The Secret Core Concept Agents and Editors Desperately Seek—and Why It Could Make or Break Your Success

Over my decades as an author, teacher, and ghostwriter, I’ve had the privilege of working with over a dozen editors at presses small and large. I’ve worked on several projects that sold at auction for six figures. Yet through the highs and the lows, I struggled to understand what gave certain books lift-off while other laudable manuscripts languished for lack of enthusiastic representation.

It took me a long time and many of my own setbacks, but I finally figured out the general formula for a winning book concept, at least in the eyes of agents and editors. It boils down to Unique + Universal + Urgent, or UUU.

What makes this combination sublime?

1. Uniqueness attracts the reader’s attention.
2. Universality connects the reader to the story or message.
3. Urgency generates the need to know that keeps the reader turning pages.

By subtly layering these three ingredients throughout the work — but especially in the opening pages — you will likely hook your readers and hold them spellbound.

Note that I say general and concept. I’m not here to tell anyone specifically what to write about or how to write it. And I’m not suggesting that this secret sauce is a substitute for the literary integrity and polish of the underlying prose. But I’ve seen far too much rejection of extraordinarily beautiful writing to believe that the quality of prose alone can sell a book. Every successful book of fiction or nonfiction must be about something that emanates UUU, and this secret sauce must be evident in the first pages of any manuscript or proposal you submit to agents or editors.

One caveat: Whether or not you concern yourself with this formula right now depends on what you’re writing and on your stage in the writing process. If you’re still in the early phases of work on a fiction or creative nonfiction project, I urge you to keep messing around without worrying about “selling” the work until you’ve found the Abiding Question that fires you up, that keeps you enthralled, and that gives the work meaning for you. Once you’ve found your own…