If you’re an aspiring author sending out your manuscript to anyone who will take them, you’re doing things wrong. The best way to get a publishing house to actually read your amazing work is to have a literary agent backing you. But what is an agent? How do you find one? And why do you need one?
What Do Literary Agents Do?
Literary agents maintain a good relationship with publishing houses and editors so that they can get their current clients, aspiring authors and published authors like you, book deals. This means they help spruce up manuscripts from their clients before sending them out to make a good impression and keep good relationships with publishers.
If a publishing house is interested in picking up the manuscript, they act as a go-between to help you get the best book deal possible. They make sure you understand the terms of your contracts that come along with the book deal and help negotiate them on your behalf; Not to mention helping authors and publishing houses compromise on what each think is best for the book, from looks to content. Literary agents are basically your right-hand for all things publishing.
Why Do You Need An Agent?
What does this mean for you? It means they act as a bridge between where you are in your book journey and where you want to be — that wouldn't otherwise be there. Most editors and publishers get hundreds if not thousands of query letters and unsolicited manuscripts every week, and while some of the those submissions may have been a great book in the making, it really is a numbers game, and most often it comes down to who you know, ie. an agent.
This is why literary agents are the first step in the publishing process and the backbone of the publishing industry. See How To Get A Book Published. Without them, most writers would never even break into the publishing industry, let alone big publishers like Penguin Random House — which the right agent could get your manuscript published by!
Because agents have pre-established connections to editors in major publishing houses and can talk to them on your behalf to actually get your manuscript looked at, your chances of being published at a major publishing house with a literary agent at your side skyrockets. And a major publishing house means a higher advance, and more publicity for your book — which means more sales, and therefore more royalties. Basically, you’re more likely to make more money.
How Much Does a Literary Agent Cost?
I get it, you're thinking: "what's the catch? Something so beneficial couldn't possibly come with no string attached". And you would be right, but the catch doesn't come here. Literary agents do not require an upfront costs when you become a client of theirs.
The whole process of getting an agent onboard and helping you negotiate with publishing houses, getting published, doesn't cost you anything from your own pocket. Instead, agents, and by extension the agency they belong to, will take 15% of any profits you make. That means 15% of your advance and 15% of any royalties, which is still a pretty good deal!
Why Do So Many New Authors Struggle To Get A Literary Agent?
This is where the catch lies. Remember when I said every editor and publisher get hundreds of writers reaching out every week? Yeah... pretty much any good agent worth their salt will have a line out the door of writers hoping they'll take them on as a new author in their stable.
Many agents also have a full client list, meaning they don't really have the time to not only read through countless queries but also take on a new author and represent them to the best of their ability. Meaning literary agents can be especially hard to acquire. There's also another reason...
Are You Ready For a Literary Agent?
Most writers have a few misconceptions under their belts about publishers and the publishing process as a whole. One of these misconceptions is that you don't need a full manuscript to start looking for agents to represent you. This may be true for those of you with a nonfiction book proposal, but if you write fiction, that manuscript needs to be done.
Why? Because when a good agent is interested in your query letter and the first pages of your manuscript, they're going to want to see a full manuscript before they decide to actually add you to their client list. And if you don't have one...you might just burn a bridge when you were so close to getting what you want: to be published.
If one too many agents get wind of you not being fully prepared, that might just make the already less-than preferrable odds of getting a literary agent all the smaller. But that's why you're here!
So now that you why you need a literary agent, what literary agents do, and that you can in fact afford representation, let's work on getting you that agent!
Finding Your Literary Agent & Literary Agency
The way of finding a literary agent is simple but may be quite time-consuming. First things first, research, research, research! I cannot stress this enough There are hundreds of literary agencies, and each one can have anywhere from one agent to a whole roster of agents, but noy all of them will be the best agent for you. So, start with a process of elimination.
A good place to start is reading the author's note and acknowledgements of your favorite books within your manuscript's genre. Authors often shoutout their agents and give some insight into how it was for them to work with them (ie. if their agent fought for them, took their frantic calls at all odd hours, helped them refine their book, etc). This allows you to research agents that actually suit not only your manuscript, but your tastes as well.
From here you essentially reverse search. Since you know the names of the literary agents you are interested in, you can look at the literary agency each agent is a part of — which will allow you to find even more literary agents that work within your specified genre and might be a good fit for you.
The Agent of Best Fit
Also make sure that the literary agents represent books within genres you may want to write for in the future. For instance, if your manuscript is fantasy, but you also have a great idea for a book in romance, look at literary agencies (and literary agents) that represent both. A good literary agent for you will be one that does every genre you want, because you can't really have more than one agent!
Good news though! It shouldn't be too hard to find a literary agent that fully suits you. There are rarely any literary agencies that have only ONE genre they specialize in, so make sure the variety they offer is the variety your manuscripts fall under.
The Next Step in Your Agent Search
Once you’ve picked a few agencies to start, begin looking at individual agents (and not just the ones from your fave books!). The literary agency may be known for several genres but not every agent at the agency will take on manuscripts from all of them.
For example, if the agency is for science fiction, historical fiction, women's fiction, and thriller, some agents might do science fiction and thriller, others may do historical fiction and women's fiction, or all genres but historical fiction. Make sure you are looking at each agent's specialties to make sure they will be a good fit for any of the manuscripts you may want to give them. Just want to reiterate this point, some writers think they should just write a query letter to any agent or agency that crosses their path. Don't do that!
