Obtaining agency representation is your first step toward getting profitably published. Most publishers won’t even look at unsolicited manuscripts.

But, before approaching an agent to represent you, you should finalize the presentation of your book.

Agents don’t have time to waste dealing with publishing ‘wannabees’ who don’t have, and may never have, a concrete project to represent. To busy agents, dreams don’t make it.

If you approach an agent before you’re prepared, you may never be able to contact them again. They’ll consider you a ‘dreamer’ and disregard you emails and phone calls.

Elevator Speech

Before approaching an agent, prepare an ‘elevator speech’ describing your project in the less than thirty-seconds it takes for an average elevator ride. If you can’t, your project probably isn’t ready for prime time.

Your elevator speech must answer four major questions:

• What is your book about?
• Who is going to buy it?
• How does it differ from existing books on the subject?
• How are you going to promote it?

1. What is your book about?

Finalize your book’s title and contents before contacting an agent.

The title is crucial to your book’s success. It must attract the attention of acquisition editors, book reviewers, bookstore managers, web surfers and readers. The title is often your one – and only – chance to make a sale.

Finalize your book’s table of contents and prepare a brief description of the contents of each chapter. You should also know how long your book is going to be and the number of illustrations, graphics or worksheet

Prepare two – three, if you’re a first-time author – sample chapters and hire a professional editor to fine-tune them. It’s better to show three perfect chapters than a finished manuscript filled with spelling errors.

You don’t have to write your whole book before approaching agents. And your sample chapters don’t have to begin with the first chapter, nor do they have to be in sequence. But, they must represent your writing at its best.

2. Who’s going to buy your book?

Next, show that there is a reachable market for your book.

Strive for urgency. Describe the market intrigued by, or frustrated by, your book’s topic. What symptoms does your book help solve? How many people share the problem? What are the consequences of the problem your book addresses?

Quantify your book’s market in terms of buying power, willingness to buy books and ability to be reached through associations or publications.

3. How will your book be different?

Next, position your book relative to existing books on the topic. Existing books on the same topic are a plus, not a minus. They prove there is a market for books on the subject.

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing books?
• Why will readers choose your book over existing books?

This section offers you an opportunity to describe your background and how it contributes to your book.

4. How will you promote your book?

Promotion is your responsibility, not the publisher’s. Your ability to promote your book is as important as your ability to write your book.

Start by identifying book reviewers and editorial contacts who can help promote your book. List publications that might run an extract from your book. Research producers who book guests for radio and TV interviews.

Discuss your speaking experience and willingness to travel to support your book. Describe how you will promote your book on your web site.

List authorities in your field who have offered to write a foreword or provide you with cover testimonials.

Agents are busy. To the extent you can sell your book idea as a realistic possibility in thirty seconds and can support your answers with research and strong sample chapters, you are well on your way to success.

After you’ve been successfully published, you may be able to sell a book on just the basis of an email. But for now, you must be fully prepared.

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A joint venture can be one of the most profitable and fastest ways to make money on the Internet. It can also destroy your reputation, get you ignored, or worse, accused of spam if you if you don’t take the proper care to create a valuable offer.

There are three things you should NEVER do when creating a joint venture proposal for a potential partner. Below are three things NOT to do, with several tips to help you do it right.

1. Fail to Plan.

Before you send out any emails to potential partners, you need to plan your offering, decide who you are going to send it to, and what you expect in return.

First, create your offer. Ask yourself these questions:

What am I going to give the potential partner to make him/her want to joint venture with me? i.e. Are you going to give the partner a copy of the product, do you have bonuses available, what’s the commission you are paying, are you offering a large one time commission, or a recurring monthly commission?

My rule of thumb is to never offer less than 50 percent. What you want to do is make the partner an offer that is not only fair, but more beneficial up front for him/her than it is for you.

Once you know what your offer is, you want to create solo ads, a review, or something that the partner can plug his/her information into so that you have something to give him/her when you make the offer.

Include the affiliate sign up link, and make it as easy as possible to sign up. Also include the link to the product, as well as tell the partner how to get the download, the membership, or whatever you are selling.

The point is, make it easy. My joint venture partners are busy people. They don’t have time to write ads for me, or spend a lot of time getting prepared. They need something they can set up in a few minutes, send it out, and move on. Remember, your potential partners are probably the same.

2. Forget to Target Your Market.

I get over 500 emails a day. Mind you, they aren’t all joint ventures although I get a lot of those too.

The point is this: research your market. Find products, services, memberships, etc. that complement yours. Then you have a market.

3. Send Your Offer to the Wrong Person.

No one wants to read offers that say, “Dear Publisher”, “Dear Friend”, or anything like that.

The first, and most important thing about creating a joint venture is to make sure that you send it to the right person at the right email address.

Although I don’t recommend it, you can send your joint venture proposal to someone you don’t know provided you have properly targeted your market. This doesn’t mean you can send your message to 100s who just happen to be in your target market.

What I recommend you do is this: build a relationship with the person. Build a lot of relationships with a lot of people. If you have something relevant to say about someone’s newsletter, write him/her.

I get so many bogus offers that when I get something I appreciate, or I enjoy, I always write the publisher a complimentary email. If there’s a survey, I answer it. If the publisher needs help, and I can, I answer.

This is how great business relationships are built online. You would be amazed at how much others are willing to help you when you take the time to get to know them.

Finally, unless you know one of the “gurus”, and very well, I wouldn’t advise sending them your offer. Most of them already have joint venture arrangements in place and aren’t really willing to work with someone they don’t know, or who hasn’t made it to “guru” status.

There are plenty of potential partners out there with nice sized mailing lists who are hungry for more ways to make more money. With millions online, you have a wide range of potential partners to choose from.

Remember, it really doesn’t matter if you sell gardening tools or ebooks, or anything else for that matter, a joint venture can quickly and easily add to your bottom line.

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