Guest Column
By Stephanie Katz, PhD
Agent and Founder of GiraffeLight Media Agency
Hey y’all.
Agents don’t just fall in love with manuscripts; we invest in long-term careers.
Let me tell you something I think the publishing world doesn’t say out loud often enough: I want you to succeed.
Not in a motivational-poster way. In a real, specific, sometimes-keeps-me-up-at-night way. When I request a full manuscript, I am not approaching it like a bouncer at a night club looking for a reason to turn you away. I am approaching it like someone who desperately wants to find her next favorite book and her next favorite author. I am scanning your pages hoping to fall in love.
When it doesn’t work out, I’ll admit, it genuinely stings. I hate writing rejection letters, especially when I see the potential is clearly there. I don’t think that’s something writers hear from agents enough, so I’m saying it plainly: the rejection letters hurt on our side too.
When I was starting out as a coverage analyst in the movie industry, reading thousands of screenplays and writing reports for studio heads and producers, I hate to admit that I developed something of a reputation for being ruthless. Granted, I wrote coverage for a lot of AWFUL materials (my personal favorite was a Fifty Shades of Grey Jesus movie – yes, you read that right) and when you read a lot of objectively poorly structured works, it can put you in a mood. Thankfully, I’ve mellowed with time and experience being on the receiving end of similar coverages. Becoming a professor completely changed my outlook on how I critiqued because I got to know my students, their backgrounds, and their dreams. I saw firsthand the effort and curiosity they expressed that made me realize, I had to change my approach. No one had taught them the things I’d been taught yet. They were afraid of failing, not just my class, but me as an “expert in the field.” (I use the quotations because I was still SO green considering the trust that was put into me). I knew that I had to encourage these young people and build them up, not tear them down. I genuinely wanted my students to succeed not just in my class, but in life and to embrace a love of the written word.
Now, I can’t speak for every agent in the industry, but I think I can safely speak for a lot of us when I say we didn’t get into this business for the gatekeeping. We got into it because we love books and we love authors. (It certainly wasn’t for the money — if you missed my earlier post on what indie agents actually make, I’ll just say that “comfortable” is not the first word that comes to mind.) We eagerly scan queries looking for the manuscript that’s going to make us forget we had other plans for the afternoon; but here’s the reality: falling in love with a book and being able to confidently take it to market are two drastically different things.
When I sign a client, it’s because their manuscript made me want to hug it like a long-lost best friend and because it has passed a series of due diligence checks that tell me I can actually do something with it. Love is necessary, but it is not sufficient. So with full transparency and genuine affection for every writer reading this, here are the five things I’m evaluating before I say yes (plus a lagniappe one that nobody in this industry talks about nearly enough).
- Can I Actually Sell This Book?
This is the first hurdle, and it is bigger than “Do I love it?”
When I’m reading your manuscript with an eye toward representation, the question running underneath everything is not “Is this beautifully written?” (though I hope it is), the question is “Can I walk into a room with an editor and make a compelling case for this and convince someone to spend money with the promise that they’ll earn it back with a profit?” Those are very different questions.
I’m heavily looking at market: Is there a current readership for this? Is the category growing or shrinking?
I’m looking at positioning: Who is the ideal reader, and how do I describe this book to them in a single sentence (what we refer to as a logline in screenwriting)?
I’m looking for comp titles, because comp titles tell me that a market exists and that publishers have successfully sold something adjacent.
And I’m asking myself whether I can name two to five editors who would realistically be interested without spending more than sixty seconds thinking. Of course I strategize for weeks about submission rounds, but I want three to five names at imprints I know I could go to immediately — not theoretically, but based on what they’ve bought recently and what I know about their personal taste and the imprint’s brand direction as a whole.
The painful truth of this industry is that an agent can genuinely love a manuscript and still pass because she cannot figure out how to sell it. This was a truth I learned hard and fast doing screenplay coverages. I still have five screenplays on my hard drive that impacted me so much that if I ever won the lottery, I would produce them (and no, it Fifty Shades of Jesus is not one of them). Unfortunately, they just didn’t have a commercial enough hook to warrant the production investment, and publishing works the same way. That is not a failure of the writing or the industry. It is a failure of fit between what the book is and what the market can currently absorb. Understanding that distinction and simultaneously trying not to personalize it is one of the harder things I’d ask any writer to do.
- Is This Someone I Want to Build a Career With?
Here is something that querying writers often don’t fully reckon with: agents aren’t just signing books. We are signing people. Hopefully for years. Quite possibly for decades.
