Why a querying writer and a product designer built a query sorting tool for literary agents

As a writer, of course I didn’t set out to create a query sorting tool for literary agents, to help them manage inbox overwhelm.

My goal was to land a literary agent and then, get my funny children’s picture book manuscripts published and into the hands of children, teachers and parents (I’m a former primary school teacher, so always think about the teacher sitting out the front reading stories to children, like the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems I used to read to my students).

Understanding the querying process

I joined a fantastic writers group that focuses on the business side of writing: how the industry works, what a query letter is and how to write one that presents the business case for your book. We learned to research agents; how to find the ones that are a genuine fit for your work; how to decide which agents to query first; how to understand requests and rejections as data points, not declarations of writing worth.

I know many writers struggle with the business side of writing, but I oddly enjoy it. Perhaps it’s my 12+ years’ experience working in software startups. In many ways, the process is similar to finding product-market fit (which is a fancy way of saying, is the product you’re building something a specific and big enough group of people would want to buy?), except in writing, the product is your book.

But I also understand the frustration writers have with the process. The amount of time it takes to research agents via QueryTracker, understand their wishlists via Manuscript Wishlist and their agency website, review their book deal history via Publisher’s Marketplace, and not to mention stalking following them on social media. It feels like a full time job. A full-time job that takes time away from your actual writing craft.

And what’s more, if you’re completely new to the industry and haven’t had the opportunity to learn the business side of writing from folks in writing groups, you might not even realize the work (and stamina) required to land an agent. You’re excited by your story, and the best and most efficient way to get representation is to batch-and-blast every single agent with the exact same query letter, right? Someone will see your story and want to represent it!

But just like product-market fit in software, you need to find the agents who are a fit for your book. Not every agent will want to represent it, because agents represent select age groups and genres, and within those, they have specific tastes and interests (i.e. their manuscript wishlist). The very nature of this means that you should only query the agents that you’re an age and genre match for, and better still, a fit for their wishlist.

For example, you’ve written a cozy mystery about a missing pastry chef, where the bakery patrons set about solving it, or else never eat his beloved cream buns again. An agent’s wishlist is asking for cozy mysteries with elements of humor and a quirky group of amateur sleuths.

Of course, wishlist fit alone isn’t an indicator of success – an agent could pass on your story for a myriad of reasons – but you have a much better chance than sending your story to an agent who doesn’t rep that genre or have that interest at all.

And then there is The Wait. You send your query letter to an agent with a mix of excitement and fear, and then… nothing. You check your emails. Again. Still nothing. You wait. Weeks. Months.

You may not get a reply at all and are left to wonder if it was a “No” or simply a “Not yet.” Then just when you’ve given up hope, you get a rejection email. But at least you know an agent has read your query! Or perhaps you get a request for pages! Or a full! All of these are possibilities, yet the process is painstakingly slow.

Sharing my query with an agent

In early 2026, I was lucky enough to read my query to an agent for feedback during one of our live writing group video sessions, all while hundreds of my fellow writing group members watched on (no stress at all). Naturally I threw my phone across the room when I saw I’d been selected from the hat and wondered if it was too late to withdraw. Read my query to a real, live agent in front of hundreds?! What was I thinking?!

Then once the panic passed, I was excited. I edited, prepped and practiced reading my query aloud a hundred times. During the agent session itself, I had the best time. I didn't get a request off the back of it. But I felt like I was in the right room, being part of an industry that lit my soul up. 

But something else happened during that session that ultimately led to the creation of QuerySort. It was a question asked by one of the two hundred writers in the session. 

When was this particular agent reopening to queries?

The agent apologized. Of course she wanted to reopen! But she was currently working through the THREE THOUSAND queries she had received in just 6 weeks when she was last open. She felt guilty for all the writers who had been waiting over six months for a reply.

Let’s just picture that for a moment. 

