Networking

Word to the wise:

STAND OUT WITH YOUR WRITING, NOT WITH GIMMICKS OR GIFTS.

Seriously, agents are not going to make a decision between signing you and not signing you if your paper is colorful or if you sent them chocolate. They will probably be more likely to think your writing is poor if you are resorting to attention-getting techniques that have nothing to do with your ability to entertain or inform.

Most agents are taking their queries through e-mail nowadays, and some take them exclusively that way. If you decorate your e-mail message with silly backgrounds or animated GIFs, you will look like you don’t understand that this is a professional proposition to work together. You will also be drawing attention away from your ideas/your writing and toward whatever non-standard fonts or goofy headers you picked, and they do NOT make the agent think you are clever. And if you send a paper query, yes, there’s a chance your paper will get seen sooner if there is something unusual about its presentation, but getting them to look at it isn’t the problem here. It’s getting them to like it.

And yeah, they’ll probably remember you. But not in a good way.

(And yes, listen to people who have actually done the thing you’re trying to do. I can’t even tell you how much bogus advice I’ve gotten from people who think their comments are innovative or revolutionary. No, man. Sit down and let people who know this business tell other people how to get what we have.)