What Do Literary Agents Want??

Hey friends,

I'm back in the query piles! I've switched up my query schedule a bit since I opened in October. Now, I'm open for queries from the first to the 15th of the month, every month, and closed the last two weeks to get caught up. I didn't exactly get caught up last month but I don't think it'll take me five months to get back to people under this new system. Fingers crossed! Send me good stuff!

So, what's the good stuff, you ask? I don't usually say things like ohhhh I'm desperate for new horror! or please please send me picture books about walruses (no shade to walruses, but I don't think they're having any particular ~moment~ right now). But here is a little more info on what you should send agents in general (actual material-wise) and what I do/don't want specifically (genre/concept wise).

So what do I want? Really freaking good books that I can sell. Simple, right? Lol, I know.

What can I sell? Books where I can get lost in the prose. Books that show me something I haven't seen before. Books that you want to hug when you're done and press into the hands of your friends. Books that have a clear readership–an identifiable group of people you can point to and say oh people who like X are going to love this. Yes, that's slightly related to the dreaded comps, and if you're still not totally sure on how to gauge that (and you won't be an expert and that's ok) think about it in terms of movies. Will people who loved the movie Inside Out love the movie It because they both have clowns in them? NO! But people who loved It might also love Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma because they're both kinda campy horror movies. I haven't even seen either of those movies and I feel confident about that correlation. Tell me I'm wrong.

I know I also said show me something I haven't seen before but also show me something like that thing everyone already likes. I know that's contradictory on the surface, but it's only contradictory on the surface. Do you go to a pizza restaurant and hope for a bowl of corn flakes on the menu? No. Do you go to a pizza restaurant and hope there's something interesting on the menu that you'd like to try? Sometimes! You may also always go for your old standby Margherita pizza, but you still want the cheese to be good, the sauce to be flavorful and the crust the right balance of chewy and crispy. You want that thing you love to a great iteration of the thing you love, or you're not going back to that restaurant.

Readers are not so different. You're not so different. When in doubt, put yourself in the readers' shoes.

Moving on from metaphors, I want to do something a little more servicey here and talk about what to literally send agents when you're querying. Literally in a digital sense, not physical, because I don't know any agents who still take physical query letters. I'm sure there are some out there, but save your stamps and send an email or query them through Query Tracker, if they do that. Here's what you're going to send:

1. A query letter! Did you know that I've written about those like 427 times? You can start here if you're just starting your query letter journey.
2. Sample material! Nine times out of ten (and there are still some agents who only want that query first–check their guidelines) you need to send a bit of your book for agents to read. You will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS 100% OF THE TIME send them the beginning of your book, be it the introduction and a sample chapter or chapters 1-3 of your novel, or 30 pages or 10 pages or whatever they ask for. But THE FIRST 10 pages please! I cannot stress enough how sending chapters 2, 4, and 7 is a bad way to query agents. If those are your best chapters, then you need to go back and edit chapters 1, 3, and 5-6. It does not make sense to read a book out of order for ANYONE and I really do need to make sure your book makes sense.
3. You might send your pages as an attachment, pasted in a form or email, or uploaded somewhere. All of these are fine. Follow submission guidelines. We absolutely know that formatting can get screwy, especially in email. Us agents are skilled email readers. We understand and can adjust. You will not be penalized for screwy formatting. When in doubt, use a .docx file, a PDF if your stuff is illustrated. If you are writing a graphic novel and doing the art yourself (or have an artist on board) send a low-res pdf of the art sample. If you are writing a picture book but NOT drawing it yourself, just send the text. That's ok. You don't have to draw it yourself. If you're not an artist, it's better if you don't.
4. If you are writing non-fiction, send your complete book proposal, with sample chapters. Please make it all one file.
5. If you are writing a memoir, you might do sample chapters, like a novel submission, or you might do a book proposal, like a non-fiction submission. Either is acceptable! One is not necessarily better than the other! It depends on your book! Just make your best decision and go from there!
6. You might also send a synopsis. I don't require one, but other agents do. Your synopsis can be 1-5ish pages, and should cover the whole plot of your book. Please put the ending in your synopsis. I need to see if you stick the landing. If you're getting overwhelmed by this, just think of it like doing an episode recap. Tell readers what happens! That's the most important part. Don't worry too much about your "voice" in a synopsis–just write it like you would write anything else! Tell me what happens in the book!

