For anyone out there marveling that Paul got an agent so “easily,” Your Mileage May Vary.

I’ve already written a best-selling book. I spent three months writing a book proposal, without an agent. I paid $1,250 to have said proposal reviewed by professionals. I sent it to five appropriate agents. A couple were through introductions from successful authors, one I already knew from talking about my previous book.

I got a lukewarm response from a few, no response from a couple. One has kept in touch. Zero offers to work with me.

This with, at the time, 18,000 Twitter followers, 17,000 Medium followers, and 35,000 email subscribers, and a successful book under my belt.

A year-and-a-half later, I now realize that the proposal idea sucked, but hopefully it will go better in my next attempt. It could have been for some other reason. I don’t know. YMMV. Getting an agent before even writing a proposal is not normal.