Another spin of the query wheel

Some things have changed in agent-land.

I spent the weekend working on query pitches. It’s like hanging out with that annoying person you knew from way back. They haven’t changed.

The work you see on Dark & Stormy is from my self-published (or soon to be) slush pile. When I write something new, I like to give it a spin through TradPub land, just to, you know, see. My audience is pretty small, so for me, to put up with the pain of agents and publishers is to try to get my work to more people.

This new piece is a fantasy novel. I haven’t written one of these before…well, I used to write fantasy as a teenager. It’s what drove me into fiction. But when I labored to complete a grownup novel, I planted my flag in the world of international thrillers. I’ve since branched into science fiction, but these works still read like a thriller, with the same themes plus a speculative element.

This new book is different. It’s a coming-of-age story, which is unexplored territory for me. It’s actually pacier than my thrillers, probably because I’m just a better writer now. But the fantasy novel has a different vibe, and will probably appeal to a different audience.

For thrillers, I have worked with an agent. Results have been…not great. But I do know she’s gotten my words in front of big-time editors at major imprints. I think as a thriller writer, though, my trad-pub ambitions have cooled. I’m not commercially successful, and to a marketing team, I probably just look like damaged goods. OK, fine, I’ll just DIY it.

With the new project, though, I’m a debut author! (Of fantasy.) I’m not in a rush to self-publish this one yet, so I figured there was no harm in giving it six months or so to see if anyone bites. Amazon Kindle will still be there, her cold arms open wide.

The good news about going through this process in 2026 is that AI speeds up some of the work. I identified about two dozen agents I think are relevant. The AI grouped them and suggested personalized opening lines for each, which I could put on top of my query letter. I still have to slog through all the individual interfaces, and tailoring pitches. It’s dreary work, but I feel better about having simplified a few steps. The AI also helped me identify comparative titles: my reading in this genre is out of date, so I have some homework to do, but now I know where to begin.

The weird news about querying in 2026 is the monolithic, politcized nature of agent asks. I’m well aware of how the industry has changed – it’s a common topic on Substack Notes – so it’s not a surprise that everyone wants stories featuring people of color, people of different sexual orientations, themes of anti-colonialism, and other tropes of the woke.

I can’t tell how many of the agents really believe in all this, and how many feel compelled to go along because it’s what they think the publishers expect. I acknowledge that, writ large, the publishing industry remains dominated by white people, and I’m in favor of making a conscious attempt to ensure other stories get found. Such decisions are always going to be down to personal tastes and discretion. I’m not bent out of shape by the idea of working to expand notions of who gets published, but it’s nonetheless kind of creepy to see how militant all of this has become.

I don’t recall this level of Body-Snatchers conformity from when I pitched people for thrillers. Yes, most agents in that field were careful to encourage submissions by ethnic or sexual minorities, but the tone was to suggest such an author might get the nod, other things being equal: it was a leg up rather than a fate. But the fantasy agents give me the sense – no, they basically say – that such authorship or themes is now required.

Maybe the same thing exists with the thriller community and I just haven’t been through the process for a while. But I was never told that indicating my preferred pronouns is mandatory. For that matter, such a question never occurs in the business world (if publishing is a business). In finance or tech or industry, such a question would probably attract a lawsuit. There are ways to ascertain how someone wants to be addressed that don’t require this kind of language, and certainly not its compulsion.

I also find it incongruous that the agentillgentsia is still this committed to the language of narrow conformity at a time when the US is going through a major cultural reset. Just to lay my cards on the table, I despise Trump and the MAGA movement, which is racist, misogynistic, and cruel. That doesn’t mean I’m blind to the ridiculousness, and even danger, of leftwing identity politics.

At a time when publishing fiction has become essentially uneconomic beyond celebrity titles, I’d have thought agents and publishers might have reason to reconsider the direction the industry is headed. Surely this is a time to widen the readership, not narrow it. By all means we want to encourage diverse voices, but when 19 out of 20 agents all say they want BIPOC, anti-colonial, etc, then as an industry you are demanding conformity over originality. It’s a mindset of self-harm: literature’s superpower is empathy, but it works through the creative process, not by insisting on political rigidity.

Anyway…I am still giving it a try, because the goal of broadening the audience would help mitigate the worst impulses of the publishing industry. My story is about a young prince in all sorts of trouble. Yep, a young male inheriting the power structure. And it’s short (another thing fantasy agents hate; they seem convinced everything in their space has to be a door-stopper, as if ‘world-building’ requires a high word count instead of, uh, good writing). This novel provides loads of adventure, intrigue, and fun, with humane and complex themes. If no one bites, then I’ll have this sucker out, on my own steam, in time for Christmas.