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Hello, writers! How about a thread on LITERARY AGENTS? How to get one, how to talk to one, how to keep one happy. Spoiler alert: I am 100% pro agent and can't imagine not having one on my side. 1/

Why would you want a literary agent?
* you want to be traditionally published
* you want someone experienced to help guide your career
* you want to learn how to edit like a pro
* you want to sell foreign and movie rights
* you want answers to your newbie questions 2/

Why you might *NOT* want a literary agent:
* you want to self publish
* you're not willing to compromise on your edits
* you don't think their expertise is worth 15% of your advance
I... can't think this way. Literary agents have been crucial to my career. 3/

So, how do you get a literary agent?
1. Have a finished, revised, edited, polished manuscript.
2. Write a query letter for your book
3. Send your query to agents who rep your genre and are open to submissions
4. Repeat steps 1-4 until you're offered representation. 4/

So, let's go through those four steps. First of all, you must have a finished, revised, edited, polished book, and it must be sellable. That is, you can't sell a 600k picture book or a 40k adult Fantasy, etc. You must read extensively in the genre you're writing. 5/

1/ Someone emailed me asking how to break into VC, so I wanted to answer on Twitter where others could see and contribute to the conversation.

2/ “Being a VC” can mean a lot of different things, so it’s worth asking:

What actual activities do you want to do?

- Deep market analysis?
- Be in the flow of information and people?
- Make deals?
- Work closely w/ founders over time (e.g take board seats?)
- Manage capital?

3/ It’s worth specifying what type of VC you might like to become — as there are different archetypes. E.g.

- Benchmark (Lead series A/B - couple investments a year)
- First Round (Lead seed rounds, partner w/ a few companies a year)
- SV Angel (Make lots of seed investments)

4/ Continued:

Expa - Incubate companies

YC / Village Global - Build a platform to help entrepreneurs at scale

Do you want to join a firm or start one? There’s a lot to consider.

Different paths will require different skillsets & sets of experiences.

5/ Since the person who wrote the email is a young person trying to break into VC by joining a firm (and who doesn’t want to start a company), I’ll tailor this tweet storm to that goal. There’s some overlap.

According to @RadioZET_NEWS PKN Orlen (major Polish oil refiner and petrol retailer) is considering entering F1 as a fuel sponsor (supplier) and personal sponsor of Robert Kubica. #F1

Yesterday Kubica was at Orlen's headquarters and met with Polish Prime Minister. #F1