Most new published authors' profiles these day's seem to read along these lines.
"After doing a degree in Creative Writing I went to work as a Milk Maid and spent twelve years working on a farm in Devon during which time I fell in love with a farmer and we had two beautiful children. It was then that I wrote my novel which is about a Milk Maid who'd spent twelve years working on a farm in Devon during which time she fell in love with a farmer and they had two beautiful children."
And therefore it's not really surprising that books on the shelves these days are all so insanely boring!
I think at some stage between 1980 and 2015 people lost the ability to use their imagination and book agents lost their ability to take a f*cking risk!
Or alternatively make sure the farmer you marry works in London during the week at a successful literary agency
Good answer Lorraine, as always!
Agents want new authors to have advertised themselves already. They want to see your name in lights so they don't have to spend out to put it there. So you shout about yourself on FB and Twitter (I've never seen the point of Twitter except as a way of saying, 'Hello, I'm on Twitter'), and if you have anything published anywhere you include it in any and all publicity about yourself. What you are supposed to shout about if you haven't had anything published is a challenge: it will be a mark of your writerly capability if you can fill that vacuum with readable verbiage. Blog; boast; don't be shy.
Once they know you know how to shout about yourself, they'll look at your work, though it seems to come a poor second.
However, do not despair - that writer or style they want you to clone was once new and unheard of, and someone out there decided to give it a go. You're just going to have to shout louder than the next guy.