That changes the calculation significantly.
When I’m evaluating a potential client, I am quietly asking myself a set of questions that have nothing to do with the manuscript itself. Are they professional in their communications? Are they responsive? Do they take notes and feedback well, or does every note become a negotiation? Are they collaborative? Are they kind and respectful even if we disagree on something? Are they transparent? Are they willing to market and sell books? Are they in this for the long-haul or as a one-off hobby? Do they seem like someone who understands that publishing is a relationship business?
Just this month, I’ve had two authors get confrontational over minor yellow flags I brought up in my request for more information about their query. I know that kind of personality will be difficult to do business with and fight me on every note. I also had two authors that I genuinely loved their queries, but their overall career goals did not match my longterm interests. They wanted to hop around genres (totally valid) into genres that I did not have interest in representing (also valid) so even though I hated to lose out on requesting the manuscript they were pitching, I knew it would be unfair to lead them on because, long term, we would not have the same goals.
Again, I take no pleasure in those rejection emails. Those actually hurt. However, it is better for me to do the math early on rather than learn after book one that the author only wants to write materials that I can’t champion as passionately. I have to think before signing what a ten or twenty year professional relationship looks like with this person, because that is what a successful author-agent partnership can be. I want to champion your work. I want to go to the mat for you in negotiations, talk you off the ledge when a submission goes quiet, and celebrate with you when we close the deal. To do that well, I need to trust you and you need to trust me. The seeds of that trust are visible, or not, from the very first interaction.
- Can This Author Write More Than One Book?
This one is crucial, and I think it surprises writers more than anything else on this list.
Agents do not make a living selling one book. We make a living building careers. So when I’m reading your manuscript, part of my mind is already asking: Is this lightning in a bottle, or is this a writer with staying power?
I want to know if there’s a next project. I want to know if there’s series potential. I want to know whether the author understands revision, not just at the line level, but structurally and conceptually, when the notes require rethinking something they were attached to. I want to know if they’re already writing the next thing, or if this manuscript was a once-in-a-lifetime labor of love that they’ve been working on for fifteen years.
I want to know how the author works and how they want to work with an agent. Do they want career guidance and are open to collaboration in the development of potential ideas even if I may tell them, the market is not interested in this right now. One of my clients writes faster than I can keep up with. I literally don’t know how she does it. Before I signed her, she sent me a list of her ideas for future books with sometimes a paragraph, sometimes only a sentence, about what the book would become and we talked through them. Some of the drawer-manuscripts she had were fantastic, but the market is favoring female over male protagonists now, so they had to stay in the drawer while other manuscripts were pulled out first. We have a game plan for four projects, one currently out on sub, one in the wings, one about to go into developmental edits, and one being written. She knows my inbox is always open and we can schedule zooms to talk through things before she jumps into writing a new idea that might not be the right move for the market yet.
I also need to know if an author is willing to put themselves out there on social media, at readings, at signings, on podcasts and interviews, in author groups, etc. I need to know they’re going to put marketing and selling their book of almost the same importance as writing the next one (I get it, the authorpreneuer model is HARD) and most authors just want to write. Unfortunately, the current market demands authors be 70% writer, 30% marketer from a stat I saw shared by an agency I follow on social media (I wish I remember who and had screenshotted it, but alas…)
When an agent asks “What are you working on next?” in a call or in correspondence, they’re not dismissing your current book. They are evaluating the career. As a screenwriter, I was trained early on to always have two scripts ready to show because inevitably a producer would like one, but want to know “what else you got?” Those are two very different conversations, and knowing that going in will serve you well.
- Due Diligence on the Author
This is the part most writers genuinely don’t think about. Due diligence. But agents absolutely vet the people we’re considering signing, and so do publishers. When you query us with a bio claiming all sorts of awards, recognition, famous people in your network, and bestseller boasts, you can bet giraffe the first thing I’m going to do is verify on my secret agent trade networks if these check out.
I look at social media for follower count and professionalism. I look at your website, if you have one. I look at any online trace of you I can find to verify you are who you say you are.
As an agent, I get the desire to spin the truth. Heck, agents are professional spinners and everyone wants to make their resume out to look a little bit better than it may truly be; however, nowadays it’s so easy to check up that if you’re claiming to be an actress for twenty years in Hollywood, you better believe I’m typing your name into IMDb to see if you exist there. (I recently had a person tell me they were a well-respected doctor, but when I googled them, I could find no trace of them or their medical practice – I’ve even had people give me names where, when I checked, I only found obits).
