Advice for Querying a Literary Agent

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Advice for Querying an Agent

Last week I attended my first ever writers’ conference where I met with writers, the majority of whom were in the early stages of their publishing journey. Most were there to find a literary agent, something an editor is generally not as equipped to help with. Over the two days of giving feedback, a rhythm emerged of certain advice that kept popping up. The later writers definitely benefited from those before as it became clear the patterns of areas for improvement and this editor’s ability to articulate them.

None of this advice is exactly revolutionary so there’s no reason it shouldn’t be out there. With the caveat that this is not advice from a literary agent and, like what editors look for in a manuscript, their milage will vary in what they’re looking for in a query letter. (If you’re unfamiliar what a query letter is, it’s just an email that writers send to literary agents pitching their work and themselves and asking for consideration of their material and/or representation).

The truth is that these tips may provide solid guidance for querying an agent, it’s always putting advice into practice that is the most difficult part.

Step 0-A: Make Sure You’re Ready

Writers, understandably, are excited by the prospect of publishing. Of getting validation for the many hours they’ve put in and to make something more tangible out of their hard work. But jumping into the querying process too early can be a big mistake.

Author Lincoln Michel was kind enough to interview me for his excellent newsletter Counter Craft last week, and, at risk of quoting myself, but being careful not to plagiarize myself, I’ll just copy over the advice I gave there:

Editing starts with the writer, and my advice to writers would be to take the book or proposal as far as you possibly can yourself before querying or turning it into your agent—edit, sharpen, get feedback from trusted readers, repeat…There’s a bit of a natural impulse to get to “finished” and hand it off to the next person (including editors trying to hand it off to production), but if the writer/agent/editor cuts corners because they expect someone else to fix it later, things usually turn out poorly.

The question for writers boils down to this: Why put that mountain of effort in writing 300+ pages (or doing years of research) to not give yourself the best possible chance at the querying stage of impressing a great agent? Before you query, be your own best editor and be honest about the improvements that can be made to the manuscript. Are there basic mechanics you need to work on?* Is the manuscript too long? Are their places where as a critical reader even you lose interest?

The goal of the whole endeavor of writing is to make a great book and/or a hugely commercially successful one. You can follow all the steps below, write a fantastic query letter that gets agents interested, and then what? If the writing doesn’t deliver, then the best pitch doesn’t often matter. Okay, the very, very best pitch ever might make a difference, but why not just write a good book instead (even if you write the best pitch ever, the book still has to be pretty decent)?

It’s an accomplishment to finish the first draft of a book or proposal, frankly most people don’t get that far, but a first draft is just the start of a long process. Pick up your editing pen before you pick up the one to start writing a literary agent.

*Step 0-B: Basic Mechanics

A quick aside. The most common feedback for the early writers I met at the festival had to do with changing thought into action. Too often there were too many figurative and literal italics on the page, i.e. The smell of peonies reminded him of his missing wife., when it would better serve the writing to be action over explication. This and other related explicative verbs like “looked” and “remembered” come naturally when most people translate a story from their head onto paper for the first time. Something like: “He saw that his boss was wearing his red power tie and that’s when he knew he was in trouble.” Can instead be the more immediate “His boss was wearing the red power tie. That spelled troubled.”

The writer has an image in their head that they “see”, they imagine their character “knowing they’re in trouble”, so that’s what they write down. There are exceptions to every writing rule, but usually “thinking” and “looking” insert the writer and thus lessen the immersion of the reader. This is just one small suggestion, it’s no means the be all end all, but an easy first step for early writers looking to improve. Trust the reader. Demonstrate don’t explicate.

Step 0-C: What about self-publishing?

This question came up from a number of writers. There are pros and cons to every choice. There’s no shame in self-publishing although it is quite a different beast.

I will not claim to know what I do not know, but generally my understanding is that self-publishing requires a writer to learn a lot about the self-publishing platforms to develop a whole set of skills outside of writing. It’s more akin to starting your own internet eCommerce store or social media account than what the traditional publishing route entails.

The benefit of self-publishing is that you don’t have to wait for approval and you can get reader feedback more immediately (and money, if your book sells). For genre writers starting out this can make a lot of sense. If you’re not such a fan of revising endlessly and if you plan to write many books quickly, self-publishing seems like a good way to keep yourself motivated while improving your writing skills. Plenty of writers have also jumped over from self-publishing to traditional publishing once they prove success and a readership (especially in the Romance and Fantasy spaces). The downsides? No professionally designed physical books or distribution beyond big online platforms, no guardrails (the only one responsible for quality control is you), and basically everything is on you as the writer to be your publisher from writing to publicizing to order fulfillment.

