How to Find a Legit Literary Agent in 5 Steps
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If you are in the process of querying literary agents for representation, you might be tempted to query any agent you find who represents your genre. While it certainly makes sense to cast your querying net as wide as possible, remember that you're looking for someone to entrust with your creative work and your writing career. That’s a huge responsibility, so I strongly recommend taking the time to vet any potential agent that you are thinking about reaching out to.
You want to make sure you’re working with a professional who has your best interests at heart, who is going to guide you in your career, and who is going to be a solid creative partner. So, whether you are just beginning the querying process and creating a list of literary agents that you want to reach out to, or if you’re at the point of having multiple offers of representation, it is important to vet these agents. In this article, I’ll go how to find a legit literary agent and confirm an agent's reputability to alleviate any potential problems down the line.
1. Research Their Agency
The first step in learning how to find a legit literary agent is to research their agency. Most authors will find the literary agent's name first, because that is what populates when you search literary agent databases. Then, they’ll look at the agency second. But it is very important to research the agency along with the agent themself.
Some questions to ask are: do they work at a big corporate agency? Or do they work at a smaller boutique agency that only has a handful of agents? Or are they an independent agent? This is going to give you a sense of the types of resources and support they have available for authors.
For example, a big corporate agency might have a more robust foreign rights team to help sell your book in other markets. Meanwhile, a boutique agency or an individual agency might have a more hands-on editorial approach that could be helpful if you are looking for a high level of creative support.
Now, these are generalizations, and there are plenty of boutique or individual agencies that offer robust foreign rights help and plenty of big corporate agencies that offer editorial help. But, these are qualities to think about when you're thinking about yourself as an author of that agency and what would be available to you. These are also good questions to ask any agent that you potentially have a conversation with about representation.
With reviewing agencies, remember: bigger is not always necessarily better. It's all about their reputation and the types of book deals they have done historically. So it's very important to check out what types of books the agency has represented, where those books have been published, and how they have sold. If they have a strong track record of making big book deals with highly reputable publishing houses, that's a great sign! If they haven't, then you might want to question if they can offer what you are looking for.
2. Check Out Their Book Deals
The next key step in finding a legit literary agent is to check out their past deals. This is a critical part of the process, so if you haven't done this, I highly highly recommend doing it now, no matter where you are in the querying journey. Just as you want to see what book deals the agency has done overall—which should be featured on their website—you definitely want to look at the specific book deals that agent has actually conducted. They might offer this information under their agency profile, but many do not. So, then, how do you figure out what book deals this agent has done?
The best resource for this is a website called Publishers Marketplace. This website releases announcements for every book deal that goes through the traditional publishing process. It will list the publishing house imprint, the author's name, the title of the book, the literary agent, and the acquiring editor at the publishing house, along with a summary about the book itself. This website offers a ten dollar one-day pass for those who want to do some quick research, so I recommend signing up for that and doing all your research on all your agents at once.
In order to search on Publishers Marketplace, type in the agent's name. All their past book deals are going to come up, which can be numerous to sort through, so I recommend looking for how many book deals they have done in total, and how many they have done in the past year. Few or no book deals ever or in the past year doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. This could indicate an agent that is new in their career or one who is having a slow year.
Another thing to look at is the publishers that they are publishing with. The traditional publishing industry is very network-oriented, and literary agents have personal relationships with editors at publishing houses. When you see the editor's name listed under the book deal, that means they are the person the literary agent has negotiated with to make the book deal happen. Check out the names of the imprints those editors are working for and see if that's the type of publisher you would like to work with. Do they publish other authors you admire? Do you like the genre they specialize in? Do you like their overall approach to things, like cover design and copy? These imprints are likely going to be the ones the agent will submit your own manuscript to.
It's also good to check what types of genres they have been selling. Do the books on Publishers Marketplace sound similar to your book in some way or are they totally different? If they're totally different, then you might see if another agent at the agency could be a better fit for you, or perhaps confirm that the agent is interested in breaking out into a new genre.
3. Review Their Client List
If you want to learn how to find a legit literary agent, you’ll need to know how to review agents’ client lists. Many agents will list their current clients on their website. If not, check Publishers Marketplace. All the authors they have made book deals for will pop up, and you can then look them up and ask yourself: is this the cohort I would like to be in?
You can see if these authors have respectable sales as well. I like to check by seeing how many Amazon or Goodreads reviews the book has. Of course, the sales are not entirely in the literary agent's, or even the publisher’s, control. But it offers some perspective on what you could expect from your own book.
When you're going through the agent's client list, I wouldn't get too hung up on the number of clients they have. Publishing is a very slow industry; it takes oftentimes years to write a book and, once you get a book deal, it typically takes at least two years to publish that book. So, not every client is on the same cycle. It's possible that some of the clients the agent has listed are not actually active for quite a while. So trust an agent when they say they are open to queries—they wouldn’t be looking for more clients if they didn’t have the capacity to handle them.
4. Peruse Their Social Media
The publishing industry's social media platform of choice is Twitter, and many literary agents are highly active there. Twitter is host to pitching events and manuscript wishlist posts (#MSWL), which is a tag used to let other industry professionals and emerging authors know what agents are looking for in their queries.
Taking a look at an agent's Twitter feed can help you get a feel for the types of books they want to work on. It can also help you get a feel for their reputability as well. For instance, are they followed by other industry professionals? Have they been engaging with editors at publishing houses or publishing industry organizations on Twitter? It also bolsters their credibility if acquiring editors at publishing houses, publishing industry organizations, and other literary agents are following them.
Finally, Twitter can also give you a sense of the agent's personality. This is not necessarily the most important factor to consider when vetting literary agents, but it can help you know if you would have a similar communication style that could mesh well for a partnership.
5. Watch For Red Flags
My last tip for finding legit literary agents is to watch for red flags. With the high demand for literary agents and the thousands of authors seeking representation, more and more publishing scams have arisen. Definitely listen to your gut if someone who claims to be a literary agent gives you a bad impression.
For instance, if they have a very basic or non-existent website, that’s a huge red flag. All reputable literary agents should have a robust website with information about the agency, their querying process, and the authors they represent. If you google the literary agent's name and you can't find any online presence, that can also be a red flag—agents want and need authors to reach out to them, so that info should be readily available.
Most importantly, if a person claiming to be a literary agent asks for any kind of money upfront, then that is a huge red flag and likely a scam. Literary agents get paid by a 15% commission on the book deal they get you—that is the only way they get paid. That is standard for the industry, so anytime someone claiming to be a literary agent is asking for money, that is not a reputable person.
At the end of the day, remember if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I hope this gave you some helpful tips and tricks on how to find a legit literary agent. As you embark on the querying process or continue your existing querying journey, it helps to do a reputability check—remember it is so critical that you as the author and as the creative feel empowered to only trust your work with someone who has proven they can take care of it.
Thank you so much for reading and happy querying!