Why Most Writers Fail to Get Publishing Contracts

And what YOU can do to get yours

by Wendy Keller, lit­er­ary agent since 1989

Ahhh, for the good ol’ days!  The days when a gifted writer could just tie a fresh ascot and then sit down at his Smith-Corona to write some lovely prose.  Sooner or later, some incred­i­bly good look­ing, ele­gantly coiffed agent would share it with an enthu­si­as­tic edi­tor of leg­endary skill who would rec­og­nize him as Hem­ing­way or Fitzger­ald.  A princely advance check would be writ­ten, enough to keep the excep­tion­ally tal­ented writer in mar­ti­nis, ascots and sum­mer cruises to Capri.  

How lovely! How per­fect! How very, very historic.

Yet every week, EVERY week, some writer accuses me or my team of “not rec­og­niz­ing” their bril­liant work, their lit­er­ary genius, not sign­ing them on and lav­ish­ing them with praise.

Let’s be clear: Hem­ing­way, Fitzger­ald and the Old School Edi­tors like Maxwell Perkins are all dead.  Those days of tal­ent being enough to get a book deal died with them.

Like it or not, pub­lish­ing is an indus­try.  A busi­ness!  Busi­ness is in busi­ness to make a profit, not to take chances on your book, even though you’re a nice per­son with good spelling.  Sorry.  If you have no PLATFORM (read: a pre-existing fan base of peo­ple who hear you speak, read your blog, fol­low your Tweets, already rec­og­nize you as the expert on your topic for some good rea­son) then how­ever bril­liantly you’ve pounded your Smith-Corona, there is no pot of gold wait­ing at the end of your rainbow.

You just CANNOT be nobody and expect a deal from a mod­ern non­fic­tion pub­lisher. And since agents work on 100% com­mis­sion, we can’t take shots on unknowns. 

The solu­tion: get a plat­form. Now. Start today.  Then pur­sue the afore­men­tioned incred­i­bly good look­ing, per­fectly coiffed agent for rep­re­sen­ta­tion.  Put your horse before your cart and cre­ate an entirely dif­fer­ent real­ity.  As I’ve said 2 bil­lion times to aston­ished writ­ers, “Pub­lish­ers want to hitch their wagon to a ris­ing star, not be the horse that pulls your cart.”

(A few of you will appre­ci­ate I moved from ascot metaphors to Ascot illu­sions. You, I like.)

Please, get a plat­form before you query my agency or any oth­ers.  You’ll save your­self a lot of heart­break; you’ll save our staffs a lot of time; and you’ll give your­self a real chance at a pub­lish­ing deal.  Promise!

Browse this web­site to find lots of ideas on how to get your plat­form growing.