How I Got My Agent

(And Ultimately a Publishing Deal)

I was so nervous I felt sick to my stomach. But I was ready.

I’d written a formal book proposal, crafted a professional-yet-personal query letter email, and had compiled a list of agents who might be interested based on the previous books and authors they’ve represented. I went back and skimmed over my query a few more times to make sure it read smooth, there was no blatant comma abuse, the agent’s name was spelled correctly—check, check, check. I even read it one last, last time just to ensure myself of how clever my pitch was. Then I closed my eyes and counted down in my head—three, two, one—and clicked the send button.

I did it! I’d sent my book idea out into the world.

I could practically feel the agent reading my email on the other side of the computer and getting excited about it. After all, my pitch was detailed, researched, spellchecked, my sentences read well, and it was an interesting topic filled with eye-opening information. I’d done my homework.

A few hours later, my inbox dinged with an email. I could see the first sentence without even opening it, “Thanks for your submission, however at this time...”

“Fine,” I said to myself, “if this agent isn’t interested in getting rich off my book, that’s their loss.” I picked the next name on my list, typed a fresh query just for them, with references to their special interests and past clients, and then I counted down—three, two, one—and pressed send.

An hour or so later my inbox dinged with another, “however at this time…”

I proceeded to systematically pitch all the agents on my spreadsheet, one-by-one, only to get a big fat “Thanks, but…” from some of them. Most of them didn’t respond at all. And to make it even more frustrating, I was using a software that showed me who was reading my emails (that I’ll show you in the chapter about pitching) so I knew they were reading my query, and then not even taking the time to reply back and tell me “no”.

That stung.

But then I thought, “Well they are reading my email, so that’s something. I’m just apparently not using the right words to entice them.” I’d been pitching my story as a how-to-fix-the-food-industry book. But according to the feedback I was getting, I needed a different pitch.

I’d created my food company from the ground up, from my tiny condo kitchen eventually to shipping food all across the country, and so I thought I’d try pitching my book as a story of entrepreneurship. It would be the same story, my story, but told in a different tone, with different scenes and details. I restructured my proposal, adjusted my query, researched a new list of agents —agents specifically looking for entrepreneurial stories—and I sent out the next round of pitches.

And again, I received a fresh batch of rejections.

This is where a lot of people might get disheartened and give up. But I knew it wasn’t personal. These agents didn’t know me. I just wasn’t doing a good job of piquing their interest, or filling a gap in the market, or who knows. And that was my problem. Up till now I’d been guessing what kind of book these agents wanted. They were educated guesses, based on thorough research into each agent, but they were guesses nonetheless.

I needed a specific example to follow.

I Change My Approach

I’d been a big fan of Jordan Belfort’s book, The Wolf of Wall Street, as well as the movie which had recently come out. Where most exposés on any industry are written by journalists, Jordan’s book stood out because it was written by the guy who was directly involved in the corruption. His story could have been written as a how-to-fix-the-industry book, or an entrepreneurial version of how he built his business from nothing to a multimillion dollar company. But instead he shared explicit sex scenes, action-packed adventures, drug abuse, physical violence, excessive cursing and gratuitous racial slurs.

And this is exactly how I rewrote my book proposal.

Minus the racial slurs.

I opened my copy of The Wolf of Wall Street to the acknowledgements section, where pretty much every author thanks their agent, and found his agent’s name. I Google’d the guy’s contact info—which I show how to do systematically in this video—I crafted a new query letter written just for him, then I clicked the send button.

And this is what happened next…

The following year my book was in every major bookstore in the U.S., as well as Canada, the U.K., and Australia. I was booked on national television and appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers—everything from Good Morning America, The Doctors, and Business Insider, to The New York Post, Fox News, and Vice. And I was giving countless interviews for conventional radio shows, Siruis XM, and podcasts.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that the process of getting traditionally published was about the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. And I wrote this book to help you achieve the same.

I made this book free because I remember how frustrating it was when I was trying to figure out how to get an agent or a publisher to pay attention to me, to give my book a chance, and nobody would tell me how; nobody would give me the time of day, nobody had the real answers as to why my book wasn’t getting picked up, and what to do to fix it. It was as if everyone who’d crossed to the other side, and become a published author, then burned the bridge behind them and said “good luck to the rest of you.” It sucked. And I don’t want you to have to go through the same thing.

So my goal with this blog is to provide as much value as I can, show you all the steps, answer any questions, and hopefully over-deliver in every way possible, so that your book will attract an agent, and help you become a traditionally published author.

So if that sounds good to you, now I want to dive a little deeper to show you what I was originally doing wrong with my book concept, and how I went about making changes to get it right.

How to Make Your Story Marketable >>