Look At The Client List of Your Potential Agents
After you’ve verified a few agents that match your style, look through their lists — as in the list of books they have had a hand in getting published. See what kinds of books they take on. You might think that a genre is a genre, but there are subsets and tropes in each, some of which might fall in line with your work, some which might be the exact opposite of your work.
Try to look through a few blurbs for each list and decide from there which agents are making it into your top picks — these picks should have something in common to the manuscript you currently have, or comp titles. When you have your top picks, if you have time, try to read some of the books that look promising. See if they are similar to what you want your manuscript to look like when it becomes a published book.
A Meaningful Way to Narrow Down Your Agent List (Quicker!)
If you don't have time to read a whole roster of books from several agencies, make sure to at least read the author's note of the books you picked out for the same reason as before, but this time you're looking for consistency:
Do all of the authors' acknowledgments sound the same?
Do some of them glaze over your agent's contributions or not really mention them at all?
Are the things they're credited for things you would want your agent to do?
Asking yourself these questions can help you more clearly figure out not only what kind of agent you want, but also what kind of agent you are asking to join you. Given that your agent can define your entire process of being published, it's important to know who you're "getting in bed with" so to speak.
A Secondary Agent Search Method
This method is paid, but may be totally worth it for some of you new authors! The best website for writers to find literary agents and editors they may want to work with is called Publishers Marketplace. They have a search tool for writers to find literary agents that would best suit their current manuscript.
Simply type in a simple one sentence description of your manuscript, which category/genre it falls in, ask for only available agents and voila! A list of agents that may like your manuscript will come up. This also works for any editor that may be interested.
If you do go the editor route, if you click on the profile that comes up, it will tell you the agents/agencies this particular editor has done quite a few deals with in the past, which may also help you find the agents you're looking for. Research done this way can be a very powerful tool, since everything is laid out for you!
A Hot Tip!
Because the market of writers looking for agents is so saturated, and and every literary agency is swamped with queries and manuscripts it can take them weeks to read, when they already have full client lists!
One way to increase your chances of getting an agent is this: look for a new agent. No not a different agent than what you had before, but an agent that's relatively new to accepting clients.
Why? Because these agents are now building their lists and are more likely to take on writers with less experience. These new agents do lack a bit of experience, but most agents and agencies have new agents assist them on deals before they actually get the title, and some of these deals they work on can be massive projects like bestsellers or famous authors.
This means that an agent with some good experience could be looking more intently for new writers just like you! So how do you spot them? Simple. Look for agent titles like "junior agent" or "associate agent" when you research literary agents.
The Query Letter
But now that you’ve narrowed down the list of agents you might like to represent you, and maybe even found your dream agent, it’s time to start sending out query letters. If you don't know what a query letter is or want more in-depth tips on how to write one, see How To Write a Query Letter; but here are the basics:
A query letter is basically the cover letter of the publishing world. You write up a bunch of information about your manuscript, why the agent you're sending the query letter to is a good agent to represent you and this book, and how you think your book will do in the market.
Writing a Better Query Letter
Because of this, it is very important to follow the tips and method we laid out about how to research literary agents. What you learn about them will be vital to writing a good query letter — because personalized query letters do better than generic ones.
Another thing to keep in mind is to keep it short. The word count should be around 500-700. Something that can fit on one page will likely an agent to read it before a long-winded 3 page essay on why your manuscript is the best. Agents don't want to waste time, they have a bunch of queries to go through, remember?
Submitting Your Personalized Queries
The last thing you should take into account on your journey to find agents is to follow the submission guidelines that are on the agency website. Each literary agency has different guidelines they want their querying authors to follow.
They may want you to use Query Tracker to submit instead of email, they may want you to not query other agents inside the literary agency or at other agencies while your query is under review, they may want you to only query at their agency once — meaning you only have one shot to impress whichever agent you're most interested in. Why is this important?
Not following the submission guidelines may get an entire literary agency to stop accepting or acknowledging queries from you. Even if your query letter is personalized and your manuscript is perfect for them. Agents really prefer authors that can follow directions, so make sure that's you.
What To Do When Waiting
Like we covered before, it can take pretty long time to respond to queries, if they do at all, even if they would actually be interested in your manuscript. So what do you do?
Often times, the estimate of how long it will take for someone to get back to you about your query letter will be mentioned in the guidelines, as well as when it's appropriate to follow up on your query and when it's okay to query others at the agency if no response is given. So make sure to read everything before you submit!
But while you wait...keep looking for other agents you might want to represent you! Rejection letters are bound to happen, as well as some queries that never get answered. It's a part of the writing journey.
If you are consistently looking for agents while continuing to query, you can streamline your efforts and possibly get results quicker, since you're making efficient use of your time!
Extra Resources
If you're looking for a shortened version of what we discussed here, then take a look at our agent checklist, where we break down our tips and method into a easy to digest list you can check off as you go! It also comes with a few extra tips on the best ways to approach getting an agent.
Looking for more information on actually finishing your manuscript, check out our helpful article on writers block. We break down a way to outline that might help you break out of whatever rut you're experiencing.
Final Thoughts
A literary agent can be hard to pin down for many writers, even if they're writing the next book to break the bestsellers list, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Writing a good query letter, researching a list of agencies you'd like to consider, looking for a junior agent instead of a more prestigious agent in your first go around, and following guidelines to a t can make you the stand out candidate.
Now that you know, try implementing some of these techniques, and find that agent of your dreams!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE… There’s one thing to keep in mind that may just help you get your foot in the door with an agent. Something that only people in publishing know! Want to learn more? Make sure to subscribe to know when our newsletter drops!
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