Silly Question: Querying Men or Women?

Doesn't. Matter.

Not something worth worrying about, IMO. You want an agent who can successfully place your novel and with whom you can have a professional working relationship.

Good luck

I'm going to query every reputable agent I can who is interested in the kind of fiction I write, assuming I see evidence that they've been successful at selling it.

Anyway, I'm not writing my novels just for my own gender, so why would I only consider agents of my own gender to represent them? Are you saying an author can only write books that appeal to their own gender?

Why would it matter? If someone's the right agent for my book, I don't care if they're a man or woman.

This did remind me of something that always worries me, though. When I can't find out whether the female agent is married or not. In that case, is Ms. the safest option in the greeting?

Doesn't matter. Query whomever is right for your book.

This could be the epitome of the self-obstructing writer's dilemma, right up there with "Should I only mail queries on even-numbered days?" and "Will they accept e-mails from my Mac if they're using a PC?"

In other words, if this is what you're worrying about to keep yourself from mailing out a query letter - that the potential agent might be the "wrong" gender - you need a metaphoric slap across the face; you've been abducted by the Procrastination Pixies, who have implanted self-defeating suggestions in your subconscious via hypnosis.

In other other words, if you've got something ready to query, and you've got an agent you want to try, mail the danged query.

It doesn't matter at all, unless you know that you yourself would be more comfortable with an agent of a particular gender. And that only matters if you think your discomfort would interfere with your business relationship.

I'm having enough trouble getting any agent's attention, without worrying about what sort of genitals they have. Now I say that, it's conjuring up images I don't need at this time of a morning.

rwm4768 said:

This did remind me of something that always worries me, though. When I can't find out whether the female agent is married or not. In that case, is Ms. the safest option in the greeting?

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Personally, I always find "Ms." more professional even if the marital status of the woman is known -- "Mrs." and "Miss" both sound too assumptive to me. I use "Ms." no matter what in professional correspondence.

But I'm from a relatively young generation, and perspectives on that may differ.

Hmm. This may be off topic, but like rwm it just occurred to me -- does anyone know if there's a commonly accepted title for addressing a genderqueer person? I don't know of any genderqueer agents, but there are several genderqueer authors and editors I follow on Twitter. (eta: I found a list here but I don't know which if any tend to be favored.)

WillSauger said:

Doesn't. Matter.

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In terms of gender of writer and agent, true. But in terms of genre of work, it probably does. A lot. A minimal perusal of agent sites will show you very quickly the preference many female agents (and some male agents) have for "women's fiction". Some other topics I get the distinct sense that many female agents won't be receptive to. And females constitute about 3/4 of the overall agent pool available to query.

caw

slhuang said:

Personally, I always find "Ms." more professional even if the marital status of the woman is known -- "Mrs." and "Miss" both sound too assumptive to me. I use "Ms." no matter what in professional correspondence.

But I'm from a relatively young generation, and perspectives on that may differ.

Hmm. This may be off topic, but like rwm it just occurred to me -- does anyone know if there's a commonly accepted title for addressing a genderqueer person? I don't know of any genderqueer agents, but there are several genderqueer authors and editors I follow on Twitter. (eta: I found a list here but I don't know which if any tend to be favored.)

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I also use Ms, even if I know their marital status (I also use Ms for myself, even when I was married).

All the genderqueer folk I know have offered the title/gender they (sorry) identify with. I don't think I'd presume to know which address to use in a query; I think I'd use their (sorry again) full name instead.

You query agents who handle fiction that's as close to your own as possible.

blacbird said:

In terms of gender of writer and agent, true. But in terms of genre of work, it probably does. A lot. A minimal perusal of agent sites will show you very quickly the preference many female agents (and some male agents) have for "women's fiction". Some other topics I get the distinct sense that many female agents won't be receptive to. And females constitute about 3/4 of the overall agent pool available to query.

caw

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I would send my manuscript to an agent seeking that genre based on their stated preferences, not assumptions based on their gender presentation.

