Literary agents

Literary agents are the people who read your manuscript first and decide whether it reaches an editor at all. If you are trying to find a literary agent, the search usually starts with one question: who represents the kind of book you have written? The listings here cover agencies working in science fiction, fantasy, romance, children's books and comics, across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

Science fiction and fantasy agents sit apart from the rest. JABberwocky handles speculative fiction almost exclusively, which means a query for a space opera or a secondary-world epic lands on a desk that already knows the difference between hard SF and science fantasy. Adams Literary and Andrea Brown work the children's and young adult side, where a picture book text and a middle grade novel are sold in entirely different ways. Comics is its own branch: a graphic novel proposal needs sample pages and a script, not a prose synopsis.

Geography decides the rest. United States agencies such as Nelson Literary, BookEnds Literary and P.S. Literary sell to New York editors. The United Kingdom runs through Madeleine Milburn and United Agents, Australia through Curtis Brown Australia, Jacinta di Mase and Selwa Anthony, Canada through Transatlantic Agency and The Rights Factory. Romance has its own specialists, and a romance query that leads with the meet-cute reads differently from one that leads with the plot. Pick the branch that matches your manuscript, because a children's agent will not take your thriller and a comics agent will not take your novel.