Building Your Submission List: Making Better Targeted Submissions to Agents and Editors

Looking to query more effectively? Follow these tips to get closer to the agents/editors that are looking for your manuscript:

1.) Make sure you've correctly identified the genre that your book falls into.

Avoid the stringing of genres together, and instead pick the one genre that most accurately describes your manuscript. If you're not sure, find a book that is similar in structure and style to yours, and then look at where it is shelved in the bookstore/how it is categorized online. (Note that online categories may be less accurate than bookstore shelves, as categories can be manipulated for online exposure.)

2.) Objectively evaluate your book's potential market.

Okay, everybody wants to believe that their book is the next blockbuster and the market is "everyone from age 9 to 99!" But chances are, your manuscript's market is considerably smaller than that. Before you start looking at agents and editors, it'd be helpful to get a true sense of where your book's market lies. For example, if you see the book for use mostly in the classroom, then you're going to want to look at educational publishers and/or agents that represent a lot of non-fiction/educational material. (Caveat: most agents are interested in the trade market over the educational market when it comes to fiction and non-fiction.) If your book is of interest to a small niche, i.e. birdwatchers in upstate New York who are only interested in cardinals, you may find that it makes more sense to go to regional publishers directly.

Also, don't use whatever the latest emerging market is to pitch your book. In other words, a thriller starring a forty-year old protagonist is not "New Adult." It's an adult thriller, and abusing genres only makes one look amateurish. (November 2021 note - HA! Remember when New Adult was the hot new market?)

3.) Make a short list and a long list.

When agents submit to editors, they tend to submit first to a short list of houses/editors that they think would be the best fit/offer the best deal, and then work down the long list afterwards. Start by submitting to a small list of agents/editors that look like they are the most appropriate fit -- they have represented/published similar books, but there's nothing on their upcoming list that would compete directly with your manuscript. They are open to submissions and looking for new talent. Their personalities/philosophies jive with your own. Evaluate feedback from your short list, and then move on to the long list if necessary.

4.) Follow the submission guidelines, and observe proper follow-up etiquette.

More agencies and individual agents are using QueryManager, which gives us the opportunity to close to queries in order to catch up on what we have (or when we’re not currently looking because our lists are full). If an agent is closed - no matter how they accept queries - do not try to skirt around it by sending to their work email or through a contact form, etc. If an agent is only open through referral, it’s because they are not in the space to look at unsolicited queries.

Some further tips and tricks for building your sub list…

Nobody wants to compete with themselves.

If a publishing house just bought a book or series about a girl who spontaneously turns into a chicken nugget, they will (unfortunately) not need your book about a girl who spontaneously turns into a french fry. Likewise, I'm sure that anybody pitching a vampire series to Little, Brown between 2005 and 2009/2010 had a very hard time, since they'd be competing with the house's already ridiculously bestselling Twilight series. (That said, other houses were filling the vampire-voids in their list at the time.)

Some imprints don't "talk" to each other when making editorial decisions, but before an offer is made for a book, publishing houses will look at what they've already signed up in the coming seasons so that they're not competing with their own imprints. (Yes, this means that your rejection may very well be an "It's not you, it's me!" situation.)

Likewise, an agent that's just sold a huge series about spontaneously combusting girls, isn't going to be in the market for a second.

Really? Nobody's had that idea before?

If you can't find any editor or agent that's ever bought or signed on an idea like yours, this could mean one of two things:

1.) You managed to come up with the one idea that is unique among the millions of books already published.

2.) There's a reason nobody's publishing/represented that idea.

Everybody can tell their own unique story, but most stories still fall into archetypes, genres, etc. that help a publisher/editor/agent market it. If you can't find an editor or agent that's ever been interested in an idea like yours, it could mean that there is just no market for it. If you're having trouble finding editors or agents for you manuscript, ask yourself the following:

Is this age-appropriate?

For example, have you written a picture book about how to use a blender? A middle-grade about what it's like to potty train? It seems like it should be a no brainer, but I see plenty of children's manuscripts that wouldn't appeal to children. Or, in the case of picture books, the character would do something that no parent would let their five-year-old do by themselves (like cook on the stove.)

Has this been done before in another medium?

Contemporary remakes of the classics tend to do well, but writing a novel based on someone else's movie is a no-go. The right to write a novelization of a movie does already belong to somebody, be it the original screenplay writer, the producers, or (eventually/potentially) a publishing house that's bought that right. Sometimes I would read a query letter, and it would immediately remind me of a movie that had come out. It would be so similar, in fact, that I'd have to wonder if the person was trying to write a novelization of somebody else's work.

If you're giving the plot synopsis of your book to a friend, and their first response is, "Isn’t that just INSERT MOVIE HERE?" then it's time to watch that movie and see if you are too close to that particular piece of pop culture. You may not be consciously trying to write a book based on a movie or any other previously produced work, but no publisher is going to want to put themselves at risk for a lawsuit because there are too many similarities.

Is this too expensive to produce?

You might have an idea for a gorgeous, full-color replica of the St. Patrick's Cathedral that is a marvel of paper engineering. It pops up and the bell tower chimes, the next page plays organ music, and if you shake the book left to right, you can even see people rush by on Fifth Avenue. In other words, your idea is incredibly expensive to produce, would be overly expensive for the consumer, and may have a limited audience.

Lastly, some editors have more flexibility than others.

If you’ve decided to forego an agent and submit directly to editors, keep in mind that most editors are hired specifically to edit in particular genres, so if you notice that Editor X only buys picture books, it's unlikely that they're going to be interested in your YA (no matter how wonderful it is.) Some editors (especially those that are higher in the ranks) will have more flexibility, but do still have to work within their imprint's editorial philosophy. For example, while Walter the Farting Dog was very successful, Philomel wouldn't have published it because they were looking for more literary works at the time. (NB: Since writing this post, what Philomel is focusing on has changed, and perhaps now Walter would have a chance!)

So, while it's true that associate and assistant editors are working on growing their own stable of authors to work with, they may also be limited by the imprint in what they can acquire.

Okay, so now what?

If it turns out your manuscript has any of the issues listed in the further tips and tricks that might limit its potential in the marketplace, it might mean it’s time for a revision to make sure that you’re not following into any of the aforementioned pitfalls. And if there’s no way to push the manuscript further to make sure it does stand out in the current marketplace, perhaps you would have better luck shelving that project for now and going out with something else until the market changes. (Though obviously this is all generalized, and is worth a conversation with some knowledgeable writer peers or your agent should you be already represented.)