Want a job? Show us your experience! Need a loan? Show us your assets? Looking for a literary agent to sell the book it took you 67 years to write? Study squirrels! 

     You’re young with no work experience and looking for a job, and all you have to do to get one is have some experience. Jeeze, why didn’t I think of that before? I mean I’m sure I would have gone out to get some job experience in order to get a job, right?

     Oh, yeah, and God Bless Banks! Sure, they’ll give you a loan. All you have to do is show that you have enough money to not need one. Well, that’s simple; just get yourself rich and then march right into that friendly neighborhood bank of yours and toss a few thousand on the manager’s desk; you’ll get an instant loan for a few hundred almost without even trying.

     Now that we’ve set the stage, write a book! 

     Take a good crispy chunk of your lifetime out to do it. Edit and rewrite it dozens of times. Then write a synopsis– a few versions of course, probably a single paragraph, a single page, and a 4-pager will do.

     Then try a chapter outline. This is always fun to do, especially after the book is done. I mean the only people who write book outlines before writing books are atomic scientists and English teachers. But, that’s okay; do it anyway; piece of cake; just start re-reading everything you’ve done and then explain it all! HA!

     Oh, and did I mention a “query” letter? That’s a killer letter to try to get an agent interested in asking if she or he can read some of your work, but of course it’s only as good as your research of which specific agents are most interested in your specific type of book, assuming you are able to categorize what you’ve done to start with. 

     And be sure to include a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) with everything you do. Actually, you may want to consider replacing your business cards with self-addressed stamped envelopes so you can always be sure of getting all your belongings returned. And remember to be humble when you assert your credentials (that may not get returned without an SASE) because having an agent, after all, is a privilege not a right!

     Then, it’s also a good idea to write an “author-driven-marketing-plan” in case the poor overburdened agent doesn’t have enough time or energy or marketing expertise (that he or she takes 15% for) to figure out the best ways for you to sell your handiwork. 

     Okay, so you’ve done all the above. Now study squirrels! When you figure out how they hide themselves and their stashes of acorns you’ll have the beginnings of understanding literary agentdom secret-keeping.

     That knowledge alone will boost your odds for success 1000% and launch you into that new John Grisham/Stephen King/Dean Koontz career that will sustain you and your family forever . . . assuming your witing is brilliant and your personality is mesmerizing and you end up in the right place at the right time with the right story! 

     Hey, go for it!   halalpiar