of similar books and try to find out the number of copies they have sold. Ask your local bookstore if the sales have been good/bad on not just specific books but on your subject matter as well. Understand the market and let the potential publishers know that you do understand the market. Be brief. REMEMBER – publishers want to make money. Show them that your kind of book is profitable.

5. Write a one-page bio. Again, they want to know how YOU can sell books and make money for them. My bio is the weakest part of the proposal because I have a hard time talking about myself. I feel like I am bragging, but you must brag.

6. Write the table of Contents – This was like my master outline, or twelve bullets to keep me moving in the right direction.

7. Then find one of your best chapters, it doesn’t matter if it is the first chapter or the fifth chapter. Spend enough time on that chapter to make it perfect in every way. Make it your best effort. I personally did not pick the last chapter because I didn’t want anyone to know how I would end the book. Make that single chapter part of your proposal.

This will be the only writing sample the prospective publishers will see. They will base their decision on it, so it better be good.

8. Add in additional materials you might think they would be interested in, like photos, recommendations, etc.

Now, when you put it all together, you must remember that the editors and the people that will see your proposal get hundreds of these things a week. You want to make it as easy for them as possible. I placed mine in a red three ring paper binder, the kind you would use for a term paper. The cover was clear so that the title page could be read without opening the binder.

Then, I tried to suck the reader in. My hook was on the first page and was only a short paragraph. My hope was that the reader would be “hooked” and turn the page. THAT IS THE ONLY PURPOSE OF THE HOOK, to get the reader to turn the page. They see so many of these things that the vast majority are set aside before page two.

My second page was a single-page synopsis of the book. During the final polishing, my agent suggested that I add a proposal table of contents just to make it easier for the reader to find things. I really don’t think that was necessary.

I think that the synopsis is even more important than the hook. Here, again, in a single page, you must show how you are going to deliver on your promise; you must describe your book. The sole purpose of the synopsis is to get the reader to turn the page – again. Lots more proposals end up in the circular file after the synopsis is read.

Okay, now you have the reader hooked on your story. You have also shown him/her that you can captivate a reader and that you know how to write a “page turner.” If the editor goes on, you have already scored big points – in just two short pages.

Now they want to know – Will the book make money? So tell them who your audience is, specifically, and also who your competition is. Make them see dollar signs.

Then, take one page to tell them about yourself. By now, your idea has been sold; the editors are looking for more ammunition to support their decision to publish you.

I included the book’s table of contents and outline next to give the reader an overall guide to the entire book and next was my perfect chapter.

I also thought it would be helpful to provide my extensive bibliography and some photos.

In short, I put together a plan and I executed my plan. I wrote the best agent query letter I could, I wrote the best proposal I could and I wrote the best book I could.

I found an agent. I found a publisher (Penguin Group USA) and now I am working at finding readers for Marines in the Garden of Eden.

I hope this helps. Please provide feedback on this article by contacting me through my website at www.MarinesintheGardenofEden.com.

Richard S. Lowry is an internationally recognized military historian and author. His latest book, New Dawn, the battles for Fallujah, will be released by Savas Beatie LLC in May, 2010. Richard has previously published Marines in the Garden of Eden (Berkley Caliber, 2006), The Gulf War Chronicles (iUniverse, 2003 and iUniverse Star, 2008), and US Marine in Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003 (Osprey, 2006). Additionally, he contributed to Small Unit Actions (United States Marine Corps History Division, 2008).

Fact: Query Letter Writing is an Art Form.

Make no mistake about it, writing queries that produce results is a craft.

Fact: A Query Should Not be Written Like a Synopsis.

I devoted an entire article to this, yet writers who have read the article continue to send me sample queries that ignore this premise. Yes, there are exceptions. There are exceptions to everything in publishing. But if an author wants to entice an agent to stand up and take notice, as I said in the prior article, sell the sizzle and not the steak. Pure and simple, a query for fiction is best written if it mirrors liner notes.

Fact: A Writer has to Know the Genre in which the Work is Written.

If the author doesn’t know the genre in which his or her work is written, any bona fide editor can explain it. A writer who doesn’t take the time to figure this out has virtually no chance. Genre identification is paramount. And while critique groups, etc., are a wonderful sounding board, they are historically populated by amateurs, and as such not the place to learn about genre specificity in today’s complicated and ever-changing market.

Fact: Structurally, a Query can be Designed like a Short Theme.