Anna has it right. If you're unsure about the title to use, first and last name should work okay. And Ms for women is fine (I've been using it myself ever since it came to my attention, although it seems difficult to convince other people to use it....).

Almost an insulting question.

Target agents looking for the material you're selling. Don't look between said agents' legs to see what shape their junk is...it don't matter none.

rwm4768 said:

Why would it matter? If someone's the right agent for my book, I don't care if they're a man or woman.

This did remind me of something that always worries me, though. When I can't find out whether the female agent is married or not. In that case, is Ms. the safest option in the greeting?

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The whole point of Ms. is to be a universal title for women when the marital status is unknown or irrelevant (as in business situations), so yeah, I think Ms. is your safest option. I remember reading to always use Ms. on some "how to query" site or another.

blacbird said:

In terms of gender of writer and agent, true. But in terms of genre of work, it probably does. A lot. A minimal perusal of agent sites will show you very quickly the preference many female agents (and some male agents) have for "women's fiction". Some other topics I get the distinct sense that many female agents won't be receptive to. And females constitute about 3/4 of the overall agent pool available to query.

caw

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I suspect you're right there. It's probably worth a look to see if they've actually sold anything of the genres they say they're interested in, but this would be true for an author of any gender. I'd assume that if a male agent at a competent and respectable agency says he takes these genres, he appreciates and understands them enough to know how to sell them.

Women's fiction and romance are sort of interesting genres, because they are "tagged" as being "for" women readers mostly (though the romance writers of America site says around 20% of romance readers are actually men). You can't assume someone doesn't like something because of their gender.

You should query someone who you think will be in love with your work, and that will be as passionate about it as you are. That, I think, is the most important thing to consider.

At the same time, you should be sure to query someone you could see yourself forming a long-term working relationship with.

With those considerations, you should probably query whoever you are comfortable with, although gender doesn't make a difference.

quianaa2001 said:

This is kinda a sill question, but I was wondering if you're a woman should you only query women & vice verse?

Because they will relate better to the material due to the writer & agent both being the same gender?

Or does it not matter?

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It does not matter. Not in the least.

Pretty sure Janet Reid handles male authors, and male agents handle female authors...

quicklime said:

Pretty sure Janet Reid handles male authors, and male agents handle female authors...

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Well, my agent is male.

quianaa2001 said:

Because they will relate better to the material due to the writer & agent both being the same gender?

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I think this is assuming agent and writer will be able to communicate better if they are both male or both female.

If you are uncomfortable dealing in a business situation with a person of the opposite sex, then by all means query only agents of your own sex. No harm in it.

doesn't make a difference
only thing that does is that they handle my genre, are good agents, and are cool
read agent's bios on their websites and also seek interviews with them on the web
if you do that gender won't seem as important
and if still does then do what Job suggests and just query women
ultimately it's up to you

If you think gender is a factor in how comfortable you are working with an agent, I think it's fine to have that on your list of considerations.

I queried mostly women just because, um, most agents (particularly repping YA) are women. But the one man who seemed like a good fit to me did end up requesting the full manuscript, and if he had offered, I would have seriously considered him alongside the two female agents who offered, because I felt we had compatible interests in storytelling, and (based on our interactions through the query process) like we could communicate well.

But in all honesty, if the playing field for my category were 50% or more male, I still probably would have queried more women (maybe not a 19:1 split though). My first book is about girls, and so are most of the projects I've got cooking on the back burner, and it's not so surprising that most of the people who are jumping up and down to represent diverse, complex girl stories are former girls.

I've noticed some agents that only do strong women's fiction. Some of these agents also happen to be female. Now, in a perfect world, they wouldn't make assumptions about whether or not a man could write strong women's fiction. This isn't a perfect world though, so statistically it might increase your chances of getting a response if in that specific situation you were a female, writing women's fiction and querying women that dealt in women's fiction. That's probably as far as that advantage would take you though because once they have hold of your full manuscript, the writing would still need to speak for itself. I can't think of any other reasons it would even come into play, but then again, I'm a young white male in America so I might just not see it.