8 Agents Who Represent Poets
Where to Query This Week (11.27.24) | Plus essential tips and etiquette for landing an agent
Welcome to Sub Club’s Where to Query This Week!
I’m excited to welcome
to the column today! She is an author, anthology editor, and creator of the Substack, . And in her piece below, Christine shares just how to write a query letter (yay!). She gives a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown of the letter’s components and highlights how etiquette and professionalism can go a long, long way.Navigating the agenting process can feel overwhelming (to say the least), so I hope today’s column provides you with some confidence.
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Querying Agents: What’s the Big Deal? (Hint: Etiquette Matters)
For the last several years, I’ve periodically taught a publishing industry course for the graduate creative writing program at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies, of which I’m faculty director.
One of the assignments is an agent query letter, pitching either a work-in-progress or a manuscript the student hopes to write in the near future.
My sense is that this assignment is among the most useful for students, in part because query letters strike them as residing somewhere between “tedious task” and “necessary evil” on the writing-life spectrum.
An agent query letter generally contains these components:
Salutation, e.g. “Dear Ms. Nesbit”
First paragraph: Explain why you’ve contacted this particular agent, which should ideally be based on one of the following: your admiration of the work of an author the agent represents, an interview they did for a trade publication such as Poets & Writers or The Writer, an article you read that highlighted their agenting policies and techniques, or a personal recommendation from another writer who knows this agent and thinks you and she/he/they would be a good match.
Second paragraph: a short synopsis of your manuscript/book project (in some cases, you might need two paragraphs for your synopsis, but keep both paragraphs as concise as is feasible).
Third paragraph: a few biographical details about you that are writing-related or in some way address the subject(s) you focus on in your manuscript.
Fourth paragraph: Some variation on the following: “If it’s of interest, I can send you a partial or the full manuscript of…” and “Thank you for taking the time to consider my query. I hope to hear from you soon.”
Complimentary close: “Yours sincerely” or “Best regards”
I also suggest including your Twitter, Instagram handle, website URL, and/or Facebook page if you have them.
Query letters should be no more than 500 words. In fact, I’d try to keep them between 350-400, keeping paragraphs to a few lines each if possible—agents’ and/or their assistants’ eyes will glaze over if your letter is too long, and the paragraphs are too bulky.
A Few Notes About Querying Etiquette
In most cases, you don’t need prior publications to interest an agent in your work. But you should have a polished, full draft of your manuscript ready, one that you have likely redrafted at least a few times after your most trusted readers have given you strong feedback (and you’ve taken that feedback into account in your revisions).
As a rule, I don’t recommend querying an agent until your novel, memoir, essay collection, etc., is entirely done. After you find an agent and have published a book or two, however, it is sometimes possible to sell a manuscript based on a partial draft. Often, this is for nonfiction projects, which frequently sell based on a proposal and a few early sample chapters. But for fiction manuscripts, this isn't very common (unless, again, you are an established author, and your previous books have sold well).
Do your best to come across as reasonable, polite, and easy to work with in all your interactions with an agent. They are most likely looking for the smallest reason to hit "delete" when your query comes in because any good agent receives hundreds of queries a month—some even more—from writers looking for representation.
Resist the urge to tell the agent how tired, demoralized, or sad you might feel about how long it's taking to find an agent. Be straightforward and keep your tone neutral in your letter.
You should plan to query anywhere from 30–130+ agents. It’s hard work. Muster your toughest hide and strongest work ethic to keep at it. When you do have interest from agents, be sure to talk with them on the phone—or meet in person if possible—before agreeing to representation. Objectively speaking, they need you and your work more than you need them (even if, at the outset, it certainly doesn’t seem this way).
Furthermore...
If an agent asks for an exclusive read, the timeframe for this is generally one month. If you don’t hear anything after a month passes, write a polite email to nudge them.
Be patient and polite, always. Most agents are overwhelmed with queries.
Christine Sneed’s most recent books are Direct Sunlight, Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos, The Virginity of Famous Men, and Paris, He Said. She’s also the editor of the short fiction anthology Love in the Time of Time’s Up. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, Ploughshares, New England Review, New York Times, and many other periodicals. Her work has received the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, and the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, among other honors. She teaches for Northwestern University and Stanford University Continuing Studies.
For more help with your query letters, check out an upcoming workshop with Write or Die! Starting on January 11, 2025, Query Letter Bootcamp with Haley Swanson will cover the nitty-gritty of how to best query an agent. You’ll take a close look at a few different types of query letters—nonfiction proposal, memoir, novel, and short story collection—before breaking them down into digestible (and replicable) sections. Leave this workshop confident to start querying agents in the new year!
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8 Agents Who Represent Poets
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A note about this list: I found the majority of these agents by looking at those who had recently sold poetry collections. Most agents don’t seem to cater their wishlists to what they are looking for in poetry, which is a bummer. But rest assured: there are some out there looking for your poems.
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