Stop Writing for Literary Agents

Hello friends,

I'm in Italy right now teaching at a writing retreat, and yes, you should be very, very jealous. But this is a working holiday and I'm happy to chat with you here while I wait for lunch to be served at this Tuscan Villa. One of my favorite things about meeting writers IRL is the moment they realize that literary agents are just people, like them, who really like books, and not magical publishing fairies with the power to turn your pumpkin into a best seller. I think that if most writers met a literary agent in real life, at a conference or book event, they would have this experience, too, and tbh that might be worth the trip alone.

I hope that the more writers learn about and interact with literary agents, the more writers learn that they are not and should not be writing books to please me, to satisfy my reading yen, to make books so that I, first and foremost, want to read. I know you're calling bullshit on this in your head, because you've seen so many rejections and reactions from agents that say this doesn't fit my list at this time, I don't have the vision for this project, I liked it but I didn't love it. Frankly, I think agents are moving away from that working for this very reason. I don't have to like every query I read. I just have to believe I can sell it.

Now, as with everything in publishing, there are caveats to this. Every agent chooses the kinds of books they represent based, in part, on their personal preferences. I don't really enjoy reading mysteries–suspense is not delicious to me–so I don't rep them. That is a fact. I also don't rep celebrity books, political books, or a lot of satire, as a result of my personal preferences. I don't have to represent the deserving, worthy, accomplished, necessary mysteries in the world. Again, I hear you calling bullshit on this newsletter's thesis. Just wait a sec.

As a human and as a publishing professional, I can't represent everything. I have to make choices. No one dictates the kinds of book I represent, so that comes all from me and how I interpret the market. I pay my rent by selling books, so I if I felt like a certain kind of book would be professionally advantageous for me to try and sell, it might be in my best interests to check it out and see if I can do it. It might not, considering how much I need to learn about a genre and/or whether that would be a good use of my limited time. I spend my non-work hours reading for work but also, luckily, I'm not the only agent in the world. And to be a successful agent, I've learned to read widely. If I only repped one genre and that genre tanked, I would not to be able to pay my rent. It is in my best interests to diversify my list, in all senses of the word, so that I maintain a viable business. There's not only one kind of successful book.

Broadly speaking, I do only work on the genres I enjoy reading, because I am a human, not a machine, and do derive personal fulfillment from the job I choose to do to pay my rent. On a book-to-book level, I don't only work on books I personally like, that suit my tastes, that reflect my world view. That would not create a viable business for me and it would be an ethical failing on my part. I have a certain amount of power and influence, and with that power comes responsibility.

I have the power to choose what I work on, but I don't have the power to force a publisher to buy a book. I don't sell every book I send out. Different books have different financial prospects. I rarely chase trends. I do not only represent books I think will be a slam dunk because A: I don't know how it will do until I send it out and B: that would be boring as hell. I balance all these things best I can because I'm just one human doing one job. My personal taste ALONE does not dictate the clients I work with. It's part of it, but not even the largest part. The thing I'm going for over most every other thing is that omg I can't wait to read this book and omg I can't wait to tell someone about this book feeling and I get that feeling from so many different kinds of books, just like you do. High brow and low brow. Exquisite prose and exquisite plots, and sometimes both. Dark and gritty things and light and airy things. Messy things and perfectly structured things. Few to no readers out there read just one kind of book, and agents are the same way.

When I say oh, I'm looking for a mid-century historical novel about women who worked at NASA, I sure as heck wand to read that because it dovetails with my personal and professional interests. You should not, however, start writing that one today, just to please me. Writing a book is a shit ton of work, and if doesn't please you first and foremost, you're signing yourself up for years and years of drudgery that might not even pan out. But you might also see the above on my wishlists and think hmmm, I have a early 19th century historical novel about a woman who worked at a newspaper, or a fish cannery, or the White House. And your book is sorta close to a mid-century historical setting (and not something far afield, like prehistoric Yucatan), and has a woman working in an unexpected field for the time, even if it's not specifically NASA, and tbh you should send that book to me when I reopen for queries. I would read it and decide, on the merits of your individual book and whether or not I think I could sell it to other readers interested in books broadly shaped like yours, and offer representation or not. I am not guaranteed to like every iteration of any book about a mid-century woman working at NASA, just like you aren't guaranteed to like every version of your favorite dinner. You might love hamburgers but goodness knows there are good ones and bad ones, all made with roughly the same ingredients. But also, there's a time and a place for that "bad" one and another for that fancy "good" one.

It's easy to get so deep in the seemingly impossible task of getting published that you look for the tiniest advantages. You think, if I give an agent what they like, they'll give me what I need to get published. That's not really how it works. I like books I can sell, and books I can sell are books readers would be excited to read, and that's a wide, wide category. I don't expect any of this specific advice to help you get published. But I hope it stops you from writing that book you think is a sure thing and instead write the book you want to write. That book might not get published and that sucks. That's true all the time for everyone. The other way of going about it is equally dispiriting, time consuming, and hard to do, so you might as well enjoy the actual work of it, no?

Thank you for making it through this real talk. I know it's not always fun. But sit with this discomfort a little while, and you'll find it eventually feels quietly true and not so prickly and scary.

XOXOXOXOXOX,

Kate

Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019! Need to unsubscribel? Look here.