How to Find Your Perfect Literary Agent
Finding an agent who is excited to work with you is more like dating than choosing a skilled doctor to visit. It’s personal. It’s subjective. It’s about first impressions, common interests, and establishing mutual excitement to build a bright future together. Ideally, it’s a committed, long haul relationship, prepared to weather any bumps. It’s no wonder that there can be frustrating rejections of “I like but just don’t love enough to pursue.”
Like matters of the heart, you can’t force it to happen. BUT there are smarter ways to vet and curate your wishlist—to tip the scales a little closer in your favor. And it boils down to doing your homework. Sometimes lots of homework to tailor your search, so it seems like “fate” has landed your query in said agent’s in-box.
Sure, agents profess to welcoming great surprises, but like any “gift giving,” there are far less returns when you deliver what they truly like or, yes, even ask for. Here are available tools and tactics to make your introduction feel special and less like you’re “swiping right” on anyone (or everyone) in hopes that someone will respond in kind.
8 Easy (and Surprising) Resources for Finding Your Perfect Literary Agent
mswishlist.com; manuscriptwishlist.com (#MSWL on Twitter)
Whether these two domains are connected or simply share a similar mission, here you’ll find invaluable posts and insight as to what individual agents wish would hit their in-box right now. Maybe it’s a topic, a genre, or an underrepresented POV. Sometimes it’s even really specific. Imagine if you have written something in that relative wheelhouse. The likelihood that you’ll at least move up the line for review is enhanced. It’s an open invitation. To help filter, both sites let you fine-tune your search by category or even agents. Manuscriptwishlist.com also offers informal agent profiles/conversations that may offer gold to your search.
The great news is that many agents today—especially ones who are more open to growing their “list” (aka roster of clients)—embrace the internet and social media. There’s a whole lot more access, open dialogue, and transparency to their personalities and unique interests. Dive deep.
querytracker.net
Create a FREE profile on QueryTracker, which offers everything from literary agent searches (often with contact info and how and whether they’re open to queries), new and updated agent listings, help organizing your query list, and a “who reps whom” database among other tools.
Agency Websites / Agent Profiles
Once you have any agents in mind, be sure to google them and visit their respective agency website. Here should be the most up-to-date information (aside from said agent’s possible social media accounts). Many include agent profiles that detail what they do—and do not—represent and possibly additional insight into what they’re uniquely looking for (and their sensibility). Often it will showcase a list of their existing clients too.
EXTRA IMPORTANT: Always read the agency’s (or individual agent’s—as sometimes they differ) Submissions Guidelines! Nowadays there is no one standard way to query an agent. Most only accept email. Rarely will they open attachments. Some use agency booking forms. And everyone has a different invitation (a synopsis? a sample chapter? first five pages? etc.) Do the legwork so you don’t disqualify yourself.
Junior Agents
Everyone wants a superstar agent. And you can bet that everyone is querying them—even though they are the least likely to be open to adding new clients. Their existing superstar clients are keeping them busy (and near-guaranteed paid). But junior agents are often untapped or emerging superstar agents. Many are protégées of the best, especially at bigger agencies. And they share the same powerhouse letterhead.
WRITER AND PITCH Conferences
Each conference or event is different but typically there will be featured agents in attendance, giving talks, mingling, or even available for “speed dating”-style pitches. Come well-prepared with a succinct pitch and market knowledge . . . and you may earn an invite to send more. Another plus is that met (or at least seen) agents feel less like mystical unicorns. And if they’re present, they are most likely open to submissions.
Writer’s Digest Books: Writer’s Market and Guide to Literary Agents
Sometimes you need to step away from all the blue light screens and go old school. Writer’s Digest Books publishes an annual Writer’s Market [Year] and Guide to Literary Agents [Year] that not only includes detailed listings but plenty of useful articles and information (contributed by actual agents) about creating query letters, crafting the perfect synopsis or nonfiction book proposal, and other client or publishing-related topics. It’s one-stop studying, ready for your highlighting and Post-Its.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Though it’s up to date at time of printing, always be sure to google and confirm any agent’s whereabouts before querying. Agents are known to switch agencies, leave to start their own, become an editor at a publishing house, pursue their own writing career, switch mediums and go Hollywood, or leave the industry entirely to become an artisanal pickle maker or other deferred dream.
Agent Interviews (Book Blogs, Podcasts, Trade Media)
As highlighted above, agents these days are often experts of their own “brand” and self-promotion. Google searches may unveil past guest conversations/interviews in book blogs, podcasts, IGTV, YouTube, trade journals, or other media. These usually more informal chats can provide access into who may be a great match for you and possibly offer some conversational starter for your future query. Remember, it’s first about making a connection…then you can wow ‘em with your writing itself.
Acknowledgments
Lastly, maybe there’s a book or author that you love and consider a kindred spirit to your own work. Instead of trying to get a direct agent referral via fan mail—which is highly unlikely to garner a response—98% of the time you can find the agent’s name within a book’s Acknowledgments section. The agent will almost always be one of the very first or near last person thanked. Then google away.
BONUS TRICK: If you don’t own the book or want to make a bookstore or library run, pull it up on Amazon. Above the listing’s book cover image, many include a “Look Inside” option. Click it and then you’ll get the option to “Search Inside This Book.” Type “Acknowledgments” and it will take you right to its header (or immediately after a possible Contents page listing). As long as the Acknowledgments section is fairly short, you should have full preview access.