Most people like to think that they have a novel in them. The hard truth is most of them should probably stay there. But for the few who have actually done the heavy lifting—bled onto the page, wrestled with plot holes, and produced a manuscript—the real battle has only just begun.
You can upload your work to Amazon tomorrow, sure. But as Oli Munson, a top agent at Literary Agents, A.M. Heath, puts it: “Self-publishing is always an option, but it is an agent’s job to help get your work seen by big publishers.”
If you want the prestige, the advance, and the hardcover on the front table at Boarders, your best bet is to get a literary agent. And to get an agent, you need to stop thinking like a writer and start thinking like a salesman. Here is how to close the deal, according to the man who mines the slush pile for a living.
The Title is Your Pick-Up Line
Don’t get precious about your title. In the publishing machine, it’s likely to change half a dozen times before it hits the printers. But right now? It is the only thing standing between your email and the trash folder.
“At the pitching stage, the title of your book is hugely important,” Munson says. It doesn’t need to be the final title; it just needs to be a seductive one. “Make sure you have a title strong enough that it will make the agent want to read it.” If the title is boring, they assume the prose is, too.
Master the Three-Sentence Pitch
If you can’t explain your book in the time it takes to order an Old Fashioned, you don’t know your book well enough. Munson’s golden rule? Three sentences. Max.
“It’s important that you have an ‘elevator pitch’ for your book,” he advises. This isn’t the time for nuance or backstory. It is the time for a hook. “Know how to summarise your book in three sentences or less.” If you ramble, you’re rumbled.
Write for the “TikTok Brain”
We live in an age of distractions. Your competition isn’t just other books; it’s Netflix, Twitter, and the notification vibration on your reader’s wrist. Munson notes a “global shortening of attention spans,” and the market is shifting to accommodate it.
“We are seeing a trend of books with lots of very short chapters,” he says. The lesson? Keep it punchy. Keep it moving. And keep it within the industry’s “Goldilocks” zone for length: “The ideal length of a manuscript is 85,000 to 90,000 words.” Anything less feels slight; anything more feels like homework.
It’s a Relationship, But the Work Comes First
When you are starting out, publishing can feel like a cold, faceless industry—an endless loop of unanswered emails and polite rejection notes. Finding an agent is the cure to that isolation; it is a long-term professional marriage designed to navigate your career.
But don’t mistake a good rapport for a green light. “It is a literary agent’s job to represent you as an author,” Munson explains, emphasizing the depth of that bond. “That said, in order for you to be able to start that relationship, no matter how well you get on, your manuscript will always be the most important part of the relationship.”
You can be the most charming person in the room, but if the pages don’t sing, the relationship never starts. Focus on the text; the friends can come later.
Oli Munson holding ‘Pitching Sessions’ at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature, January 21 to 27, 2026.
