My Process for Querying Literary Agents: Finding a Good Fit

Ranger makes himself comfy on my messy desk.

Finding an agent who’d be interested in your novel seems fairly straightforward in these days of social media and the Internet. There’s so much information available.

And yet—so much information means even more to review and assess for fit. It can be time consuming for sure.

How do you winnow down that mountain of into to a more manageable pile?

I’m querying a middle grade mystery novel that includes an animal’s point of view. Each of those pieces helps me target agents.

I start with the biggest category—middle grade—and ignore all agents who don’t represent that age group.

Among the agents seeking middle grade fiction, I need to find ones who represent mysteries. To help with that, I signed up for a free account with QueryTracker.net.

On this site, agents can specify the age groups and the genres they’re interested in. For example, at the time of this writing, Caryn Wiseman with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency is seeking middle grade contemporary, historical, literary, and mystery; picture book illustrators; and young adult contemporary, historical, literary, mystery, romance, and thriller/suspense.

Next it’s time to delve into more detail about the agent’s interest in mysteries. I want to know

• If they already represent any mystery writers

• What kinds of mysteries grab their attention

• If mysteries are a priority on their wish list

There’s no one way to find out this info. I look in multiple places including Publishers Marketplace, their agency website, their personal website (if they have one), ManuscriptWishlist.com, and interviews they’ve done. Interviews may be listed on LiteraryRambles.com and/or QueryTracker. Or you can try Googling.

An agent may reveal their particular tastes by mentioning specific titles of books, TV shows, and films. For example, several agents mentioned The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. It’s a YA puzzle mystery with hints of The Hunger Games. Several mentioned The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, which came out in 1978!

In addition to sussing out an agent’s taste in mysteries, I also want to figure out if they’re open to animal protagonists. The raven in my zoo mystery is not the main character, but he’s a close second, and much of the story is told from his point of view.

Animal points of view really bug some agents, so I want to steer clear of them. On the other hand, if they love animal books but aren’t necessarily excited about mysteries, they’re a possible fit.

Finally, my zoo mystery has humor in it. A good-fit agent will be one who appreciates humor. I look at the agent’s clients and their published books to see if there’s any humor.

I make note of all this info on my spreadsheet.

Not all literary agents put their manuscript wish lists on third-party sites like QueryTracker. So, when I’m poking around an agency’s website, I also like to skim the other agents’ profiles to see if they might be a good, or even better, fit than the one I’m currently researching.

And when I do, I add that person to my spreadsheet.

Even if you’re not ready to start querying your own work yet, it’s not too early to develop a list of agents who might be interested in your work. The easiest way to begin is simply by noting who represents the authors you enjoy reading. Writers often mention their agents in the acknowledgements section of their published books.