Part I: How I Found, Vetted and Secured the Literary Agent of My Dreams

Researching, Prioritizing & Querying My List

It was always my dream for WE DON’T TALK ABOUT CAROL, my debut suspense novel, to be traditionally published (and it will be, on June 3rd, by Bantam/Penguin Random House! 🎉). So throughout my drafting process, I began collecting tips on how to eventually tackle the daunting, vulnerable, and notoriously rejection-laden task of querying literary agents. Traditional publishers rarely accept unagented manuscripts, and I knew it was in my best interest to have a trusted professional by my side to negotiate the best possible deal if (when!) we had an offer on the table.

I purchased a now heavily annotated copy of Courtney Maum’s brilliant guide Before And After The Book Deal (required reading for all aspiring authors), and her framing of the agent/author relationship shifted my perception of this dynamic in a really empowering way.

Before reading Courtney’s book, I pictured a querying author as something akin to a peasant embarking on a mission to curry favor from a member of a powerful royal family, traveling from palace to palace in the hopes that one of them would take mercy on their humble query letter, and give their beloved novel a chance at life. Courtney’s book reminded me that writers aren’t searching for saviors in our agents (even though it can certainly feel that way while querying). We’re looking for business partners. Because while authors typically need agents in order to be traditionally published, agents also need authors in order to earn the commissions that keep them in business. And as with all major business decisions, choosing the right literary agent shouldn’t be taken lightly.

As Courtney wrote, “You do not have to sign with someone just because they want to work with you. Take time before signing with an agent.” But how does one build a list of agents to query in the first place, go about querying them, and properly consider whether to sign with an agent should one finally, FINALLY, offer representation?

I highly recommend reading Before And After The Book Deal and listening to The Shit No One Tells You About Writing and First Draft podcasts for tons of helpful tips on this process. And if you’d like to read about my experience in finding, vetting and securing the literary agent of my dreams, read on!

Posing with an ARC of my debut novel, hitting bookstore shelves on June 3, 2025!

Building My List

I began assembling my list of agents to query early in the drafting of my novel. It started casually, by flipping to the acknowledgements sections of books I imagined mine would sit alongside on future bookstore shelves, and jotting down the literary agents and agencies listed there.

As my manuscript became more polished and my edits grew more painstaking, my agent research followed suit. I signed up for a premium subscription to QueryTracker, built a search for all agents based in the U.S. currently open to queries with an interest in my novel’s genre, and clicked through each of their profiles to learn more about whether we might be a mutual fit. This typically required me to visit their personal page (if they had one) on their agency’s website, as well as their social media and their profile on Publishers Marketplace (for which I also have a paid subscription). By looking at these resources, I got a sense for the other authors they represented, and the specific types of work they were looking for. While visiting their agency website, I’d also take a look at the other agents on their team, and add any relevant contenders to my list.

I repeated this process for weeks, pulling anyone who seemed like a good fit onto a spreadsheet. Here’s the template I used!

Prioritizing My List

Once I built my list of roughly 50 agents, it was time to put them in order of priority. There are several suggested approaches on how many agents to query at once, but early on, I decided I would reach out in small batches, starting first with the agents at the “top” of my list. “Shoot for the moon and you’ll land among the stars,” and all that. So I moved literary agents representing the biggest, best-selling authors to the top of my list.

Along the way I’d also heard that it can be incredibly beneficial to sign with an agent earlier in their career at reputable agencies with major authors on their roster, as those agents can be tenacious in their efforts to build a career of their own (and those of their authors in the process), while also having access to mentorship, guidance and connections from the senior agents repping those name-brand authors. Those agents made up the much larger second category of my list.

I prioritized that category further through a combination of data and vibes. I pulled the data from Publishers Marketplace, looking at the size of the deals they’d secured in the past few years, the publishers they secured them with, and the genres of those books. I also took a closer look at the types of books they were looking for; did I feel they would be especially passionate about mine? It was also important to me that the agent represented authors from a diverse array of backgrounds, so I did more digging on the clients on their roster. Once I felt comfortable with the order of my list, it was time to start querying.

Reaching Out in Batches

Deciding how many query letters to send out at a time is tricky. It can often take months to hear back from agents, so if you query too few agents at once, it may take years to work through your entire list. However, agents will often only allow you to query them once per book, and some agencies have a policy where a rejection from one agent should be considered a blanket rejection from the entire agency. Working in batches preserves your remaining list so you can consider adjusting your query letter or revising your manuscript before querying further.

I sent eight queries in my first batch in June 2023, and received four requests for full manuscripts, which felt like really encouraging feedback! The rejections on my full manuscripts began to trickle in by August, so I sent out another eight queries. One of the agents came at the suggestion of someone who decided to pass on my book, but thought a colleague of hers might be a better fit.

That agent and a second agent requested my full manuscript, and a few weeks later, one of them wanted to hop on a call to chat!

Gahhhh! THE CALL! I was getting THE CALL!

As with any major business-related conversation, I fastidiously prepared in advance of our scheduled chat. I re-listened to every podcast, and re-read every book chapter, newsletter and article on this topic, and I built a LAUNDRY list of questions to ask during our conversation.

If I were an author in (or preparing to enter) the query trenches, I’d want to bookmark that list. Unfortunately, posting it here will make this issue of my newsletter FAR too long. So stay tuned for Part II tomorrow, where I’ll share the list in its entirety, as well as insight into how our call went, and how I ultimately selected an agent when—spoiler alert—the second agent who requested my full manuscript asked to hop on a call!