You've done the research. You find a literary agent that reps your genre. You look at their website, to find something similar to what you're offering. Your weighty tome could be considered literary fiction, but someone else might call it historical fiction, or even women's fiction on a good day, so you fire off the query and call your manuscript that which best fits.
And the agent replies: "Sorry, not right for our agency. Good luck elsewhere."
All the research can't tell you what exactly the literary agent is looking for, because that changes based on the market demands, and only they know what the market will be down the road because they've sold the future publications. The best that you can do is make a good guess and then give it a try.
Just because the agent has repped literary fiction in the past does not mean they want it today. If the market is contracting, they won't be after more to stuff down a narrow pipeline, but if you happen to have a cozy mystery, why, that's exactly what they could use.
Right now, I've got fifteen e-mail queries waiting for an answer - although I believe that most of them have been read and passed, with a no reply to indicate lack of interest. After a few weeks, I'll cull the dead weight and after a few more weeks I'll send a snail mail query. Wear them down and sooner or later they'll ask for a partial just to stop the pain. Am I in violation of international law forbidding torture?
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