How do you find and work with literary rock stars and transform fledgling, genius authors into cash machines for your agency and your reputation? Well, you’ve come to the right spot.

Tip 1. Judge the writers by their covers. We want bestsellers and bestselling material. We want high-concept, big picture, and we want the entire platform and package. Don’t settle for “someone who will not embarrass us in the meeting”. We want a writer who can tackle Oprah and John Stewart. So by all means, don’t waste time with the nebbishes, or the shy stammering provincial types, or the ones who only wear all black with an armor of body odor. And never get into discussion with anyone who memorizes some ridiculous pitch and spews it out like a bird-eyed automaton. Waste of your time. They don’t represent the bestseller breed. In fact, it’s probably easier to find the interesting person first. You know when you meet them, they just have that certain flare for performance artistry and you can tell: this person must be a good writer! Don’t let this bestseller opportunity pass you by.

Tip 2. Hit the writing conference circuit, and keep running. Heading to the writers’ conference won’t help you find a bestseller, or even a writer for that matter. But you do get to stay in the airport hotel and sip well drinks. Also, you feel like a power broker, a player, adored by writers. Bask in the glory of first-time memoirists and hear dozens of pitches that all, eventually, mention Twilight. Anyway, the point here is that it’s a great way to connect with your peers—the other agents—and discover the Next Big Thing that someone else is already doing. That’s what this is about. This is an under-the-nose of the conference itself networking scene created just for you to filch a bestseller.

Tip 3. Find someone famous and repeat this word: ghostwriter. Sure, this should be the bailiwick of publishers and editors, but you’re a salesperson right? What other purpose of being an agent, really, other than success? And how do we define it? So, be that project manager. Delegate tasks. Take some initiative for something you know you can sell. Oh, first though, naturally, you need a hook, a story, a plot, the big idea worth reading even if the writing is shoddy. So, too, a connection to the famous folk helps to get things rolling. If you don’t have that connection, just say the word ghostwriter a bunch. It’s sort of fun and the habit will put you at ease for the next onslaught of Twilight-based stories (only, you know, with ghosts).

Tip 4. Paint by numbers in the slush. Statistically, if you read enough manuscripts from the slush pile, you will come across the bestseller, that diamond in the rough (which is a cliché, but this is the slush pile). So play the numbers. We’ve tested them and here are the results. All you need are forty-seven interns each reading twenty-four manuscripts a day for fourteen days. From this list of slush puppies, you’ll find something to publish. We virtually guarantee it. The work still won’t be a bestseller, but at least you’re working.

Tip 5. Just tell the bestsellers to please step forward. As a hired salesperson working solely on commissions that are usually really delayed ones at best, just tell all the writers you meet: I don’t have time for anything but bestsellers. You might explain to them that their odds for finding an agent are far superior to your odds at finding a bestseller. This won’t diminish the number of writers trying to connect with you, but maybe it will cause a rift in the general horde. The sky could open, the birds would sing, while the universe answers favorably to your plea. Surely, weirder things have happened. Not to you. But somewhere, someone just won the lottery. And yes, you do have to be in it to whine about losing it.

Tip 6. Start American Bestseller, the reality game-show contest. Follow the success of American Idol. Send agent troupes traveling throughout the States to create the great American Hook-a-thons and Pitch-a-thons. Hey, wait a minute. This could be the jackpot. Our Top 10 can all become bestsellers! Wow, that’s brilliant. Unfortunately, the costs of producing the show will still overshadow book sales. Instead of the Top 10—that's so limiting and Roman numeral—can you manage, say, twenty-five? Just twenty-five bestsellers. That’s all you’d need to make it work. Think about it.

Tip 7. Force your own Bestseller; just add catastrophe. Find a writer, a journalist, some fledgling author that has superior skills but nothing passionate to share for book-length material. Make friends. Wait awhile. Then force them into the bestseller zone with a catastrophe. May I suggest a run in with: (1) some evildoer who is on the FBI’s most wanted list; (2) an epic storm or other weather related incidence while forced outside into the elements; (3) any series of jackings, whether air, car, hi, whereby the writer’s life and possibly family are in jeopardy. Combining all three makes for a surefire bestseller waiting to happen.

Tip 8. Think long-term path to the golden lights of bestseller-dome. For those of you, dear gentle reader agents, who are in no rush, but only want that brilliant bestseller to typify your career, follow the lead of sports agents. Go to the minors, to the schools, to the little league. The elementary school writer stables are waiting, brimming with new voices to coddle, pamper and protect. Revisit the chalkboards and listen to the book reports read aloud. When you find the right one, stick said writer into the machinery of the bestseller—only call it mentorship of genius talent. When the time is right, people will call you a bloodthirsty vulture, but they’re just jealous. You have the youngest bestseller in history.