I Tried Manuscript Wish List's New Smart Search Tool for Finding Agents
Here's why you should too...
As writers, editors, and publishing professionals, many of us are understandably feeling wary of AI. But others are using it to work for them. Recently The Manuscript Academy, the people behind Manuscript Wish List and The Manuscript Academy MSWL podcast, launched their new Manuscript Wish List Smart Search tool powered by AI.
As any querying writer knows, agent research is time-consuming and it can be particularly tricky to even know where to begin. Some savvy aspiring authors have been following agents on social media or podcasts so know a bit about what they’re looking for. Others turn to their favorite book debuts to see who’s listed in the Acknowledgements. And many scour the posted manuscript wishlists on MSWL, agency websites or social media. But most, I suspect, start with QueryTracker. The database is a godsend in many ways, but painstakingly making your way through the agent results one by one can sure dampen all that excitement you have to get started.
Enter the Manuscript Wishlist Smart Search tool. Writers are prompted to “tell us about your book and/or what kind of literary agent you’d like to find” and the search engine scours the database to return agents who are, theoretically, looking for manuscripts similar to yours. I spent some time playing around with it recently and here’s what I learned…
Query 1: agents looking for upmarket book club or women’s fiction similar to Miranda July
There’s been a lot of discussion around the differences and similarities between upmarket, book club and women’s fiction, and those are the writers I work with so I wanted to start with this. Author Miranda July also generated a lot of buzz around her book, All Fours, which has a strong voice and depicts a female protagonist in midlife, so I threw her name in for good measure.
Top results:
This search returned 19 overall results with Erin Niumata of Folio Literary Management as the number one result. With nearly three decades of experience, Erin is a veteran publishing professional and was one of the agents who was recently interviewed in “The Women’s Fiction Dilemma: A Contested Label Continues to Sell Books” in Jane Friedman’s The Bottom Line. She has a particular interest in women’s fiction and is currently a PhD candidate who is focusing on the rise of women’s fiction as well as women in publishing. She’s also participated in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association’s Rising Star Awards, which is for unpublished, unagented writers, for multiple years as a judge. She certainly seems to be a strong fit.
Laurie Dennison is an associate agent at Creative Media Agency who recently posted to Bluesky that she’s seeking women’s fiction and specifically referenced like Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid: "I especially love upmarket writing, complex characters, and immersive settings. I enjoy upbeat, positive stories but don’t shy away from darker themes. Complicated relationships and family dynamics are a particular interest of mine, and I appreciate character development that is directly and organically integrated with the plot." Another check!
Logan Harper is a staff agent at Janet Rotrosen, and her wishlist does include upmarket women’s fiction and book club, but nothing she specifically calls out screams that she’s seeking a midlife women’s transformative journey so…maybe?
However, I next try entering the synopsis for All Fours (taken from the back cover) and get 20 agents, and the search returns totally different top results. Of the top results from the previous query, only Erin Niumata is returned this time. That’s not to say that neither of the results would be a good fit. But if you have a comp identified, you might want to try searching for it both by title and by synopsis.
Query 2: agents looking for books like Yellowface
When I was researching the 2024 book deals, I noticed that Yellowface by R.F. Kuang was one of the titles agents used many times (nine, in fact) to pitch a book to the publisher, so I thought I’d see if there are agents specifically looking for similar books, and if the search would turn that up.
Top results:
Emily Anderson, St. Martins Press (editor)
But first…one thing I noticed that I didn’t notice my first search…the generated tags! This can be really helpful for writers who are considering which keywords to include in their query or be watching for in wish lists. This feature will prove especially helpful if you use your synopsis, as I do in Query 3 below. Also, note the judgement in the Agent Search box: this query was pretty lame because I wasn’t being very specific or providing any details.
I’m not going to analyze each of these results but you can see from the screenshots that the top results seem to be a good match and worth looking into more.
Query 3: best match for upmarket or book club or women’s fiction with lyrical writing, elements of thriller and a bit of mystery. Dual povs and set in 1990s. Dark humor.
Okay, this time I went totally random and tossed in a bunch of elements, but I’m still being pretty vague. The Agent Search box says I’m doing better, but encourages me to add more details. This query returned 16 results.
Top result:
Drue VanDuker, St. Martins Press (editor)
One thing you might notice is this time I didn’t include “agent” in my query…whenever I didn’t do this, editors sometimes popped up in the result. You’ll notice I neglected to save all my results for this search (hence, just the one!), so when I was drafting this I tried running the exact same query again and, curiously enough, I received different results the second time. This time Drue was not only not a top result; she wasn’t in the 16 results I received at all. The top results were allocated to agent Laurie Dennison and editor Emily Anderson.
Query 4: The synopsis for Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman
I decided to to try a synopsis of a published title next, Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman. It’s clear that the search engine really appreciates a lot of detail…note all that green praising me at the bottom! Incidentally Elissa Sussman’s agent is Elizabeth Bewley at Sterling Lord Literistic and she does have a profile on Manuscript Wishlist, but her name was not returned in the 16 query results.
Top results:
Madeline Colavita, Grand Central/Forever (editor)
Katie Holt, St. Martins Press (editor)
After the inconsistency above, I decided to run this query again. This time the top results were Laurie Dennison (agent), Emily Anderson (editor), and Logan Harper (agent).
Of course, I had to run the same query a third time to see what would happen. This time the top results were Erin Niumata, Dani Segelbaum (Arc Literary), and Kerry-Ann Bentley (KAB Literary). Hmm.
Query 5: My writer’s synopsis
Finally I entered the synopsis for one of my pitching writers. I’m not going to share that here, of course, but again I received all that green love that told me this is the best method for searching. The top search results that came back all aligned well with her manuscript.
My Takeaways
The Manuscript Wish List AI search engine is a fantastic starting point for querying authors. I found the top results to be much more targeted and the details of why that agent was recommended, as you see in some of the screenshots above, can be particularly helpful. Some of the additional results did not always align well, however. My best results seemed to come from entering a 2-paragraph synopsis of the story. But bear in mind that just because an agent isn’t returned in the results, that doesn’t necessarily mean they wouldn’t be interested in your manuscript since there seems to be some inconsistencies.
Overall I recommend the Smart Search as a great starting point. But then writers need to do their own digging to ensure the agent truly aligns with the manuscript as well as if they’re currently open to queries. For newly querying writers who have zero idea about agents they’d be interested in or even where to start, this is a much less intimidating starting point than QueryTracker. Although I’d say you take this info then go to QT. Also note, although there are a lot of agents listed here, you won’t find all of them here.
My final takeaway is this is a great way for authors to harness the power of AI to work in their favor to get a jumpstart on querying research. What do you think? Have you tried the Manuscript Wish List Smart Search? What were your results?
Heather Garbo is a book coach, editor and writer with a background in communications, book publishing, and nonprofit work. Heather specializes in working with women’s fiction writers who are discovering (or rediscovering) their writing voice in midlife. Find her at www.garbobookcoaching.com.
Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase a book by clicking on that link, I may earn a small commission.
This is fascinating! It’s kind of concerning that when you run the same search multiple times, different results come up. I mean…what changed? If nothing, then how valuable are the results in either case? But some names did seem to come up over several of your searches.
HI Heather. Thanks for sharing your multiple samples for the Manuscript Wish List's Smart Agent Finder. I've played with it a bit, but never thought of entering synopses from comps. Interesting idea. I'm writing to ask if you would ever enter your own book's synopsis in the AI box? I'd be afraid the "intelligent one" would digest it and add it to their knowledge library and that it would be out in the public www. Do you agree this is a bad idea?