You Will Submit! (Or At Least Consider It)

A List of Literary Agents

In this post, beyond the paywall, I’m providing a sampling of agents who are presently selling books with what appears to be gusto. I drew some of these agents from today’s Publisher’s Lunch email, an industry publication that compiles recent sales, and others are from a Poets & Writers article from a number of years ago (after I confirmed these agents are still in the industry.)

I recommend doing your own brief fact-checking before querying the following agents, in case they’ve changed agencies or left the industry in the very recent past. I also recommend querying new agents you read interviews with or hear about from friends—even if they don’t have the experience of an agent like Joy Harris or Lynn Nesbit, they’re often energetic and eager to prove themselves in the field. I’ve heard that new agents are usually welcomed with open arms because editors and other industry insiders want to see them to succeed.  

I’ve included email addresses for those I could find or for their general agency inbox. Many use online portals now for submissions instead of emails, and the portal URLs I found are provided here too.

Keep in mind, as I mentioned in my agent query letter post a couple of days ago, it’s best not to put “Query” in the subject line of your email. Some agents have a filter that routes queries into a separate inbox they only check on occasion. It’s best to use something like “Nonfiction book” or “A referral from…” or “New novel.”

Also, some agency websites will say they’re closed to queries, but for the most part, this is only partially true. From my experience, an agent is closed to queries from writers without a referral or those who don’t have previous (ideally, notable) publications. I queried a prominent agent a few years ago despite seeing on his Poets & Writers’ profile that he was closed to queries—I really did think he’d be the right agent for the book I’d just written and so I pressed my luck and tried him.

He agreed to read my novel and ultimately took me on. In my query I spoke specifically about the story collection by one of his authors, and its tone and style being similar to my new manuscript.  

There are some agents, however, who are only open to debut (or celebrity) authors “whom they simply can’t turn away.” I received one such reply from Eric Simonoff several years ago when I queried him.

Basically, if you’re polite, professional, and can find an email address or a portal on an agency website to submit a query, it doesn’t hurt to try, even if the agency states it’s closed to newcomers.

Sites that list a lot of agency info: www.1000literaryagents.com and www.querytracker.net (free)