During the last round of “Friends Who Write,” I published a guide to writing a solid query letter template for any book – fiction or non-fiction.

But if you’ve already done that, the next step is to come up with a list of agents who are looking for exactly the kind of book you’re writing – and personalize your “standard query letter” to get the right agent to look hard enough at your project to fall in love with it.

There are a few places to look for the name of an agent. One is in the “acknowledgements” section of books that you consider to be comparable to the one you have written (or, in the case of a non-fiction project, are in the process of writing.) Fiction tends to be sold only once a full manuscript has been completed; non-fiction is usually sold on the basis of a “book proposal” – a unique document about 20-40 pages in length consisting of a synopsis of the proposed book, a list of chapter summaries, a biography of the author, and a market analysis which looks at competitive and comparable titles, explaining how your book is both similar enough to popular books to be marketable, and different enough to make readers want to buy it.

I’ll explain exactly how to put together a winning book proposal in a future article - but assuming that you have a complete fiction manuscript and/or a few chapters and a solid outline for a non-fiction book, it’s time to start thinking about finding an agent who can get your project in front of potential publishers.

I’ve mentioned looking at the acknowledgement page – this works best for fairly recent books. The older the comparable title, the more likely the agent which the book’s author thanks in their acknowledgements will have moved on or retired. But it never hurts to look into this avenue – and it gives you a great ‘personal hook’ for your query letter – “I loved how you brought (insert title) to market – it’s one of my favorite books, and I’m hoping that you might be able to do the same for (insert your book’s title here).”

If you’ve got some agents that you’ve found like that, add their names to your “Query List” – a spreadsheet full of the details that you’re going to build for all your potential agents. Here’s an example in the image below – you can use it to help you design your own, or sign up for my mailing list and I’ll send you a copy of a ready-to-go version!

A much more reliable way to find the perfect agent is to use a site called the Manuscript Wish List – this is where agents have gone to a good bit of effort to explain exactly what they are looking for – and many of them will give you a lot of insights that you can use to personalize your query letter.

For example, my wife is working on a non-fiction project focused on the niche field of science communication. Querying the keyword “science” on the MSWL agent search page gave me a list of about 20 potential agents – but I had to narrow that down by looking at each one to see how many of those hits were actually for agents interested in “science fiction.”

After eliminating those agents who were looking for fictional titles, I was left with eight solid candidates – and for each of these, I applied the following process.

Let’s take Monica Odom as an example. Her profile on MSWL indicates that she’s looking for exactly what my wife has to offer – “Nonfiction by authors with demonstrable platforms… a bold, fresh, fun, fearless female voice, and projects about… environmental change!”

That’s exactly what Jayde has – and Monica’s MWSL profile also says where she works, how she wants submissions sent (via e-mail to her literary agency address) and what she wants included (for non-fiction, she wants to see the whole proposal along with a query letter and one sample chapter.)

So, that’s it, right?

Not quite. It’s important to double-check the information – many agents have old data on their MSWL pages, and while it’s unlikely that Monica’s “old favorite” books have changed (Jayde has another hook here, because they both love Harry Potter) it’s quite possible other things have.

Her Twitter and LinkedIn are listed – checking them both, I see that she isn’t really active on Twitter, but she is active on LinkedIn – and that according to the popular networking site, she left the big agency listed on her MSWL page to start her own agency!

I check out that website, and, wow! Gorgeous book covers and a long list of books that spark joy for Jayde when she looks at them, including some that we’ve read! That’s another good sign, and another potential ‘hook’ for the query letter!

Looking at her current page, we discover that her current submission requirements are a bit different – she now accepts submissions only through Query Manager (a part of the Query Tracker system, which like MSWL is another go-to resource, and one that I’ll talk about in Part Two) – sadly, we also learn that she’s not taking unsolicited queries at this time – but, there may still be a way to reach out to her. More on that in Part Two, as well!

For now, we can fill out a detailed “agent page” (see image below) for her in our “Query List” and move on to researching the seven other solid candidates from MSWL using this same approach. Without a doubt, we’ll find at least three or four who are not only open to submissions, but also looking for what we have to offer.

Once we’ve found them, we’ll create personally-tailored versions of our query letter and submit them according to each agent’s current instructions.

And while we’re awaiting their responses – usually between two days and two weeks – we can focus on other sources of good leads for agents…

More on that in Part Two, coming soon!