What Writer Agents Are
Looking For
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
There’s a point in every aspiring writer’s journey that they wonder what writer agents want. But the answer is not simple, depends on category and genre, and can change over time. That’s simply the name of the publishing game. For instance, if they have gathered a large enough pool of clients, writer agents—or “literary agents” as they’re more often called—tend to become more selective. Or if they’ve done a few too many projects in one category or another, they might mix up their wish lists. All literary writer agents need strong work in order to make a living. Here’s some advice for figuring out what writer agents and— and getting the attention of a publishing gatekeeper.
What Writer Agents Want
Over the years, as publishing companies have tightened their lists, writer agents have become increasingly selective. It’s more difficult to catch their interest, and the book ideas that tend to do it seem to have a combination of freshness and commercial appeal. There are many writer agents out there, and they tend to fight over the properties that have the most potential for a big sale. That’s not to say that you should sell your creative soul to churn out a commercial, mercenary project, but do keep in mind that writer agents only make money when they sell a project.
There’s still plenty of room on their lists for talented writers, but it isn’t easy to get noticed with “quiet” book concepts that lean more in the literary direction (you can check out an exploration of literary vs commercial here). Usually when writer agents become really excited about a project, they aren’t alone—and they have to engage in competition with their peers.
By the time I began my second year as a literary agent, I found that I was becoming more selective about what projects I wanted to take on and often found myself in highly competitive situations with other big-name writer agents. This didn't leave me much time to go through the entire manuscript consideration process, as is outlined in another article. That being said, I wanted to make sure I was offering for the right reasons, so here is how I considered the submissions that came into my slush pile.
What Writer Agents Want: A Stellar Query Letter
First, a cover letter that catches the eye is a big asset. But it’s not the only thing that writer agents will consider. To avoid any slush-related biases (and being wooed by a great query that has all style and no substance), I would move excellent-sounding queries to the Maybe Pile and revisit them the following day. If I still found the novel intriguing, I would request the manuscript.
How Writer Agents Evaluate a Manuscript
Writer agents make their own decisions, but they often had help. When I was agenting, if I had time to run a manuscript by a reader, I would do so. (This wasn’t always possible in competitive situations when I was fighting for it with other writer agents.) To help me, I had interns and readers who would evaluate projects before I did a deep dive. Of course, I took the time to thoroughly vet each reader I worked with, as well as keeping up with any new readers from the literary agency where I worked. Though I wouldn’t necessarily agree with everything they’d tell me, I valued their feedback and writing notes. (My readers did not share their opinions on manuscripts with each other and I did not let them make decisions for me, to be clear, though writer agents all tend to make their own individual policies.)
Now, when I was reading a promising manuscript, or if one of my readers highly recommended it to me, I would get to it rather. Unfortunately, most manuscripts tend to fall apart by page 50, and I’ve found this to be true in my freelance editing work as well. (The fifty-page mark was when I would tell my readers to do a gut check and see if they still wanted to keep reading.) It’s important to note that writer agents and their readers are only human, and can make bad judgment calls. The business really is subjective.
When Writer Agents Get Interested
Most of the time, the manuscript issues would lie in a flat character, generic writing voice, slow pacing of events, or underdeveloped plot. If my readers put it down as well, then I declined to read any further. Writer agents have to crunch through a lot of material very quickly, otherwise, submissions would easily get overwhelming. Writer agents are always running behind on correspondence. But sometimes, a project really does stand out, and it’s time to move on to next steps.
When a manuscript submission is particularly strong, I would ask all of my readers to take a look at that specific project and provide me with a manuscript overview. Likewise, I would read and make notes on the manuscript. If I was still convinced of the manuscript’s virtues and marketability, then I knew it was an ideal candidate for offering literary representation. Sometimes, I gave myself a couple of days to be sure. The next step would be a literary agent phone call.
Not all offers that writer agents make result in the writer signing up with that particular agent. And it’s important to keep in mind that every manuscript that writer agents accept needs further revision before it goes on submission to publishers. When multiple writer agents make an offer of representation, they will each give a sense of their story feedback. The writer will then have to choose based on the writer agents’ ideas. (Here’s a list of questions to ask a literary agent, if you’re in the process of vetting writer agents.)
So, what do literary writer agents seek? Long story short: quality that gets many people excited! Keep writing and revising, and you’ll get close to your writing and publishing dreams every time you sit down at the keyboard.
Click here to purchase Irresistible Query Letters, my book on query letters, including over forty examples with comprehensive notes on each one. There’s a ton of submission advice, best practices, and insider information in these pages, and you’ll really enjoy seeing what other writers are doing in the slush.