Should I grant an agent an exclusive look at my manuscript?

Sure, if you’re not in a hurry.

Otherwise, no.

Make a list of fifty agents who definitely represent the type of novel you have written, and all of whom are open to queries at this moment.

Now sort them out like this:

Agents who have represented books that are not just the same genre as yours, but are similar in tone. By “tone,” I mean on the spectrum of positive and uplifting to grimdark and nihilistic. If the agent is a huge fan of “uplit” and represents a lot of authors who write that kind of fiction, and your novel is grimdark, then this agent may not be a great fit for you. If a majority of the authors an agent represents write novels that are the same genre as yours and roughly similar in tone, put that agent at the top.

Agents who represent successful authors. Define “success” however you like, but a reasonable definition is: There’s a good chance fans of the genre have heard of the author.

Agents who have placed novels with Big Five publishers multiple times in the past few years.

Agents who meet whatever other criteria you think are important.

Got that list? Fifty agents?

Great, now identify the ones who demand an exclusive and, no matter how great they are in every other way, put them on a separate list of annoying agents who demand this unreasonable thing and set that list aside.

Send your manuscript to the ones who don’t demand an exclusive.

Wait two months, crossing off names as rejections come in and cheering if anybody requests a full. At the end of two months, check the websites of any agents you haven’t heard from. If they say on their website they’re taking three months to get to queries, wait another month for them. If they don’t say that, email them and ask politely if they’ve gotten to your query yet.

Wait another month or so. Repeat checking with all the agents you haven’t heard from yet.

If you’ve heard back from most agents and the others don’t answer email, you can reluctantly haul out the list of unreasonable and annoying agents, pick the one you like best, and send that one a query.

All the extreme waiting embedded in this process can be put toward

—Writing another novel.

—Reading about self-publishing so you can do that properly if you decide to.