The Literary Agent's Guide to Getting Published is succinct, to the point, and pragmatic. Mr. Adler has substantial experience from the publishing side of things and gives us insight into what goes on inside an editor or agents head when a proposal crosses their desk. This book spells out the step-by-step process of coming up with a marketable book proposal, memorializing that proposal into a document agents and editors can use to justify publishing your book (including what kinds of market-data they need), and then gives the viewpoints of a respectable number of editors and agents about what they want to see to keep your proposal out of the slush-pile. The book then finishes with sample book proposals on a number of topics.

This information could potentially be very dry. However, Mr. Adler's experience on the other side of the fence, as an author who writes books about solving problems, peppers this book with just enough humor to keep it interesting without devolving into self-aggrandizement. He does, of course, promote his own books in this book. What sane author WOULDN'T? But the example he most often uses, a book about outwitting squirrels, is so humorous it adds a personal 'I've been where you are now' element to his writing that adds credibility to his advice ( )