How to Research Literary Agents to Query
Researching potential literary agents for you baby is hard. It takes time, dedication, and a lot of online stalking. Below I’ve listed some of my favorite websites that I’ve used to find out more about agents and what they like and dislike.
Manuscript Wishlist
Manuscript Wishlist is one of the best places to find what an agent likes. They’ll list their favorite TV shows, movies, and even novels so that you can compare your story to the agent’s likes in a heartbeat. The agent will also sometimes list their dislikes, too. If I had to tell you the number one website I used to find out more about an agent it would definitely be Manuscript Wishlist.
MS Wishlist
Similar to Manuscript Wishlist, but different in a good way, MS Wishlist basically gives you a feed from agents who post on Twitter with the hashtag “manuscriptwishlist” or “mswishlist.” This was super useful when it came to sifting through social media to find what agents were looking for at the time.
Publishers Marketplace
Not as heavily used as the two websites above, Publishers Marketplace still offers invaluable information about agents. The literary agents page lists novels they’ve represented, their own tastes, and what they’d like to see more of. While a lot of these websites tell you the same thing, sometimes you’ll get that one piece of information you’ve been looking for that’ll secure that agent of your list of potentials.
Goodreads
Goodreads really helps when you’re researching literary agents because you can visit the agent’s profile and see what they’re reading, what they’ve rated novels, and what is in their TBR pile. This is a very powerful tool because it’s everything you need to know about what an agent likes in one, useful website.
Interviews
Agents often do a lot of interviews with different magazines and online sources. The interviewer asks a lot of personal questions about that agent and the agent often gives a lot of good answers. What I do is I search the agent’s name online with “interview” afterwards to read the most recent ones. This helps when you are writing the query letter and want to get personal.
Researching agents is an essential part of the query process. Knowing the materials to have for the querying process, and learning from that process are so important. Don’t think that you can make one tailored query letter and send it out to all of the agents on your list. Making a personal query letter gives you that much more of a leg up on those people who don’t do their research. Don’t lose hope, though, if the research drags you down! All of it will be worth it in the end when you sign on with an agent and get to see your novel hit the shelves.
