How to find the right literary agent in the USA?

Question

I want to publish an English language book in the USA as a foreigner. Someone told me that the USA is mainly interested in American subjects, so anything else is quite hard to sell. Besides the fact of what America does towards non-American books written by a foreigner, how can I, out of the buttload of literary agents, find a literary agent that is interested in my book without having to check out all the literary agents? I've tried selling internationally by contacting literary agents nationally, but they have either no knowledge or interest in selling internationally.

The book is psychological non-fiction. It's about two subjects, rulers and mental weakness.

When I search for other psychological non-fiction books to know which agents other authors haven chosen, I get 1193 results under 'non fiction psychological' on 'goodreads.com'.

P.S. Thanks to the comments I understand now what an agent wants and why. A writer who goes to an agent has no name that people know about. No story starts as a bestseller. The first people who'll buy from an unknown source, in this case an author, are the ones who are interested in the subject, not so much because it might be entertaining. Once you manage to make your target audience buy your product, in this case a book, they'll refer it to other people. Other people might be less interested in the subject, but if your product, in this case your book is entertaining, regardless of the subject, the majority will like it and your product, in this case a book, will become a bestseller.

This has been proven in the past, for example 'Philosopher's Stone', you know who wrote that. The book was denied by 12 publishers. The 13th time was successful, because the daughter of bloomsbury, who liked the book, told her father to publish it. 12 publishers denied the book, because Rowling wasn´t able to sell the story to the target audience, so the publisher wasn´t interested.

Since it is most important to sell it to a target audience, for anyone out there who wants to publish there first story some day, be sure that the message that you sent, so your query letter and if required your proposal are professional and conforming to the submission rules of the agency that you sent it to, so sent it to an agency who's interested in your subject as well.

Read the following articles for more information

https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/getting-published/how-to-ensure-75-of-agents-will-request-your-material

https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/pubtips-query

https://youtu.be/Ctda91oOboQ

Answer 1

I highly recommend http://agentquery.com. It's free, searchable by category and oriented towards North American agents. I haven't personally had any luck yet securing an agent through them, but the listings all seem to be legitimate, and comparable to the ones you can find through other valid sources.

I do recommend, however, taking the time to click through to the agency websites, and not just cold emailing on the basis of what is on the site.

In terms of winnowing down the number of agents, the only filtering you want to do is to make sure they are definitely looking for the kind of work you produce. Getting an agent is a numbers game, and the more options you have, the better. Your first step should be to send out query letters --not manuscripts or full proposals --and you'll want to send out A LOT of them. In my experience, a response rate of 1 proposal request to every 15 queries is doing great.

Answer 2

Answer: Another way to think about your question is:

How do I get the right literary agent to find me?

For non-fiction, the following details are routinely requested by US agents. Not every time, but these things are requested (for NF) regularly:

1. A full proposal of the work (it sounds as though you have this covered)
2. A robust media platform (this is to prove that you have reach, 'followers,' and can sell books)
3. A track record (i.e have authored pieces in journals, anthologies, or so on. This idea plays into 'platform.' It means you have begun creating a potential market.)

In other words, you might find the perfect agent. But if you are not the perfect client, (if they don't see an easy or at least profitable sale in your work), then there is a new issue for you to deal with. And, some agents refuse re-queries.

It might be worthwhile to put some time toward the things they like to see in a non-fiction query.

Answer 3

It's not easy, but the core answer is: You need to learn the market.

Being from outside the U.S., or not having an existing platform, might be issues, but they shouldn't be dealbreakers -- lots of U.S. agents work with foreign clients, and a good book on a good topic can sell beautifully.

But: you need to know what else is out there. What other books on similar topics look like; what readers will be expecting from a book like yours; whether anyone else has already covered your precise topic, or something extremely similar. Without those, your book will have a really hard time being a good book for the current U.S. market. You're not going to get all those things right by sheer good luck -- you're going to get them right by knowing those other books, and adjusting your own text and approach accordingly.

That's why Googling "non fiction psychological" is not enough on its own. I suggest you look for books on related topics to yours, specifically. Read some of them; read reviews of others; learn which are considered major works.

Gradually, you'll figure out which existing books yours is most comparable to. And then you can check and see what agency they've gone through.

This might seem like a lot of work -- but it needs to be done, to place your book in a very big market. You'll find that even if right now somebody gave you the name of the most perfect agent ever, the first thing that perfect agent will want is a proposal -- detailing precisely which other existing books your work is comparable to, and how yours is different from what's already out there. So this isn't double work you're doing; it's some of the most important work in querying.

Best of luck!