ADVICE FROM A PRO
Writers! Need to Find an Agent?
Here’s How it’s Done
You’ve finally finished your Masterpiece. Now you need to find a publisher. Actually? You don’t. What you really need to find is an agent, who will submit that book to a publisher on your behalf.
Your chances of a publisher taking a look at your book are much higher if an agent submits it than if you do-it-yourself. Some publishers refuse to even look at a book that “comes in over the transom.”
In the Beginning…
At the beginning of my own writing career, in the early 1980s, when I was writing short stories, I had a terrific agent. Luis Sanjurjo didn’t just represent me. He also represented Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Wallace Shawn.
How did I connect with such a high-powered literary agent? It was simple. Whenever I published a story in a large circulation publication like Good Housekeeping or Seventeen Magazine, a dozen agents wrote me letters asking if I had a book they could take a look at.
They figured if I could write well enough to break into a large circulation magazine, I was worth taking a chance on. When they looked at my work? They saw dollar signs.
