Who are the best UK agents to query? Or what are the best agencies?

Pretty much depends on what genre you are querying but the best resources are:

* Literary agency websites, you can see what genre they represent, which authors they represent, also check for each agents what they represents and what they are looking for.
* Subscribe online to the Bookseller and check deal announcement, which agent or agency sold what
* Find books you love or comp titles to what you write and checked in the acknowledgement section in the book or google to find out who the agent is for that author
* Buy the Writers & Artist Yearbook for a list of all recognised literary agencies
* Check writing festival website to check which agents attend to offer one-to-one

If you want a list relevant to your work the best is to compile it yourself using the above resources.

I hope this helps.

Here's the AAA, the UK equivalent of the AAR, the member organization for agents.

(AAA in the US will tow your car. In the UK, they sell your book. Same diff, really.)

I tend to find the best way to use lists like those, and indeed the AAA website is set up well for it, is to look at the agency websites and go from there. Agents talk about each other and move around a lot. Find the agency, then browse the agents.

Member orgs aren't a substitute for proper research, either. Make sure the agent is actually selling in your genre, still practicing, etc.

Some UK agent websites are splendidly uninformative about what they represent. I have a list on my website of UK agents who handle SF/F. I've tried to keep it up to date but it is always a good idea to cross check them. The list is here http://martinowton.com/pdf/sf.pdf

waylander said:

Some UK agent websites are splendidly uninformative about what they represent. I have a list on my website of UK agents who handle SF/F. I've tried to keep it up to date but it is always a good idea to cross check them. The list is here http://martinowton.com/pdf/sf.pdf

Click to expand...

That is a great list, waylander. Thanks for posting it.

And yeah, I have found the same thing about some UK agents. Sometimes you have to dig a little more. There are also more generalists.