The Best Literary Agent of All Time – Best Book Agent of All Time

The best literary agent of all time – who is it and how can you submit your work to him or her? Read this article to find out.

There are a lot of different criteria that you can use to determine the best literary agent of all time. Scroll below to find out how we did it, and see if the best book agent of all time is interested in your book.

This article is part of a 7-part series, designed to show you how to Find the Best Literary Agency for Your Book.

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The Best Literary Agent of All Time?

The best publishing agent of all time is really a matter of opinion in some respects. That’s because there are a lot of things to consider before appointing someone the title of “The Best Publishing Agent of All Time” …like author scouting ability, book development skills, and general people skills. But there’s one skill set that reigns supreme when it comes to determining the best literary agent of all time…

Sales record.

That’s because it doesn’t matter how good an author representative is at one hundred other things. Book agents are, first and foremost, salespeople. So where do you go to find the best publishing agent of all time based on sales?

And I don’t just mean the most book titles.

The best book agent of all time is someone who’s also sold some of the “biggest” or “best” books. In other words, books that have gotten the biggest advances and promotional budgets and made the biggest difference in the world. So, how do you find out who the real “heavy hitters” are?

Well, there’s a great resource that I use… you might want to check it out. It lets you see who the top dealmakers are, including what some might consider the best literary agent of all time (or agents of all time) For example, here’s a list of author representatives with the most reported six-figure or better deals since January 2004 (top 50) for all book categories (fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books).

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The Best Literary Agent of All Time – Top 50

Literary agents with the most reported six-figure or better deals since January 2004

#1 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Marly Rusoff (Marly Rusoff & Associates)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#2 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Robert Gottlieb (Trident Media Group)
Top category: Fiction: Thriller

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#3 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Russell Galen (Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#4 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Patrick Walsh (Conville & Walsh | UNITED KINGDOM)
Top category: International rights: UK Non-fiction

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#5 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Kimberly Whalen (Trident Media Group)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#6 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Jenny Bent (The Bent Agency)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#7 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Andrew Stuart (The Stuart Agency)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#8 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Frank Weimann (The Literary Group)
Top category: Non-fiction: Memoir

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#9 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Scott Miller (Trident Media Group)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#10 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Larry Weissman (Larry Weissman Literary)
Top category: Non-fiction: Narrative

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#11 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Daniel Lazar (Writers House)
Top category: Children’s: Middle grade

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#12 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Deidre Knight (The Knight Agency)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#13 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Al Zuckerman (Writers House)
Top category: Non-fiction: Business/Investing/Finance

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#14 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Scott Waxman (Waxman Literary Agency)
Top category: Non-fiction: Sports

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#15 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Stephen Hanselman (LevelFiveMedia)
Top category: Non-fiction: Business/Investing/Finance

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#16 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Victoria Sanders (Victoria Sanders & Associates)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#17 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Christy Fletcher (Fletcher & Company)
Top category: Non-fiction: Business/Investing/Finance

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#18 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Laura Rennert (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)
Top category: Children’s: Young Adult

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#19 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Janis Donnaud (Janis A. Donnaud & Associates)
Top category: Non-fiction: Cooking

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#20 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Jim Hornfischer (Hornfischer Literary Management)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#21 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Steve Laube (Steve Laube Agency)
Top category: Fiction: Inspirational

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#22 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Kristin Nelson (Nelson Literary Agency)
Top category: Children’s: Young Adult

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#23 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Elizabeth Sheinkman (Curtis Brown UK)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#24 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Eileen Cope (Trident Media Group)
Top category: Non-fiction: Health

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#25 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Stephen Barbara (Foundry Literary + Media)
Top category: Children’s: Young Adult

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#26 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Richard Abate (3 Arts Entertainment)
Top category: Children’s: Young Adult

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#27 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Elyse Cheney (Elyse Cheney Agency)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#28 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Liza Dawson (Liza Dawson Associates)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#29 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Kathleen Anderson (Anderson Literary Management)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#30 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Fredrica Friedman (Fredrica S. Friedman and Company)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#31 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Tracey Adams (Adams Literary)
Top category: Children’s: Middle grade

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#32 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Dorian Karchmar (William Morris Endeavor)
Top category: Fiction: Debut

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#33 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Gail Ross (Ross Yoon Agency)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#34 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Helen Breitwieser (Cornerstone Literary)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#35 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Sarah Davies (Greenhouse Literary Agency)
Top category: Children’s: Young Adult

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#36 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Karen Solem (Spencerhill Associates)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#37 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Zoe Pagnamenta (Zoe Pagnamenta Agency)
Top category: Non-fiction: Memoir

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#38 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Niclas Salomonsson (Salomonsson Agency | SWEDEN)
Top category: International rights: Fiction

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#39 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Rosemary Stimola (Stimola Literary Studio)
Top category: Children’s: Young Adult

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#40 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Marc Gerald (The Agency Group)
Top category: Non-fiction: Memoir

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#41 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Kim Witherspoon (Inkwell Management)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#42 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Joseph Veltre (Gersh Agency)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#43 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Bonnie Solow (Solow Literary Enterprises)
Top category: Non-fiction: Business/Investing/Finance

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#44 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Helen Heller (Helen Heller Agency | CANADA)
Top category: International rights: UK Fiction

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#45 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Cathy Hemming (McCormick & Williams Literary Agency)
Top category: Children’s: Picture book

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#46 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Robert Barnett (Williams & Connolly)
Top category: Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

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#47 – The Best Publishing Agent of All Time

Meredith Bernstein (Meredith Bernstein Literary Agency)
Top category: Fiction: Women’s/Romance

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#48 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

Andrew Lownie (Andrew Lownie Literary Agency | UK)
Top category: International rights: UK Non-fiction

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#49 – The Best Literary Agent of All Time

Simon Lipskar (Writers House)
Top category: Fiction: General/Other

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#50 – The Best Book Agent of All Time

David Vigliano (Vigliano Associates)
Top category: Non-fiction: Pop Culture

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Caution!

Keep in mind the fact that this list is solely based on deals “self-reported” by the author representatives that you see here. In other words… there are a lot of other publishing agents making six-figure deals that don’t report them. So this list is incomplete, but it is a great resource.

The list above is also incomplete because it’s just a partial list. I excerpted this information from a list of the top 150 dealmakers. I only included 50 here for the sake of space.

You’ll also be delighted to know that you can filter the search results. For example, you can focus on one specific genre… like “Mystery/Crime” or “Cooking.”

That means you can find the best literary agent of all time for your specific category.

How cool is that?

And, you can even filter the search results by country…

So where do you go to get instant access to all this information?

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Publishers Marketplace is an online database of publishing professionals where you can track deals, sales, reviews, agents, editors, and publishing news. It’s part of another service called “Publishers Lunch,” the most widely read daily dossier in publishing… known as “publishing’s essential daily read.” More than 40,000 publishing professionals read Lunch every day.

If you’re serious about getting your book published, Publishers Marketplace will give you a great return on your investment of time and money. Everything they have to offer (including info on all the deal makers, as well as the Publishers Lunch Deluxe newsletter) is available for $20 per month (no long-term commitment required so you can try it and see what you think).

Now that you’ve read about the best literary agent of all time…

Click here to read the next article in this 7-part series,
and see the “Top Literary Agent 2012.”