Considering the needs of Agents and Editors

Traditional publishing editors and agents are a hard bunch to please. They know exactly what they want, but they can't quite describe it in so many words. They want "fresh voices", "unique situations", something that is "original" and "surprising" that "grabs their attention" and "makes them keep reading". They want "hooks" and they want you to tell them "what makes your book different". Sigh. A pretty tall order to fill, especially when you can't very well define different if you don't have a solid handle on what's ordinary.

Good advice is to read, read, read in the genre you intend to write. This is hideously time consuming even if you love to read and read fast. Two shortcuts I can recommend are to read genre short stories and download samples of ebooks in your genre of interest. The sample downloads get you the critical first chapters and short stories give you a complete story in a nutshell. Once you have a pretty good idea of what's out there you can compare it with what you have and begin to see what might bore an agent or editor.

Caveat: look carefully at the samples of books for the publishers you're targeting. Why? Because something that is published by smaller presses, or published independently may be quite different from what big, traditional publishers are looking for. I point this out not as a qualifier about the quality of these books but to raise awareness for authors looking to be published by traditional publishers. Big publishers and the agents that work with them have very specific ideas about marketability. While we may not always agree with their definitions, awareness of what they want is the key to working with them. Cross-genre books are a good example. Most traditional publishers will not be interested in your novel that is equal parts science, history and romance. They expect a romance to be mostly romance with a bit of science or a bit of history sprinkled on top.

Any other advice for how to please these agents and editors?