The Frontlist

The state of Literary Agents 2025

We have spent many hours compiling and analysing the submissions process of the UK's Literary Agents. As we've clicked, categorised and examined each of the 168 websites from every agent listed in the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, we have found patterns, pondered new questions and reflected on the state of Literary Agents in 2025.

The question we wanted to answer was this: How effective are literary agents at discovering fresh talent? To help answer it, we created a fictional persona: Shaz. Shaz is a future star and we borrowed her eyes to browse each website.

The submissions systems of literary agent websites are doors into the UK publishing industry. That's why our question is important. Our analysis indicates that today's processes are flawed; ingrained with assumptions and approaches that do not hold up to scrutiny. The result? A high probability that great writing will be missed, promising writers will remain undeveloped and non-traditional routes will gain greater appeal.

The rest of this article shares our findings and proposes approaches to improve the submissions process. We hope that agents, writers and the industry will find it useful.

Meet Shaz

Shaz has written a smouldering work of unpublished fiction that will one day become the first of her twenty Sunday Times topping bestsellers. But those glories are yet to come. Right now, she is at the end of nearly two years of writing her manuscript. She has researched her genre; she has become intimately familiar with the marketplace and she has posted snippets online. She's read blogs, books, watched videos and responded thoughtfully and openly to feedback. She has drafted, re-drafted, cut and polished and refined until her work is the best it can be.

The avenues open to Shaz for getting her book in readers' hands are many; direct to publisher, self-publishing platforms, crowdfunding, direct-to-consumer and literary agents. She will explore them all. But for now, Shaz is working her way through each literary agent website to figure out if any might work for her.

Shaz, our aspirant persona.

Resources & Challenges

And what is a 'high volume' of submissions?

We read through the submissions guidelines of each agent's website. Over half of them mention a lack of resources; often as a prelude to mentioning a missing or imperfect service.

51%

mention a lack of resources in some form: high volume of submissions, timescales, existing clients, being a small agency.

39%

of all literary agencies with submissions page on their website mention a high volume of submissions.

What is happening here? Why do more agents than not mention a resource squeeze? What services do they struggle to provide?

Read all we have learnt about agencies' submissions challenges.

Tone & Guidance

Focusing on how the text communicates rather than what it communicates.

How might an agency website make new writers feel? We assessed the 'tone' of agents' submissions instructions.

Distribution of tone of agents' submissions process

A reasonably large minority of sites adopt a supportive or warm tone (29%), and the large majority (66%) adopt a neutral tone.

Read all we have learnt about tone and guidance

Submission Requirements & Effort

What exactly do agents require from aspirant writers?

Submission requirements are surprisingly varied. We are not sure why. Is it because agents each have found their own sweet spot for making an effective judgement? Perhaps there are other reasons?

Effort required to submit fiction to each agent

The results were fascinating. There were a little under 30 distinct items of information required across all literary agents seeking fiction.

Read all we have learnt about agents' submission requirements

Agency Size

Agent or agency?

Though there may be better records on UK agency sizes, we believe this is a reasonable snapshot of UK literary agency sizes (calculated by counting agency listings on each website).

The size (by number of agents) of literary agencies in the UK

It appears that the large majority of literary agencies in the UK are solo enterprises, small partnerships or micro-enterprises. The mean agency size is just under 4 agents.

What we have learnt

We completed this analysis with a clear sense that the current approach to discovering great new talent is odd. What we see today (submit material, wait, result) is an evolution of constraints that no longer exist, bent out of shape to fix problems (large volumes of half-baked material) that hinder the search for great writing. We see a spam-filter approach that discourages writers, good and bad, in all sorts of ways. We do not have the data to tell us whether agents are happy with the process, but it is certainly not loved by writers.

What we learnt about 'the process'

Having submitted, the long, uninformed wait for an outcome is a source of frustration, anxiety, confusion and desperation.

The approach to seeking representation is broadly consistent: a four-stage process (pick an agent, submit material, wait, result). After finishing her manuscript, Shaz will research agents, submit her material and wait for a result. We can imagine the emotions she might feel at each stage:

Typical emotions at each stage of the submission process

The process, often repeated many times, can be painful. Once Shaz has submitted her material, she is disconnected, often for months (and even up to a year!). She, like most of us, struggles to wait impassively, especially when so much rides on the outcome. As weeks turn to months Shaz finds it harder to shake the feelings of frustration, anxiety, confusion and, eventually, desperation. Agents are not responsible for the emotional wellbeing of every would-be writer, but it must be possible to improve on what we have?

We believe it is. A better process would encourage shorter, sharper interactions between writers and literary agents. It would ensure a faster initial 'sift' followed by a more meaningful interaction with promising writers. Ignore for now whether the solution is practical (it is), just consider whether this would result in a better experience. We will consider a key part of this approach in the next section.

