How To Become A Literary Agent: What It Is and Career Path

What is a literary agent and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a literary agent. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.02 an hour? That's $37,482 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 47,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreLiterary AgentUS Average

Salary

2.9

Avg. Salary $37,482

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

6.7

Growth Rate 10%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.21%

Asian 9.54%

Black or African American 5.88%

Hispanic or Latino 12.43%

Unknown 4.16%

White 67.79%

Gender

female 58.45%

male 41.55%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress Level

6.7

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.6

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

6.7

Work Life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a literary agent

Explore literary agent education requirements

Most common literary agent degrees

Bachelor's

78.4 %

Master's

11.2 %

Doctorate

5.2 %

Start to develop specific literary agent skills

Skills	Percentages
Fiction	91.95%
Non-Fiction	4.48%
Administrative Tasks	3.57%

Complete relevant literary agent training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New literary agents learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a literary agent based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real literary agent resumes.

Research literary agent duties and responsibilities

Schedule and meet individuals\groups for assign or self-generate leads, assist and enroll eligible individuals in suitable Medicare product.
Network at industry lunches and evening events on behalf of ICM.
Experience working with UK publishers, literary agents, and film and television production companies.
Perform editing services and act as agent for nonfiction business books and fiction work for other writers.

Prepare your literary agent resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your literary agent resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a literary agent resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Literary Agent Resume templates

Build a professional Literary Agent resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Literary Agent resume.

Apply for literary agent jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a literary agent job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do literary agents rate their job?

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Literary Agent reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Nov 2019

Pros

It give me unforgettable memories and experience In additional generating life time skills and excellence of the knowledge of is involved