How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent

I had a literary agent one time.  She might have gotten me quite good deals, but I cut her off at the pass before we even started. 

I fired her because of something she wanted to do with my book just to make it more attractive to traditional publishers. Now I am one for listening to ideas believe me, but this one went over the top to the point where I can tell she and I weren’t going to work out.

What would you do if someone told you to cut a 200+ page manuscript in half, sell it as two books and get rid of the “new age” stuff and only keep boy/girl relationships in it. Ugh, another story for another time.

So literary agents and I don’t mix. I’d rather self-publish. Later on down the road I may change my mind but after years wanting an agent, getting one, firing one and then realizing how great self-publishing was, I never thought another thing about finding another one.

I discovered about How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent by Noah Lukeman (funny this is self-published, but I’m not knocking it in any way, shape or form) by way of one of the free eBook newsletters I get in my inbox, and I just knew I had to check it out. Who knows – maybe it would change my mind about the literary agent thing?

Lukeman starts the book off with saying how authors spend years looking for someone to publish their books; they get rejected and give up. My. Well for one thing, they must not have heard about self-publishing or don’t know how easy it is.  But there are a lot of authors who are looking for that dream contract, and you can only obtain it through a literary agent first.

This is how the big publishers weed out what they might call “unsellable” books. Everyone has a middle man and once you get past the one obstacle; there’s another, then another and if you’ve managed to get “yesses” up to that point and have worked extremely hard, you might get that contract you’ve been dreaming of.

Lukeman gives you reasons why you may want to zone in on the wrong reasons you might have and to make sure they are for the right reasons. What I loved about this eBook is that these tips and suggestions, seen through the eyes of a literary agent, and not just someone who thinks to know what they’re talking about. 

Lukeman has been there, done that, and gives honest and useful tips throughout the book. There were things in there I didn’t even know about, which made the book even more valuable to me. If you are an author looking for a literary agent, read How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent to find out how you, too, can find the literary agent of your dreams.