Asking for a Literary Agent Referral With Your Writing Query Letter
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.
Writing query letter after query letter can be discouraging, especially since so many agents no longer respond individually to each submission. But there are important pieces of etiquette to remember when sending off your writing query letter—and that includes a gracious rejection response.
Can I Ask for a Referral After An Agent Rejects My Writing Query Letter?
When a writer solicits a literary agent referral after being turned down, it’s a bad look. Oddly, this would happen all the time when I was a literary agent. Before you all get up in arms, I understand why writers may want to ask for advice on who might be a better fit for them, as agents are hard to understand. Literary agent research can only get you so far. I empathize with writers’ struggles to learn what agents are searching for.
However, I dread this inquiry after a writing query letter rejection for two reasons. First, I don't know much more about other agents than you do. I'm familiar with the agents at my own firm, but not those at other firms unless I'm friends with them or have seen a lot of their transactions recently. Second, at most agencies, if one agent passes on a manuscript, then that’s a “no” from all agents. You’ll see this policy cited in many submission guidelines when you start preparing your writing query letter.
Agents definitely consider referring promising writers when it comes to passing on manuscripts—we don’t want authors writing query letter after query letter if they have a great project on their hands and it just so happens to be wrong for us.
Putting the Writing Query Letter Into Perspective
The sad truth is that most of the work in the slush pile is not ready for publication, even if the writer has gone through the trouble of crafting a writing query letter and going on submission. And in that case, a referral is an inappropriate thing to request.
The only people I will provide with literary agent referrals are those who I think would be a fit for someone else at the agency. If that happens, I'll be sure to inform the writer immediately. If we don't think a project is up our alley, but it has great potential, we will happily hand it off to someone else. But it’s usually the agent who offers the referral, rather than the writer asking for it, especially after an unsuccessful writing query letter.
For those eagle-eyed readers who are wondering just what kind of editor would write an article with the clunky phrasing of “writing query letter” over and over on her website, I applaud you for noticing that this reads awkwardly. This is also not the correct term for it. We generally just say “query letter”. Please note that I picked this keyword phrase on purpose, as part of my SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. If you’re curious about writer marketing techniques, check out Good Story Marketing.
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.