Does Agent Gender Matter?

It may be harder to gain a agents interest if it isn't something they are likely to enjoy, but if it's good enough and they can see a way to sell it I'm sure it doesn't matter what gender they are.

I asked a similar question a while ago, and got an emphatic "NO," gender does not matter. Agents are looking for books that will sell, and a good agent will recognize an audience even if he or she is not likely to enjoy the book personally.

You could have male agents who wouldn't want to rep it and female agents who would. Just read up as much as you can on each agent, see what types of books they've sold to publishers, etc. Most have websites now or go to agentquery.com or publishers weekly.

Welcome to AW

You've got to do your research on agents before submitting. I used querytracker.net and I went to the websites. I looked at each agent and what type books they rep. I've submitted to men and women.
Both men and women can be offended by the same and different things. I know as many men who are feminists as women and as many men who would be offended at sexism as women.

Tucker Max has an agent, so clearly there are people out there who are happy to represent even the most repulsive misogynist nonsense (not saying that your book falls into that category, just that his do).

No the gender in this case does not matter and if you don't query the women, you are already rejected. What do you have to lose anyways? Funny thing, though. Most of my requests are from male agents.

GearGrinder said:

Thanks for the welcome and advise! I have one line in my query letter that reads:

"It’s often humorous in a very crude fashion and I hope you will not find the humor offensive."

Should I leave that in or take it out?

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Take it out

I vote to take it out as well. Err on the side of not telling the agent how they will or should (or might) react. In a literary world with John Self on Time's 100 best, you don't need to explain. An agent isn't going to be fainting into her smelling salts.

And -- I think -- there are more women than men in the agenting biz these days. Cutting out >50% of your options can't be the best choice.

You never tell a chef how something is supposed to taste.

You never tell a musician how something is supposed to sound.

You never tell an agent how something is supposed to trigger a response in them, how they're going to react, what they're going to think. Never.

Take it out. Let your work speak for itself. Remember show, don't tell? That applies triply for queries.

I vote out!

GearGrinder said:

Thanks for the welcome and advise! I have one line in my query letter that reads:

"It’s often humorous in a very crude fashion and I hope you will not find the humor offensive."

Should I leave that in or take it out?

Click to expand...

Take it out, you have to show, not tell, the humor in the writing and voice of your query.

aside from it putting the agent off, it also sounds like you're not confident about it...

IceCreamEmpress said:

Tucker Max has an agent, so clearly there are people out there who are happy to represent even the most repulsive misogynist nonsense (not saying that your book falls into that category, just that his do).

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Well, can't disagree with the repulsive misogynist part and ICE is right on-if TM can sign w an agent for those books, have faith.

He does claim to have had a very difficult time securing representation initially, tho (that he'd been rejected universally-I think he said somewhere around 1000 queries-and that's why he went the blog first route) until he started being approached by publishers. The moral of the story, whether true or not, is cha-ching will always rule over c-bombs, I suppose.

But that's all an aside on my part and off the point. Males can get offended by stuff too. And we females don't all quiver and faint at bad words. Who you want to query is the best agent for you and your book. That's it.

GearGrinder said:

Thanks for the welcome and advise! I have one line in my query letter that reads:

"It’s often humorous in a very crude fashion and I hope you will not find the humor offensive."

Should I leave that in or take it out?

Click to expand...

Take it out. Don't offend the agents by saying they wouldn't have the intelligence and experience to judge for themselves.

And I agree... even if the agent doesn't personally enjoy the book or some aspects of it, they would recognize whether there's a market for it, if it's well written, etc.

Obviously, you need to do your research. If your manuscript is male-dominated humor, then you need to find agents who represent that and perhaps there would be more men than women, but it is not a reason to block out all the female agents if they represent humor.