Submission Guidelines

We are always looking for the finest in commercial and literary fiction and non-fiction. We have a strong background in women's voices, including mysteries, romance, women's fiction, thrillers, and suspense.

Irene is particularly interested in historical fiction with a hook, female-driven thrillers, and popular or narrative non-fiction. Miriam is passionate about modern urban fantasy, Barbara is especially looking for thrillers, mysteries, historical romance, literary fiction, and platform-driven non-fiction, including the occasional memoir, and Jon is looking for intelligent, literary fiction and narrative non-fiction that addresses historical, social, or cultural issues.

If you have a manuscript that you would like to send us, please first ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is this manuscript in the best possible shape? Do I believe it is ready to sell, or am I just testing the waters?
2. Have I completed the manuscript?
3. Does it fit the guidelines of the kinds of books this agency represents?

If you can answer yes to all of the above, then please do the following:

Send a query letter and the first ten pages, along with a detailed synopsis of the entire book, in the body of an email to queries@irenegoodman.com.

Because of the high volume of email submissions we receive, we will only respond to your query if we are interested in seeing more. We will get in touch with you if we are interested in your project; please don't follow up.

If we are interested in your work, we will contact you and ask to see the entire manuscript. We are genuinely sorry that we cannot respond to every query. E-mail queries to our personal addresses will be automatically deleted.

All submissions should be sent by e-mail. We expect a professional presentation that fits basic industry standards. If you are consistently having trouble sending an email through, you may send us a hard copy query letter.

Please do not send anything other than the requested materials. If you send several chapters or a complete manuscript, we will have to delete it.

Please do not submit your query to more than one of our agents.