Secret Agent

I very quickly learned that finding a literary agent requires you to basically become a secret agent embarked on the investigation of your lifetime!

Back in June 2021, I began to spend hours at night, on weekends and during lunch hours researching literary agents for my very first book, Painted Windows. I initially started with a pad and a pen, prepared to take notes, write down names, email addresses, pertinent information. Before I knew it, the pad became several pages of incoherent scribbles. At the time I scribbled them, there was no doubt in my mind what they meant. The next day was a different story!

That’s where the spreadsheet came in. Good ol’ Microsoft Excel! My go-to for organizing

information!

Now, might I say…Literary Agencies’ websites do not always make it easy to look up information about an agent, causing a person to scroll back and forth between their various agents to determine what their literary interests are and if any of the agents might have an interest in my work and genre—which is literary fiction, by the way. I know, kind of generic. I’m just not into dystopian worlds, sweaty bare pectorals, or Duke and Duchess of Far-Nether-Reaches. It is what it is! To each’s own.

I found myself many times going to a particular agent’s independent webpage or Facebook account to better learn what their “interests” were in manuscripts. Sometimes I found myself on their My Wish List page, which I had no clue existed until I put on that sleuthing hat.

My spreadsheet began to grow as I explored agent by agent. I learned very quickly that a

good majority of the agents had “interests” I had not even heard of! (Thank you, Google, for clearing up some of those mysteries!). Obviously, I was not writing in that genre! I also learned that each literary agency and the agents within those agencies might all have different methods of obtaining queries from prospective authors! Some were good with simple emails. Just email a query letter and cut and paste the first ten pages of your document into the email. Simple enough. For others, a query was submitted to a generic email account for the agency. Once again, submit the requested materials all pasted into a single email and press ‘send.’ Yeah, that left me feeling a little…unfulfilled. How did I know the agent I researched would ever see the query?

Then, there were the literary agency’s and/or agents that used the Query Manager system! This was a program with a series of blank boxes in which you typed or cut and pasted requested materials. It was not uncommon to do all sorts of research and investigation on a particular agent, only to go submit your materials on Query Manager and be met with the message: “Sorry, Agent So-And-So is not accepting queries at this time.” UGH!

Out of probably 300 plus agents—very possibly more—I ended up with approximately 60 agents whose interests were in ‘Literary Fiction’ on my spreadsheet, who were ‘open to queries,’ and I actually sent them each a query!!!

That was in June 2021…

I have since received four replies. Four. 1-2-3-4. All counted on one hand.

Four negative replies: 'I have looked over your project, and it is not a good fit for my list at this time. But please do continue to reach out to other agents. Best of luck!’ Or something very similar. The rest of the queries? Crickets. I heard crickets. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. But that should not have been surprising to me (although it was!) because many of them had disclaimers such as, “if you don’t hear from us in 60 days, consider it a pass,” or “We only respond in the affirmative!”

In trying to understand this bizarre industry better, I reached out to some of my favorite authors for advice and have received some genuine guidance. But the underlying theme of the replies I received from them was—continue to look for an agent, go to conferences where agents will be present and pitch your project, and join writers’ groups common to your genre. Great advice! And even better…they replied!

Heeding the advice from my favorite bestselling authors, I once again hit the lists of agencies and agents. Reedsy.com provided me with a list of 339 agents when I filtered for “literary fiction.” And, Literary Agents Undercover (www.literary-agents.com) has a directory of over 1,000 agents!! My work is cut out for me! But, as I was perusing the Literary Agents Undercover website, I picked up a few tidbits of information that has me doing some chewing…

In “The Chances of Getting a Book Agent / How to Improve Your Odds of Getting a Literary Agent,” Mark Malatesta wrote on June 10, 2019 (www.literary-agents.com/odds-of-getting-a-literary-agent/ retrieved on 11/19/2021) that 1 in 6,000 authors find an agent. 1 in 6,000. And, some agents receive 1,500 queries a month! One thousand five hundred. Furthermore, some agents will only take on six (6) new clients a year. Now, I am not sure where he got his statistics, as he didn’t list any references, but I am assuming he views himself a source where he has a history with the industry. And, based on what I have experienced thus far, I am guessing he is not grossly exaggerating. After all, he did follow these sobering statistics with twelve different strategies for improving the odds!

One of the most up-and-coming authors in 2021—Mindy Steele—told me, “Some of the best books ever written have never been read by a reader!”

Once again, I have my sleuthing hat on and my pitch fork in hand, as I actively scroll through screens upon screens of literary agents, looking for that one agent who will simply ‘click’ with my work…very much like looking for the proverbial ‘needle in a haystack’!

And for right now, my agent remains very much a

“Secret Agent”!