HOW I FOUND MY AGENT(S)
I’ll start by saying I wasn’t sure how to write this. I’ve read and celebrated a thousand “How I Got My Agent” posts over the years, but now that I’m digging into my own, I’m realizing what a weird, nonsense, non-linear journey it’s been. I heard from people all over the community that no path to publication is the same - and mine is still very much ongoing - but if it helps someone feel less alone, I’ll share what I’ve got!
I’ll include stats at the bottom of the post.
Most people’s journeys, including mine, start the same: realizing at a tender age that you want to write. My first project was actually shared between me and my best friend from Baptist Youth Group when I was twelve. We had a stack of blank CDs and we got the genius idea to write as much as we could, save it to a CD, and pass the project back and forth at youth group. It was like one of those writing exercises from school, but we were trying to write a whole book that way. I don’t remember a lot of specifics about the story, except that there were four kids with elemental powers going somewhere on a ship. They might’ve been superheroes. It’s unclear.
Obviously, that story went nowhere. It couldn’t have – I didn’t know how publishing worked. I didn’t know where you submitted things, I didn’t know about agents, about editors, about queries, any of it. I just knew I wanted to write a book, and I figured someone else would take it from there.
I was sure I’d be a NYT Bestseller by sixteen.
Through middle school and high school, I continued to write with no specific goals other than finish a book. I took classes on writing, read books on writing, and in 2012, I started my freshman year of undergrad and declared a Creative Writing major. Still, I hadn’t finished a book and my writing was going nowhere.
Then, sophomore year of college, I took a Kidlit writing class with a visiting professor who decided that just teaching us craft wasn’t enough if we wanted to get published. As a former agency intern, she had us Skype with a literary agent, had us write sample query letters, had us work on revisions similar to what an agent would advise in an R&R. She gave us general writing advice, but backed that up with practical, business knowledge. That class changed my life. It was a whole new world, and suddenly, I had a path to publication.
From here, I’ll break it into projects:
FANTASY SOUL BOOK
Spring 2014, I started a new project. It was a low fantasy about a girl who accidentally absorbed the soul of a powerful warlock. As I drafted, I made a list of agents in mind. I wrote a query letter and synopsis. I wrote in a cafe every day, because I knew this was the one I would finally finish and use to start my career. And after 2.5 years, I did it – I finished!
But when I reread the book, I took a deep breath and realized it was beyond repair. I wasn’t mad at myself or even the book. In fact, I was happy! I finished my first book and that was a huge accomplishment! But I didn’t know enough about story/structure/character yet to fix it. I reread and reread and couldn’t figure out how to make the book better.
I didn’t want to query it, so instead, I archived the book and decided to try again.
DEVIL BOOK
In Summer of 2016, I started a new project. I did a couple other things, too:
I started working consistently with a critique partner
I joined Twitter and started paying attention to YA things
I started interacting with agents on Twitter and understood a lot more about #MSWL and such
I found out about mentorship programs and pitch contests like #PitMad and #DVPit
This new book was an urban fantasy about a girl who sold her soul to the Devil and needed to win it back to stay alive. I took all the hiccups I’d had with my fantasy book and tried to address them ahead of time, but story structure still felt pretty shaky to me. It took me about a year to draft the book. I did a quick revision round after CP feedback, rounded up a list of agents I thought would be interested, and sent it out!
But despite getting generally positive feedback from other writers, agents weren’t interested. I got four full requests (which felt AWESOME!), but mostly ended up with form rejections and silence. I got one response to a full that just said “I didn’t like it.”
It was a tough crowd.
Instead of giving up on the book, I submitted it to a mentorship program called Writing in the Margins. I was matched up with Kelly Jones, author of Unusual Chickens for the Exception Poultry Farmer, who gave me extensive notes on my devil book and talked me through the querying process. I can’t even express how helpful it was having an industry mentor. It wasn’t just about learning the mechanics of the process – it was having someone on the other side of the querying trenches who really believed in me and my work.
So I worked on revising devil book. But as the months went on and changes became more extensive, I realized I was burning out on this book. It was around Summer of 2018, and I’d been working on revisions for over a year. I loved the book, loved the characters, loved the world, but if I had to look at it one more time, I was going to explode!
LESBIAN GHOST HUNTERS
That same 2018 Summer, I worked with a company deep in Eastern Oregon as part of my day job. I went out to the area and realized what a specific, empty, ghost-y place it was, and a story practically knocked me over the head. At first it was just the setting, but then I started picturing this queer family of ghost hunters moving to Eastern Oregon to solve an ongoing string of murders, and the urge to write this story was so strong I couldn’t ignore it.
So in October of 2018, I put devil book aside and dug into a brand new project I affectionately called “lesbian ghost hunters.”
Right off the bat, I gave myself some concrete goals:
I would outline the whole thing and stick to it the whole book
I would draft like the wind and get the book ready for April 2019 #DVPit
I would work on this book as long as it took, even if that meant years
Fortunately, it wasn’t years! It was the fastest I’ve ever drafted a book. I started in October 2018 and fell so deeply in love with the story I finished my draft in December 2018. I gave it to CPs and revised from January-March 2019, and then in April 2019, I pitched for #DVPit.
I got an overwhelmingly positive response, including likes from all of my dream agents. I was so shocked I had to consistently go splash myself to keep from passing out. I was in all my friends’ inboxes and DMs freaking out about the situation. I was advised to query in waves, but I listened to zero advice and sent out all my queries at once between April 23rd and April 26th, 2018.
That’s when the real plot twists began!
Right off the bat, a handful of full requests came in. I sent out the document and held my breath. On April 29th, I got an email from a literary agent who had the full telling me she’d enjoyed it so much she shared it with her colleague. Together, they wanted to talk with me. This was my first offer of representation.
I followed all the protocols and sent out my nudges to other agents, and by May 10th, 2019, I had three offers of representation. Each offer pitched an extremely different version of my manuscript. And each offer was amazing in its own way - each one pulled out pieces of the book I really loved and said ‘let’s focus on this.’ In the end, there was one offer - the first offer - that just felt right.
So on May 10th, 2019, I signed a contract with Claire Friedman and Jessica Mileo at InkWell Management.
That’s the narrative, and here’s the breakdown.
THE STATS:
I’ll break this down by my three separate projects.
Fantasy Soul Book:
- Drafted in three years
- 59k words (it was so short)
- Queried to 0 agents (my list was about 25)
- No full requests
- No offers of representation
- Edited for no months (I didn’t even try)
Devil Book:
- Drafted in one year
- 88k words
- Queried to 11 agents
- 4 full requests
- No offers of representation
- Edited for 14 months (slash indefinitely because I still plan to get back to this one EVENTUALLY)
Lesbian Ghost Hunters:
- Drafted in two months
- 100k words
- Queried to 23 agents
- 16 full requests (!!!!!)
- 3 offers of representation
Summary:
- Five years of writing seriously
- Three books (and lots of drafts)
- 34 queries
- LOTS of rejections
But there’s one more stat I didn’t include: 2 agents that really understand my project and my voice and want to see my babies on shelves. I am so, so excited to be working with Claire and Jessica, who believe in me and my voice and my story. They want to see my girls on shelves, and they know just how to get them there. Every path to an agent (and further, to publication) is so, so different. I had a million ideas of how mine would go, who I would sign with, when I’d get a book deal, but now that I found two great matches for me, I know I’m on the right path.
Thanks so much for reading, friends, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!