What's Your 2026 Look Like?

On Planning

Hello friends,

As many of you know, I have been closed to queries for a long time. (This is not an announcement that I am reopening to queries, sorry.) I’ve been in a lucky place of having a pretty full roster of successful clients. I don’t have an assistant, so there is only so much I can physically do in a day, only so many books I can read, only so much I can handle before I become bad at my job. This is, in part, why agents close to queries—not because we’re closing the gates behind us to keep everyone out, but because we are human beings doing a job.

But, I was having lunch with Howard Morhaim—my boss, and mentor, and friend—the other day, as we do, and he said so how’s your front list looking three years from now? <Record scratch.> Huh, I thought, or hadn’t thought. I don’t know what my front list looks like three years from now, and it shocked me to think it. Not that it was a foreign concept that had never crossed my mind, but that things had been going so well for such a good stretch that I realized I’d gotten complacent, comfortable, and now I needed to think ahead.

For those who don’t know what any of this means, Howard, was basically asking me what books are your clients writing that you think you can sell that will come out in three years or so? The point of his question was also to say yeah things are going great now, but remember, books are fickle. He wasn’t trying to scare me or take me down a peg from lofty plane of success. On the contrary! He was making sure I was thinking ahead so I could continue this way, and so could my clients.

I thought about it there, over our coffee, and also knew I would need to sit down and make some lists and see what I could see. It’s a complicated and seemingly unanswerable question. (This is also why it is imperative for agents just starting out to work with someone who’s been in the business a long time. Even after 17 years of being an agent myself, Howard is still teaching me things!!!) I won’t be able to answer it in a way that results in a list of actual books that are guaranteed to have pub dates in 2026. The point is to look at my client list, figure out what I know people working on, ask some questions, make some guesses, and see what it looks like. If the list looks a little thin, that’s when I can make some changes (open to queries, reach out to clients and other authors, talk to editors, all of the above). This is sometimes what agents mean when they say things like I’m looking for contemporary romance or I’m really interested in YA fantasy, etc. etc. etc. We are interested in those things conceptually, as a fan, and as a reader, and broadly speaking, but we are also looking for actual books to sell.

One could take this to mean that all the things agents ask for, all #MSWL posts on Twitter, are clues into the market, what’s working, what editors are buying, what you should write. And……….it kinda is. If you look at those things and look at your book and something matches up then BINGO! That’s great. It doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a book deal, but it is a nice bonus in your favor. It’s also true that agents have a feeling about the market (but no crystal ball) and they act on those feelings and sometimes it works out. What all this doesn’t mean is that when you see an agent say I really want a book about werewolf/butterfly hybrids or whatever that you should set out that day to write a book that is exactly that. I mean, you could, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You should write the book you want to write, not the book you think some agent wants to read. And if an agent says they want a book that’s just like <some current book that’s already been published> you should definitely not start writing that similar book the next day. By the time you are done, several years from now, that agent’s interest has probably waned. Maybe not disappeared, but waned. If you’re writing to what’s on bookshelves today, you’re about two to three years behind the curve.

OK, ok, ok, then, you’re thinking, if you can’t predict the market then how do you know what you’re going to want to sell in three years??????? That is a good question! I don’t. I have very little idea what I’m going to actually sell in the next few years and when those books might come out. Some books come out in 11 months and some books take 5 years. All I can do is follow where my interests intersect with what a broad readership might like, paired with new things that blow my mind, paired with tried-and-true things that have worked for me for years, paired with a good bit of serendipity. I know this is frustrating to read. I know it makes you think why the eff am I doing all this work if all you people in charge have no idea what you’re doing???????? We do, in fact, know what we’re doing! We’re just not precisely orchestrating as much as you think we are. Agents are reacting to what you’re doing, what you’re writing. When you do something bold or new or different, that can turn our heads and make us take notice. It doesn’t always work, just like doing something that feels like a sure thing doesn’t always work. There’s no guarantee for any of us out there, me included. But when agents say I’m looking for…. we’re saying show me what you’ve got not go out and do this thing.

You can start thinking about your 2026 book, too. If you start it now, it just might work, if the stars align. I know that feels like forever. I know you’ve already been hard at work for a long time. (Me, too.) But that’s how this industry works. And if you don’t start now, that just means it’ll be 2027, or ‘28, or ‘29. (Not 2030, though, because that is a number that only exists in the far, far future and I cannot conceptualize it, yet.)

So get moving. Because I am, too.

XOXOXOXOX,

Kate