What we learnt about submission effort

Ask for the smallest sample necessary to make a judgement on potential.

We believe that agents currently ask for far more material than they need. There is significant variation in the items asked for (just under 30 different types) and a wide fluctuation in the number of sample words. Writers have mentioned 'jumping through hoops', puzzlement about what is asked of them and painful 'fun' questions. The goal is the same, so why such inconsistency?

Data minimisation is a core principle in the design of systems that process sensitive data. It requires that systems only process and exchange the smallest amount of information necessary to perform a task. With submissions, the first task a literary agent will perform is to separate out the 'nos' from the 'maybes'

There is a suggestion, from podcasts, interviews and articles that agents can tell, within a few seconds or paragraphs, whether a submission has merit. We'd also suggest that it is much easier to recognise a definite 'no' from a 'shows promise'. This gives us a potential efficiency gain that is missing in the current process. The standard process implicitly assumes that most submissions will deserve a full read. What if, instead, a first submission provided just enough material for an agent to establish whether it is a definite 'no'?

If after a short assessment an agent cannot firmly reject, they request just enough material to consider it further. Communication is cheap; manuscripts are no longer physically posted. This has to be a better approach. It will avoid asking writers for any information irrelevant to the task, it helps agents to make simple, fast decisions based on just the right amount of material. It builds feedback into the process and prevents the awful feeling of sending large chunks of text into the abyss.

What we learnt about tone & guidance

Appeal to the writer you desire, not the many you don't.

How will a writer feel after reading the guidelines of tens or even hundreds of literary agents? As Shaz works her way through each agent's guidelines she becomes aware of common threads:

Most agents mention they are grappling with limited resources.
Most agents adopt a neutral, pragmatic tone.
A little under half of agents provide no information on how Shaz will find out if she is unsuccessful. Of those that do, most state rejection should be assumed from no response (but that it may take 3 months or more to indicate interest).
Many do not explicitly guarantee to read the work or acknowledge receipt.
None state whether the work will be read by an agent or assistant.
A few emphasise how rare it is for an unsolicited submission to result in representation.

These are candid and, in most cases, realistic messages. But it feels wrong. These guidelines are written for the many, not the few. But it is the few that agents are seeking. If an agent knew they were talking to brilliant highly marketable writers, would the messages be the same? For Shaz the system is disheartening and confusing. She has put immense effort and care into her writing. Her book will bring huge benefits to whichever agent signs her. Is it reasonable to ask her to expect no acknowledgement of receipt, no guarantee it will be read by a qualified agent, no indication that it has been or will be read?

There are also a few pieces of information that Shaz would have found very useful, but which are rarely, if ever, mentioned in any guidelines (perhaps the information is too sensitive?):

Client-agent ratio: How many clients is an agent representing (aka. will they have time for me?)
Writers taken on in the last year: Do they really want me, or do they want anybody?
Who will read my submission (and do they read everything)? Will they commit to read eveything they receive? What is the internal process? A first pass by a subordinate or straight onto the agent's desk?
Success rate: How many manuscripts (or writers) that they take on will get published?
Sharing and collaboration: Do they ever pass a manuscript on to other agents for consideration?

What we learnt about feedback and rejection

It is always better to notify a writer of rejection, except when it is not.

We doubt that anyone, writer or agent, believes that 'no response' is a reasonable way to indicate rejection. This is, however the norm (only 8% of agents state they will respond no matter the outcome). But there are even worse alternatives. We are straying here into anecdotal evidence (from reading many discussions on writers forums), however writers really dislike:

Template responses that masquerade as personalised responses ('I thought the critique was specific to my work, but subsequently found that it was the standard rejection').
Tiered template responses, where an agent selects from a list of reasons to reject (though some state that if they know what the list of options are, the response it a little more helpful).
Overly apologetic rejections; they are insincere.
Rejections that point to writing resources. ('Could they be any more patronising?')

Assuming the mistakes above are not made though, a response is always preferred. A submission that gets no acknowlegement of receipt or outcome notification is just the worst. How can a writer know if their work was even read? An acceptable approach (assuming detailed feedback is impossible) is a simple, professional, 'not for me.'

Why does this work matter?

Even without the crazy pace of technological innovation and growth of alternative routes to a readership, there is good reason to design a better process. The current was never designed, it has just evolved. What could we accomplish if we set out to design a better process? Could we improve the chances of attracting, discovering and publishing great new talent? We think so. Our analysis affirms a need, but it also points to tweaks and embellishments that are worth considering.

We are not waiting; we have already started to build and test a new system. If you would like to get involved with our project or hear more about it or would like to comment, please get in touch.