How do you get a litatary agent?

[S.K.]

First, have a completed manuscript which you cannot improve in any way--and not just in your own opinion but in the opinions of readers who are not friends or family and who are well-read in the same genre as your novel.

Next, get Writer's Market (US) or Writers' & Artists' Yearbook (UK) to identify literary agents' wants and submission requirements. Learn all you can about each potential agent. What books have they sold to what publishers? Read them. What is their background in the business? Educational background? Do they blog or twitter? Check each on Preditors and Editors, always.

Write a one-page query letter which 'sells' your book to the agent, making it specific to that agent. Enclose or attach exactly and only what they want. Then wait for your rejection, because the odds are excellent that despite all your work, that's what's going to happen.

Edit: And remember Yog's Law--all money flows toward the writer. Any agent who asks for money is someone to cross off your list.