About Agent Query

About the AQ Crew

We created Agent Query as the only one-stop writer’s resource on the web about literary agents and publishing. Agent Query was founded by a group of writers, web designers, and computer programmers who realized there was no single online resource to help writers find literary agents, much less learn the basics about getting published. So the AQ crew decided it was time to fill the void and create one single website—a literary touchstone—to help writers navigate through the arcane world of book publishing. Other online resources offer truncated glimpses of the publishing process. And those "familiar" print guides are out-of-date by the time they hit the bookshelves. So the AQ crew decided to take action—and Agent Query was born.

About the AQ searchable database

Agent Query offers the internet’s only searchable database of over 900 reputable literary agents—for 100% free. That’s right—free. No login or monthly subscription fees to browse our database. Search by literary agent’s name, book title, author, genre represented, AAR membership status, and more.

And aside from providing the most current addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of reputable literary agents, we also list FULL PROFILE information, including an agent’s previous publishing experience, education, former agency affiliations, former agency address, titles sold, past and present clients, special interest. It’s simply mind-boggling, the amount of data in our AQ database. If we told you that we borrowed Willie Wonka’s Oompa-Loompas to help us create our database, you’d probably believe us.

Instead, our AQ database was created from sheer, mind-numbing research, countless irreplaceable hours of tedious data entry, grinding computer programming, and psycho-obsessive determination. We created it. We maintain it. And we decide—like a bouncer at a trendy club—who’s in and who’s not. It’s completely our prerogative. And we like it that way.

What kind of literary agents are in your AQ database?

All the literary agents in our database are real agents with real book sales and real publishing contacts. Legitimate literary agents make their living from commissions on their sales, not by charging fees to their clients or potential clients. Does that mean we don’t have younger, hungrier agents who probably lack such sales? No—we list plenty of young, up-and-coming agents. But agents without a sales track record must be affiliated with an established agency or have previous publishing experience as an editor or agent’s assistant to make the cut.

What kind of writers does Agent Query help the most?

Agent Query is geared to help nonfiction and fiction authors of books as well as writers of short-story collections and children’s book authors. We don’t have much information that will help writers of poetry collections, screenwriters, playwrights, or freelance magazine writers. We wish we could be everything to all writers, and maybe someday, we will be. But for right now, we have to sleep sometime.

Why is Agent Query free?

Because free is fun, inviting, and just plain good. Heck, we’re not internet entrepreneurs. We just want to help writers. The main reason we created Agent Query was because we were sick to death of spending hour after hour, trolling through random website after random website, just to glean teeny weeny bits of information about a handful of literary agents. And we guessed everybody else was sick to death, too. So voilà—pay nothing now and thank us later in the acknowledgements of your first published book.

How will Agent Query stay alive and well?

Agent Query will stay alive and well with your help. We’ve started it, now we’re passing the torch. While using our slick, coolio database to aid your querying endeavors, please be sure to let us know if you come across a new agent, or a new agency mailing address, or an agent’s new email address, or the fact that an agent has left an agency, or anything else you think might interest us. You may email us these tips, day or night, to updates@agentquery.com.

We rolled up our sleeves and did all the dirty work. Now, we need thousands of participating eyes and ears to help us keep Agent Query the premier literary agent and publishing resource on the web.