What literary agents want is an unanswerable question, but there are definitely clues to be found. I spent way too much time researching agents when I was querying. Agent Query, Query Tracker, Manuscript Wish List, #MSWL on Twitter, and many others I've forgotten. The vast majority of agents are Gen Z women, with a few males sprinkled in. And older agents are generally agency owners who, if they accept manuscripts at all, are v-e-r-y choosy (as they are quick to point out).
Of those Gen Z'rs, how many manuscripts do they accept each year? Between three and six. THREE AND SIX. Here is a breakdown of an author's chances (1 in 3,000 to 1 in 6,000), as well as the percentages of desired genres.
Since I only ever researched agents who specialized in women's fiction, I can tell you from experience what these little ladies wanted ~ queer, #ownvoices, multicultural, BIPOC, etc., etc. I've seen some very specific, weird requests, like "I'd love to see a woman's fiction novel about clowns". Oh yea, I write those all the time!
Then you have "junior agents" who've never sold anything, but are really enthusiastic. And speaking of selling, it's really difficult to discern which books an agent has managed to sell. I take that lack of clarity to mean that few of them ever sell anything. Yet strangely, there certainly is a glut of agents out there. I hope they don't work solely on commission!
When I take a look at my local bookstore's offerings, I'm shocked by the books that get published. I honestly don't get it. I've sampled some raved-about best sellers and the writing is so awful (a whole first page about a woman scanning the walls of her shrink's office) that I have to believe more is at play than merit. Surely at some point (hopefully quickly) an actual story revealed itself, right? Did this author have a connection to someone in the agency? Is her husband the owner's golf buddy? In all seriousness, as in every profession, connections count more than anything ~ more than talent, more than "promise".
I never actually obtained a job through a connection, but I certainly recommended many people I knew, and every one of them got hired. Truly, every one of them. Of course, I never recommended a total loser, but other people have and their losers got hired, too.
So, I'm picturing Joe Agency on the back nine pulling a 4-wood out of his bag and his pal Hal Hedge Fund offering casually, "You know, my wife has started dabbling in writing fiction...you know, when the nanny is on duty...and she's got this fascinating piece about staring at the walls of her psychiatrist's office..."
"Sounds great", Joe mutters. "I'll have Alecia give her a call."
"Appreciate it. But doesn't Alecia have a lot of whatchacallem, submissions to go through?"
Joe chuckles. "Never fear. She just dumps those in the trash."
"Oh! Har Har Har Har! Hey, wanna try one of these Cubans my valet procured for me?"
And there you have your next best seller!
And I'm not saying that agents are lazy, but why do they all require comps? I personally never had any to offer (one time I scanned the book listings on Amazon and found a blurb that sounded sort of like the theme of my story, so I used that), but if you submit using a website form, which is more and more common today, there is always a space for comps, sometimes a field that you can't bypass. I've entered things like "I haven't found anything like my story", which was technically true, but I also didn't exactly look for one. I don't read women's fiction. It's not that I've never read women's fiction ~ I did years ago, but it was simply called "fiction". So don't accuse me of trying to write in an unfamiliar genre and thus attribute my lack of success to that. It's just that I don't read women's fiction now.
To me, the requirement of comps signals that agents don't want anything too different, or that they only want a proven winner. The truth is, though, that except for a few specific genres, readers don't want a rehash. They want to be surprised and delighted by something they've never encountered before.
And there are rules for comps. They can't be more than a couple of years old (I guess nothing before the time when these agents learned how to read). If I was ever to query again (which I won't) I think I would just type in "War and Peace" and be done with it.
No, I don't respect agents. I think for the most part they're banal, indoctrinated, and myopic. And I simply don't mesh with their generation ~ don't understand their world view and wouldn't pander to it, even if I did. I think there is a place for older agents, but it seems that most of them get kicked upstairs and have to deal with spreadsheets instead of manuscripts. And maybe that's why I see so few books at Barnes and Noble that appeal to me. Few publishers are releasing books that aren't a bunch of woke nonsense instead of an engrossing story. But they can only publish the books that are shopped to them.
Really, this isn't sour grapes. I queried my very first novel, which in retrospect was okay for an initial effort, but nothing spectacular. I queried my second, which to be honest wasn't up to par. I queried my third, which is damn good. Below Par and Damn Good didn't make a whit of difference. I never wrote about clowns, so that may be my downfall. It's agents' attitudes, more than anything. Apparently they'll accept any slop as long as it hits all the high notes of identity politics. Nothing about real-life relationships or setting as a character in itself. That's not their world.
Yes, I self-publish, and yes, I'm not selling much. But I at least have skirted the snotty gatekeepers. And pride is worth more than anything.
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