Without snobbery, the bar in traditional publishing, big and small, is simply higher. While all of those gatekeepers do occasionally miss something good, there are hundreds of literary agents and editors whose jobs it is to critically read. Books are highly subjective and these are all idiosyncratic individuals so they rarely agree about what is truly great, but they do generally know what is not. Whereas there is no floor in self-publishing, the floor in traditional publishing is extremely high. With fierce competition for attention and limited resources, traditional publishing can be a long and arduous road. The benefits are a set of professional services and opportunities that are rarely afforded to self-published authors (like reviews, awards, etc.).

How you know the TV show you’re watching is adapted from a novel.

So, you’ve decided to query after this extremely long riot act on what to consider and do first, well here are some simple things you need to know.

Step 1: Say Why You’re Writing (~1 short paragraph)

Like young people going on their first job interviews, the biggest mistakes made are often in forgetting the simple niceties (showing up on time, writing a follow-up email, etc.). Making sure you spell the agent’s name correctly, including the much maligned but often necessary “I hope this finds you well,” and so on. Definitely take the time for kind and careful formalities when querying an agent, as you’re asking them to spend hours if not potentially years of their life with you and your work. Also querying an agent is like that old Van Halen legend that feels like a self-help book anecdote: famously, Van Halen requested brown M&Ms in their extremely extensive rider to ensure that venues followed their technical setup instructions and didn’t skim their instructions. If an agent provides submission instructions, no matter what they are, read them carefully, follow them, and double check that you have.

Secondly, if you put 100 hours into writing a book, take the time to do your research on the agent you’re querying. You don’t have to include a four-page backstory, but including just one sentence that demonstrates your thoughtfulness and that you’re not just spamming every agent in the business. Throw in one point of connection if you can: Did you grow up in the same area of the country? Do you share an acquittance? Did you read something online that featured them and made you think they would like your work? Or, the old standard go-to: Do you admire the authors they represent and is your work similar in any way?

Step 2: Descriptive Pitch (~1-3 short paragraphs)

Write your query description/pitch as if it were descriptive copy on a book jacket (or, more realistically, book descriptions you see online). Copywriting is not fiction or book writing, it’s a separate skill. It takes a while to translate art speak to marketing speak. A big favor writers can do for themselves is to spend time reading publisher descriptions online of contemporary books (published in the last 3-5 years), books similar in genre to what they’re working in or that they simply like. Look for what descriptions grab you and try to emulate them in your query letter. Here’s a rock-solid piece of copy from a big thriller bestseller The Silent Patient.

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband―and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations―a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

What you’ll notice here is a headline that tells you the genre (add the word count if the agent you’re querying requires it) and summarizes the premise of the novel. It doesn’t matter if you’re a genre novel or a literary classic like To Kill a Mockingbird*, this headlining sentence or hook is crucial to framing a book and demonstrating that the writer knows what their own work is fundamentally about at its most distilled. Writers should also take notice that this description is far from a synopsis, it's all setup. Yes, there are evocative details mixed in — “Alicia shoots him five times in the face” — but the description is all about covering the info you’d probably learn in the first three chapters. The point is the same for a published book’s description as a query letter: there’s no need to hit any plot points if someone is going to read the book, you just want to get them interested.

Another useful, easy thing to do is include comparison titles in your headline or in the section below, this is a marketing and publishing technique used often to anchor your reader— or agent, as it were—as to what your book is about without having read it (e.x. if you say “for readers of Stephen King”, we’ll get an idea of what you’re aiming for). Again, just like you’re reading contemporary descriptive copy online, try to do your research and reference contemporary writers when making comparisons. To become a published writer, it’s extremely beneficial to be a reader first.

*In case you’re curious, the headline for To Kill a Mockingbird is: “[A] masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred.” Don’t look at the classics for inspiration, they often get a pass on vagueness of description (my favorite I stumbled across, Pride and Prejudice: “Austen's most popular novel, the unforgettable story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy”) because millions of people already have read them.

Step 3: Who + Why (~1 short paragraph)

The last thing to do in your query letter is tell the agent about yourself and/or what you hope to accomplish with your book. What drew you to the subject of what you’re writing? What’s your personal relationship or expertise to the material? This is another opportunity to stand out and show your thoughtfulness. It doesn’t have to be your whole life’s story, but work in your bio and explain who you are and why you are writing this book. There are a lot of books in the world—what’s the story you want to tell and what makes it new and exciting to you?

Final Thoughts

None of this guarantees that you will get an agent, only to achieve the ultimate goal whether you are just starting out or a published author twenty years into their career: get readers, in this case an agent, to give your work a chance. While it’s fun to write a pitch letter, imagine yourself holding a beautiful book and giving talks at bookstores, always go back to step 0 and remember that it’s about the writing first.

Daunting Classic Tracker: The Book of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 350/992 (The Farthest Shore)