Research Agents Without Wasting Submission Opportunities

Agent research is treated as due diligence, pairing a clearly positioned manuscript with agents who can prove recent sales in its lane while clearing out anyone charging fees, selling vague “services,” or lacking verifiable books before a single query goes out. By building a ranked list from agency sites, client lists, trade databases, and comparable titles, then querying in small batches, writers conserve finite submission chances for professionals who are demonstrably active, aligned with their category, and capable of sustaining a career rather than a one-off sale.

Agent research begins with the book. If you cannot state for whom it is intended, where it would be placed in a bookstore, and which other titles share its readership, you are not ready to build a list.

You need three pieces of position, even if you never show them to anyone. A clear category: adult, young adult, or middle grade; fiction or nonfiction; and the broad lane, such as crime, romance, fantasy, science fiction, literary, narrative nonfiction, prescriptive nonfiction, or memoir. A one or two-line statement of what the book is and what kind of reader it serves. Three to five recent books, published in roughly the last five years, that share audience, tone, or scope with your manuscript. They are the fastest way to see who is actually selling work like yours and where.

Begin the search with sources that can be checked. Agency websites come first. Serious agents typically operate under a named agency, even if they are the only agent, with an independent site or page that lists staff, clients, and submission instructions. From your comps, note the “represented by” credit in acknowledgments and on author sites; those pair real books with real agents in your lane. Add agents who appear on membership lists of recognized professional bodies and in curated online databases that track genres and query status. Use wish-list services and social posts as additional signals, not as your only source of directories. Conference faculty lists and long-running, trade-aligned pitch events can surface names, too, but nothing replaces what is on the agency’s own site.

With a longlist in hand, remove anyone who does not meet basic eligibility criteria. Real agents do not charge to read your work and do not ask for money to consider or secure representation. They do not bundle “representation packages” that mix agency work with paid editing or marketing services. They have an agency website with named agents, a physical or mailing address, a list of clients that can be verified, and books that can be located. Many belong to professional associations with published ethics codes. New agents are worth considering if they are affiliated with agencies with strong sales and senior agents vouching for them. An individual with no verifiable clients, no evident deals, and a vague “literary services” label is not an agent you should spend a submission on.

Some signs should prompt immediate termination of the conversation. Any request for an upfront fee tied to reading, evaluating, or “processing” your manuscript. Any pitch that guarantees considerable advances, bestseller status, or film deals before they have read a complete manuscript or proposal. Any cold outreach that uses the name of a well-known agency but directs you to pay a third party. On the edge cases, be wary of agents who also sell editing under the same brand. The question is simple. Does the representation arm stand independently, and are clients clearly free to decline paid services without jeopardizing their relationship with the agent?

Once the obvious problems are gone, tighten the category. “Represents fiction” is not a category. Read each agent’s bio and submission call. Note the age ranges, genres, and project types they specify, and the examples they give of books they love or represent. Then compare that language with their current list and recent sales. If nearly all of their visible books are cozy mysteries and light contemporary fiction, they are not a prime candidate for bleak literary horror, no matter how broadly they define their interests. When an agent states they do not represent picture books, poetry, Christian market titles, prescriptive health, or any other segment, take them at their word. Do not send work that they have already publicly declined.

Genre alignment is strongest when you can imagine your book on the same table as at least one or two of their existing titles and believe the same reader might pick up both. If you cannot make that connection, the agent may still be legitimate, but they should be assigned to a lower tier. Agents whose wish lists are long, vague, and all-encompassing, without a client list to match, are rarely as effective as those with clear, proven lanes.

Activity and sales history come next. You do not need a full rights catalog, but you do need evidence that this agent places projects like yours with publishers that match your ambitions. Read the agency’s news page and social feeds for recent deals and launch announcements. Check trade databases and deal-reporting platforms for the past few years to see what they have sold, in which categories, and to which houses. Pay attention to dates and patterns. An agent whose most recent visible sale was many years ago should be treated as dormant until you see evidence of current activity. A junior agent with few personal deals but a strong house behind them and senior colleagues in your lane is a different case than a lone agent with no recorded sales.

Match that record against the scale you are aiming for. If your goal is a traditional contract with a major trade publisher, look for regular placements with those publishers or with strong independents that handle similar books. If the public record shows only micro-press or vanity-press arrangements, you are looking at a different tier of career. For nonfiction, note whether the agent works with imprints that publish serious prescriptive or narrative work in your field, or if they cluster around marginal or fringe houses.

Think about fit in terms of a career, not only this submission. Some agents clearly carry authors over multiple books and build stable lists. Others appear more transactional, with many clients appearing once and disappearing. You can see these patterns in agency catalogs: repeat names, series developed over years, or, conversely, long lists of one-off titles. Notice whether the agency runs a foreign rights department or works routinely with co-agents abroad, whether separate audio and translation deals are common, and how often film or television options are announced. If you care about subrights and international reach, those are core considerations, not extras.

Organize the research into a hierarchy. At the top, place agents who are a clear match for your category, whose recent deals sit in the band of publishers you want, and whose lists already include books your readers might also buy. In the second group, keep legitimate agents who touch your area but for whom you are not the ideal fit: new agents at strong agencies, agents whose lists lean slightly more commercial or more literary than your work but still overlap, agents who occasionally but not routinely handle your genre. In the last group, retain only genuine long shots you might approach later if you reposition the book.

Query in small, deliberate batches drawn from the top of that hierarchy. Five to ten agents at a time are enough to test whether your materials and targeting are working. If several batches yield only form rejections or silence, revisit the query, the opening pages, and the list before moving forward. Do not treat every open inbox as an opportunity. An agent sees only one first query from you for a given project. You protect that chance by sending the manuscript only to people who are demonstrably real, currently active, aligned with your category, and capable of selling the kind of book you have written.