Notwithstanding anything you've heard to the contrary on Threads or whatever, there are really very few things that will get your query auto-rejected by an agent. Seriously, I do not auto-reject queries because there's a typo somewhere, even in my name. Typos just prove it was written by humans! (Don't insert typos because you think it will prove you didn't use AI to write your query. That's a bridge too far.) I will reject queries that aren't in the genres I represent, but I also understand the fine line between literary fiction and upmarket commercial fiction and I would not auto-reject things that close. But like, if you send me a police procedural, I'm going to pass. I don't rep those. If you send me a fantasy novel that just happens to have a space cop in it, that's not the same thing.

Specific to me, personally, here are somethings that can tip the scales toward rejection on a query:

1. High, high word count, and I don't even just mean high for the genre. I do not have the capacity to read long books these days, especially on submission. I'm talking +125k words, any genre. You're better off with another agent. (I do not sort Query Tracker and auto reject by word count, but it is not a plus when I see that word count).
2. AI. I don't want any books about AI. Non-fiction or fiction. No AI in the plot at all. Good AI. Bad AI. AI run amok. AI saves the world. AI nothing. I'm sick to death of AI and I want to read NOTHING about it. Please try another agent.
3. Satire. I don't love satire, folks. I don't gravitate towards "send ups" of an industry or politics or boarding schools or English departments or whatever you can think of. I just don't enjoy reading it. I often find the satire too thin, and it makes me think I see what you're doing there, author and it's not enjoyable. This is just me! Try another agent.
4. Any plot where there's a thinly veiled Trump or Elon Musk (or similar) major character. See #2.
5. YA novels where the point is all the kids have to try to kill each other, a la The Hunger Games. No thank you.
6. Gross out middle grade novels where it's like three goofy kids have to save the world from the snot monsters of Xork! I'm not the reader for that. Other agents probably are!
7. Picture books specifically targeting readers to teach a lesson. E.g., The funny bunny says please and thank you! No, thank you.
8. Contemporary fiction where the MC is lost (spiritually, physically, mentally, career wise, etc) and spends the whole novel finding their purpose. I love that journey for them! I just don't enjoy reading fiction about it. It's often too aimless or interior and I am an overly practical Taurus Sun with Capricorn Rising that wants to scream JUST GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! This is me. Other agents will feel differently.
9. Picture books for adults. This isn't a thing, imho. Adults just don't buy these. Go the Fuck To Sleep was an outlier and came out fifteen years ago.
10. And one more just for a nice even ten, a long time ago I wrote on MSWL or something that I don't love books with dragons, angels & demons, and some other mystical creatures. I'm honestly fine with all the others, but I still don't love books about dragons, or angels & demons. It's just a preference. Some people are weird and don't like chocolate ice cream. You can call me weird for this, too.

Lastly, DO NOT USE AI TO WRITE YOUR QUERY. At all. Please just use your brain. I promise it'll be better than whatever the Law of Averages machine can spit out. AI literally produces average content. Query letters are not where you want to be average!

Good luck on your query journeys friends. I'm rooting for you. And remember, if this book does not succeed, write another and another and another.

XOXOXOX,

Kate

Happy pub day to two very different books on #TeamMcKean! Happy book birthday to Joyce Rice who illustrated The Greater Good!

"An ­encyclopedic graphic history and a massively useful examination of ­public health’s irrefutable ­value." said School Library Journal in their Starred Review!

And Lee Mandelo's paperback for The Woods All Black is out today!

“Tense, haunting, and deeply human, this is the Appalachian horror of the year.” —says Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt.

Yay Books!!!!!

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 unsubscribe? Look here.