I also look at your prior publishing history. If you’ve self-published, how did those books perform? Were rights reverted? Are they still available in ways that could complicate a traditional deal? Did people leave good reviews? Is there a preview available that I can read to determine if I like your style?
Before I seriously consider signing you, I want to know about public controversies, problematic statements, legal issues, previous agent relationships and I will follow up with questions. The ones who get past this round are the ones who answer transparently and truthfully. The ones who get attitudes will give me pause, because an agent and a publisher is not just investing in your manuscript, they are investing in you as a public-facing author.
- Rights, Legal, and Business Questions
Before I sign anyone, I need to know the legal landscape of the manuscript clearly.
Who owns it? Has it been published before in any form? Has it been serialized? Has it been entered in contests that transferred any rights? Is it under any existing contract? Are there co-authors? Is it based on copyrighted IP or adapted from fan fiction? Are there characters, events, or situations that could raise libel concerns?
For nonfiction, I’m also asking: Are the credentials legitimate and verifiable? Are the sources solid and defensible? Are permissions in place for anything quoted or reproduced?
Agents are not trying to be paranoid here. We are trying to avoid surprises after a deal is on the table, when a rights issue can unravel everything. Knowing the answers to these questions before we go on submission protects you as much as it protects us. If you cannot show a clear chain of title, especially for a self-published or small-batch published title from a publisher (even if they went out of business or retired), agents and publishers will be wary to take it on without letters and paperwork verifying termination of previous agreements and reversion of all rights.
A Little Lagniappe – The Sixth Thing Nobody Talks About: Shared Vision
This may actually be the factor that determines more outcomes than any of the five above.
I can think a manuscript is wonderful. I can think it’s publishable. I can check every box on this list and still know that I am not the right agent for it — because when I envision what this book could become with the right editorial guidance, and the author envisions something completely different, that is a problem that no amount of mutual enthusiasm is going to fix.
The best author-agent relationships are not built on agreement. They are built on aligned vision. That means we may push back on each other, challenge each other, disagree on specific choices but we are ultimately moving toward the same destination for the book and for the career. When that alignment exists, the relationship can sustain the hard parts of publishing, and there are always hard parts.
This is why the offer call matters so much. It is not a formality. It is a conversation about vision. Pay attention to whether your potential agent is talking about your book the way you think about your book. That alignment — or the absence of it — is telling you something important. At the same time, this is your opportunity, as an author, to interview your agent and see how transparent they are and how they treat you. Do they get annoyed with business questions? Do they dance around giving a straight answer? Do they rush you to get off the phone? What are their failures as well as their successes? Will they stand by you when things drag on for a year or more without a deal, or will they lose interest? Do they handle conflict with grace or with attitude?
I share all of this not to make the process feel more daunting, but to make it feel more human. These are not arbitrary hurdles. They are the questions of someone who wants to say yes and needs to know she can do it well. Even if I’m not the right agent for you, I am still rooting for all the queries I receive.
What surprised you most about this list? Anything you hadn’t considered before? Drop it in the comments — I genuinely love hearing where writers are in their querying journey.
👉 If this gave you something useful, please like, comment, share, and subscribe. And restack it for the writers in your world who are querying right now and could use the inside view.
This is Agent Trade Secrets, signing off for the week.
Stephanie Katz is a literary agent, screenwriter, ghostwriter, and narrative analyst with more than fifteen years of experience spanning the film and publishing industries.
She holds a PhD in Narratology—the mechanics of storytelling—from the University of Birmingham (UK), along with an MA in Film Studies from Arizona State University. She likes to joke that she has a PhD in breaking stories apart, but fortunately, she also knows how to put them back together.
Each week you can find her on her weekly substack called Agent Trade Secrets where she aims to demystify the publishing industry to help authors avoid the problems no one bothers to teach them to fix.
Whether she’s negotiating publishing deals or diagnosing the hidden structural issues keeping a story from reaching its potential, Stephanie combines academic expertise with real-world industry experience.
She is a native New Orleanian and proud to run her literary agency in the city she grew up in, where she currently resides with her two rescue gremlin pups.
(Editor’s Note: Stephanie’s giraffe icon reminds us to rise above everyday distractions and challenges. Its calm demeanor, graceful movements, and lofty perspective nudge us to act with patience, mindfulness, and inner strength. The symbol encourages us to observe before reacting, think broadly, and approach life with elegance.)
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Visit Stephanie’s agency website for my MSWL at www.giraffelightmedia.com
