When I first started working in publishing, there was this mythical dream of pulling a client from the slush pile. In this dream, anachronistically, the agent would be leafing through a physically printed manuscript, turning pages in their corner office long into the night, shocked that there was a writer out there who could write so well, so fully capture a world, and hadn’t been recommended through any of the usual channels.1
The supposed ‘reality’ contrast to this dream, then, is that connections get writers their agents. While it is true that having connections can make it easier to get more agents to read one’s manuscript, connections alone cannot guarantee representation. The book does still have to be very good.
I’m not sure that younger agents even really use the term ‘slush pile’ anymore, but for simplicity let’s say there are three ways to get one’s project in front of an agent.2 There’s ‘cold querying,’ like a cold call, in which the writer submits their project to an agent online without any prior connection or recommendation. If the writer met the agent at a pitch fest or event, they might have the agent’s card or email and can query them directly. And then there are referrals: an agent’s current client or someone else in the business recommends a writer directly.
Without wading into any MFA discourse, I understand why the dream is still so enticing. Only the first of the three routes is “free.”
And while connections and referrals are helpful (particularly referrals — I think the writers I represent are the most talented so if they tell me they have a friend who is also talented, I’m going to pay attention), many agents sign writers from the slush pile/cold querying.
This is particularly true when an agent is just starting out.