How AgentMatch helped me find the perfect agent

Researching agents is one of those tasks that would put anyone’s head in a spin. If you’ve got as far as being in that position, it means you’ve almost certainly spent years writing your book, editing your book, and planning the potential future of your book through a series of elaborate daydreams. The job, then, of working out who to actually send it to is, to put it lightly, rather overwhelming. 

I began querying in 2021, after having spent ten years (at least) writing a middle-grade fantasy in between getting married, having children, moving houses etc. I spent a year sending this work of a decade to a list of carefully researched agents, and the same year being roundly rejected. So far, so normal. 

After shelving this middle-grade novel, I decided I’d write a psychological thriller. This was, after all, the genre I mainly read in. And after completing and editing it (in only a year this time!) I was ready to start querying again. I drew up a comprehensive list of agents based on Google searches, The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, and the acknowledgments section of any thriller I could get my hands on. 

This research is incredibly longwinded and time-consuming if you want to do it properly, and get a real sense of what an agent is like, what they’re looking for, and the reasons why you think you’d be a good match for each other. So after a few months of more rejections, I decided to give Jericho Writers’ AgentMatch a go. And I found it completely addictive. 

Not only could I search for relevant agents, but I could filter by things like how many years’ experience they had, whether they were actively looking for new authors, or how many clients they had. And it was amongst this treasure trove of information that I found Jo Williamson of Antony Harwood Literary Agency.  

I’d queried Jo before with my middle-grade novel, so knew I liked the sound of her as an agent, but I had no idea she represented anything other than children’s books. It turns out she had only recently begun looking for adult books, and Jericho Writers (being so well connected to agents) had sniffed out that vital piece of information and fed it into their AgentMatch feature. They also had very helpful sections where they’d collated interview transcriptions, and links to relevant videos, so you could browse information about agents gathered from more than one source, all from the AgentMatch page. 

Jericho really helped me home in on the agents I wanted to approach, and gave me the confidence to know I’d done my research properly, and had been provided with up-to-date information. I also used their Agent One-to-One to get feedback on my query package before I began querying. This gave me a fifteen minute phone call with Phillipa Sitters of DGA, which was really useful, and meant I felt confident in the pages I was about to put out there, as well as the information I’d included in my query letter. 

 In the end I received three full manuscript requests and two offers of rep – and obviously chose the amazing Jo Williamson, who is still my agent four years and three books later!  

My debut, The Perfect Guest came out in 2024, followed by Home Sweet Home a year later. My third thriller, The Family Break was published 30^th July 2026 by Zaffre Books. 

Top tips for querying authors: 

• Research your agents properly – there’s no point querying agents who aren’t representing your genre, or who aren’t even accepting submissions at the moment. 

• Query in small batches. If you get the feeling something isn’t working in your letter, synopsis, or pages, you then have the chance to change it before sending out the next batch. 

• Write other things alongside querying. You probably won’t get an agent overnight, and it can be very disheartening sending emails into the void and getting no encouragement back. Write short stories and flash fiction, enter competitions, and find writing partners. Who knows, the idea for your next novel might come to you in the form of a short story whilst you’re querying your current book – that’s what happened to me when I was querying my first novel, and that was the book that got me my agent. But that’s another story! 

In summary, a lot of work goes in to writing a book, but anyone who’s querying knows that the work doesn’t stop there. And I will be forever grateful to Jericho Writers for their help in finding me my perfect agent!  

Stop Querying Blindly. Find the Agents Most Likely to Say Yes. Search 1,400+ literary agents by genre, location, and submission preferences, and build a targeted query list in minutes with AgentMatch.