Three thousand queries to work through, one-by-one. Even at a quick scan, that’s hours of unpaid work out of every week, with no way of knowing if a query was going to be a fit for the agent’s wishlist let alone a story they want to request, until they had opened the email and read it. (I say this with deep respect for the writers sending in their queries and the hours they have spent in that process).

It reminds me of times when I’ve been hiring for a new role in my startup life. You open your inbox and find hundreds of job applications to review one-by-one. Many of them are from applicants who don’t have the right skillset but apply anyway. By the thirtieth non-fit, you start to feel a little deflated. After the hundredth, you start wondering if you’re going to find anyone.

But three thousand?!

My 12+-Years-in-Software-Startups brain lit up. Software could help solve this.

Because this was a “finding a needle in a haystack” problem. One agent, thousands of emails and no tool to help alleviate the volume except sheer will and caffeine.

I called Kayley excitedly. We’ve worked together in software for years. She is a brilliant product designer, builder, manager and strategist all wrapped in one and the perfect person to build this with.

The query overwhelm problem

We researched the literary agent experience and learned just how widespread the query overwhelm problem was. Jericho Writers states that a typical NY or London agent receives  around 2,000 submissions per year. Former literary agent Nathan Bransford says most agents receive between 5,000 - 20,000 submissions per year. Countless agents give their overwhelmingly large query volume stats on Instagram. We reviewed query volume data from QueryTracker for the past 12 months and it painted the same picture.

Agents everywhere were receiving thousands and thousands of queries per year, and had an average positive response rate of only 1.8% (based on QueryTracker data). Out of every 1,000 queries sent, only 18 receive a partial or full request.

And actual offers of representation? Around 2-3 per agent per year.

THOUSANDS of queries, to sign just 2-3.

Suddenly my waiting months for my picture book manuscripts to get reviewed didn’t seem so bad.

And the issue is entirely structural. 

Agents are highly skilled at determining great work. But the challenge is the time and effort it takes to work through all the submissions that aren't a fit, to find the ones that are. That’s a massive bottleneck.

Hundreds or thousands of queries, to be read by one person, opening each query one by one. Where a huge amount of that volume are queries that aren’t a fit for the agent’s wishlist: they aren’t an age group or genre match and unfortunately, many are batch-and-blasts (think: “Dear Agent” or “To Whom It May Concern”). Yet the agent doesn’t know until they’ve opened the email and read the query. 

QuerySort is born

But what if a tool could sort queries the moment they arrive in an agent’s inbox, based on how well the query aligns with the agent’s wishlist? A tool that doesn’t judge writing quality, but merely triages queries so agents know where to direct their efforts first? Where every single query is still there in the inbox for the agent’s attention, only grouped by High, Medium and Low alignment with the agent’s wishlist?

Wouldn’t that help agents surface the best-fit queries faster, and reduce the wait times for the writers who have done the work to query agents that are a genuine fit for their work?

We thought so.

So after all that research, and thinking, and wondering, we got to building, testing and iterating. (And let’s not forget branding. We LOVE the QuerySort brand!). Kayley and I are actually a dream team together. We have complimentary skillsets, or said another way: my hard is her sweet spot, and her hard is my sweet spot.

We have come alive this past year building QuerySort. We are so proud of what we have created: a simple query sorting tool that helps agents discover the best-fit queries faster in their inbox. A tool that doesn’t judge writing quality, but simply helps agents know where to direct their attention first.

And we hope that literary agents find it eternally useful in their query review workflow.

Because we are so passionate about the publishing world. Heck, this is the industry that gave me R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps when I was ten. Harry Potter when I was twelve. And as an adult, every single hilarious escapade in Jonas Jonasson’s books since I read The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

Books are the most incredible thing. Sitting within these physical stacks of bound papers and ink are entire worlds with characters you fall in love with, that have you laughing, crying and rooting for them. They are tools for understanding perspectives other than your own. They are a means of escape and inspiration, when life becomes too big and difficult.

We want to help support these most incredible things called books to find their way into the world, by helping the agents who champion them discover them faster.

This is such a worthy problem to solve. And one we are so proud to be solving.