Yes, a simple but effective way to structure a query is like a theme. Begin with a core thought that highlights two or three critical plot elements. Justify these issues in the next paragraph, then close the letter with the thrust of the thesis: Why Readers Will Gravitate to the Story. Personal credentials if they pertain directly to the work can be added in a final brief sentence or two, along with a statement of appreciation for the agent’s or publisher’s time.

Fiction: Copying the Words of Phrases from a Successful Query will Assure another Query’s Success.

Nothing could be further from the truth. A query should define the voice and strength of the writer and the project. An experienced agent or publisher can pick up the nuances of a writer’s style. Counterfeiting doesn’t work

Fiction: Query Letters Should Never Contain Questions.

This farce has been bandied about for some time and is ridiculous. No one likes a query that reads like a movie opening: In a world…followed by a “what if” scenario. But there is nothing at all problematic about asking an agent or publisher to consider a novel’s most poignant issue or issues. And if some agent has written to the contrary, so be it. Hundreds of other agents, and all of those I know and work with, think differently.

Fiction: A Query Should Fill as Much of the Page as Possible.

It’s quality not quantity that matters. A query with 500 words jammed on a page is not going to be perceived to be any better than 300 words that clearly and concisely reflect the writer’s skill and the “hot points” about the story he or she has written. An overwritten query can plant the thought that the novel is also structured in the same manner.

What can distort this last remark are the bloated query examples posted by some writers whose work has been accepted for publication. But when a query turns into a synopsis, which is almost always the tendency in longer efforts, it’s generally a quick reach by the agent or publisher for the SASE or the rejection template on the computer file.

Fiction: If my Query Doesn’t Work the First Time, I can Write another One Later to the Same Agent for the Same Book.

Agents keep records. At least many of the good ones I know do. And, universally, as I’ve experienced it, agents never want to see a query about the same material a second time any more than they will consider a manuscript they’ve previously rejected. So it is imperative to get it right the first time.

A final thought: A poor query will never get a book in front of an agent; however, a great query can influence an agent to look at a novel that might require a touch up. And critical feedback can often be gleaned from an agent. For anyone not using a professional editor (curses), I cannot think of a better way to receive professional advice without having to pay for it. However, most authors would be way ahead of the game if they sought professional direction to assure a quality query before bombarding a highly selective marketplace with less than sterling requests to review material.

The Perfect Write® offers manuscript review and revision, including comprehensive developmental editing and line editing services. Also For authors, The Perfect Write® is now providing FREE QUERY LETTER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS. Post your query to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com (no attachments) and visit The Perfect Write™ Sample Letters Page for examples of successful query letters.

The subtitle of W. Terry Whalin’s Book Proposals That Sell promises 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success. In fact, those 21 secrets are just a portion of the valuable information in this book.

Whalin has been on both sides of the editor’s desk. He not only has experience as an editor at a publishing house, he has written more than 60 published books. In Book Proposals That Sell, he shares what he has learned with writers who aspire to get their non-fiction books published.

Book Proposals That Sell begins with an introduction to some basic realities of the publishing business. For example, non-fiction books are typically sold with a strong proposal rather than by submitting a completed manuscript. (The opposite is usually true for fiction.)

The 21 secrets are a step-by-step process to completing a powerful book proposal. Each secret leads you closer to your goal of producing and submitting a proposal that will present you and your ideas in the most effective and professional way. And each secret has details and examples to help you understand how to implement it.

The 21 secrets include:

• Know the audience for your book.
• Understand what each chapter will contain.
• Cast a vision of your book.
• Write a spellbinding sample chapter.
• Maintain a log of your submissions.
• Get more proposals out the door.

Although some of the secrets are common (but often ignored) knowledge, such as always include a SASE, others may be surprising. For example, many authors would not see the value in getting high profile endorsements for a book proposal, thinking that the publisher will take care of getting endorsements once the book is published. In fact, endorsements from celebrities and leading authorities can be key in getting your book proposal noticed by a publisher. Whalin explains the importance of these endorsements, how to go about getting them, and from whom you should get endorsements.

The Appendices are also filled with useful information and resources, including a sample book proposal that sold for a six-figure advance, a checklist for your non-fiction book proposal, and the Thomas Nelson (Publishers) Guide to Writing a Winning Book Proposal.

If you are interested in selling your non-fiction book, W. Terry Whalin’s Book Proposals That Sell should have a place on your bookshelf. Better yet, don’t put it on your bookshelf, but keep it next to your computer where you can reference it frequently as you work on your next book proposal.