HOW I GOT MY AGENT
I can’t even tell you how many times I thought I would never write this post. Honestly, I’m still side-eyeing my inbox waiting for my agent to email me like, “Ok, never mind, now that I’m re-reading your book I’ve realized that it sucks.”
I’ll keep you updated on that front.
Let me start off by saying that if you’re in the query trenches right now and you’re reading this post because you’re a little bit excited and a little bit masochistic, I totally get it. I did that a lot. It’s like a weird compulsion, and I’m still not fully sure whether it made me feel inspired or terrible. Maybe both? Hopefully reading this makes you feel better. Or, at the very least, I hope it doesn’t make you feel worse?
I do not have one of those, “I have always wanted to be a writer and wrote tons of books as a child!” stories. I mean, I did write Warriors fanfiction when I was like ten, because I was pissed off when Spottedleaf died in book one. I rewrote that novel (a way shorter version, obviously) in which there was much more cat romance. Kind of weird, now that I think about it.
Anyway. I digress.
I didn’t start writing seriously until I was about 20. And when I say seriously, I mean a 135,000 word portal fantasy that was essentially World of Warcraft fanfiction. You can’t play World of Warcraft for nearly a decade and NOT write a portal fantasy featuring attractive demon women, am I right? Also, there were more cats. The cats were inspired by night elf druids in their DPS form. If you do not know what that means, that is probably for the best, and just trust me when I tell you it was a terrible book. Nobody read it except for my dad’s friend.
Todd, if for some reason you are reading this post, I am very sorry.
I did not query that book. I did not know querying existed, in fact. I wrote another book at some point back then, but I have little to no memory of it, and I cannot find any evidence of it on my computer. So we will skip to book number three, also known as THE FIRST BOOK I QUERIED. I believe I finished it in 2017.
“Meryn,” you might be saying, “You only queried for 3 years? Why do you make it sound like you suffered for so much longer?”
Probably because in 3 years I wrote the number of books I should have written in many more years. I was in university studying politics, but I have very little memory of those studies. My entire world was writing and querying. I WAS DETERMINED. I did the bare minimum in school and somehow passed with decent grades. In the morning, before classes, I wrote. At night, I wrote. At my summer job, I wrote.
I learned about agents when Adrienne Young announced her first book, SKY IN THE DEEP (which, by the way, is great). She talked on Instagram about how she got her agent, and that was when I decided I wanted one of those (it’s that easy, right?!). My whole life, everyone had always told me I was a fantastic writer, so I was CERTAIN agents would see my genius immediately. If you have any experience with querying, you already know how this is going to go, don’t you?
It went terribly. Objectively, I suppose, my writing was good. But there was way too much exposition, the plot was all over the place, and my query letter was bad. I put attachments in emails. My word count was 125k. My manuscript wasn’t formatted properly. I included too much information about myself and how great I was. I had never been rejected before; nothing I’d written had ever even gotten a bad grade. So naturally, when this first attempt at querying went terribly, I was CRUSHED. I didn’t send that many queries, and only one agent requested materials. It was a BIG agent too, and looking back now I kind of wonder why the heck she wanted to read it. Obviously, that didn’t work out!
I quickly got over my misery. As the rejections came in, I wrote a fourth book. By now I had a taste of the querying excitement. I just KNEW that my next book would be THE ONE. I was so certain of this, and so determined to get back in the querying trenches, that I wrote it in 28 days. It was 96,000 words. I still have no idea how I did that.
I revised quickly, and had a few bookstagram friends read it. I thought it was awesome. My previous 3 books were nothing compared to this one.
Spoiler: it was not awesome.
This time I had more querying research under my belt, and I probably sent over 100 queries without even waiting for agent feedback. Please, for the love of god, do not do this. I know it’s hard to wait, and I’m such a hypocrite for saying this, but do it in batches. Also, DO NOT JUST QUERY PLACES THAT LOOK LIKE LITERARY AGENCIES. I queried so many agencies that I should not have queried. Always look at agency websites to see if they’ve sold books in your genre recently. If you can’t afford Publisher’s Marketplace (because honestly, who can??), go onto Querytracker and look at Clients. See if their clients have sold. Peek in the acknowledgements of books in your genre and find out who the author has thanked — their agent will almost always be there. I KNOW the temptation to query everyone you can find. I KNOW how strong the desire to have someone love your book is. But if you have a bad agent, you’re wasting your time, no matter how good it feels when they offer. It sucks to hear it, but you know it’s true.
Anyway. Despite my certainty that this book was the one, and despite the huge number of queries I sent out, I only got about 7 requests. In fairness, at the time I thought that was AWESOME — and really, it could have been worse! People wanted to read my book! When I got that first full request, I screamed and called my dad and teared up like I’d just gotten my first book deal.
Months and months passed. I checked Querytracker maniacally. I got a crap ton of rejections. In the meantime, I wrote another manuscript. So when I shelved the book I had been so certain was THE ONE, I had something else ready to go.
This fifth book feels like a fever dream. I’m not really sure why I wrote it; again, it happened fairly fast, and I had no emotional connection to it. To this day, I couldn’t tell you exactly what happens in the story. I simply do not remember, and I have no desire to go back and read it. I wrote this book because I knew my previous one was a failure (or at least, that was how it felt), and I just wanted to KEEP querying. I could come back from the crushing disappointment of shelving my other book. I knew I could. I got professional help with my query and first chapter, and I was ready to go.
And yet, this new book ended up being even more of a failure. Not one person requested. Not a single one. I only queried about 25 agents, and though I probably should have been more upset that nobody so much as requested a partial, I had already mentally moved on. I was writing two other books.
Tip: Do not write a book that you don’t care about. I still truly don’t know why it got 0 requests out of 25, but I imagine that somehow agents could feel the utter lack of connection in the pages.
My newest books were both fantasies, just like everything else I’d written. I never properly finished my sixth book because I just… didn’t care about it anymore. The seventh was a historical fantasy that stole my heart. I did a ton of research about the time period. I fell in love with my characters. It would go on to be accepted into Author Mentor Match (AMM), where the lovely Carlyn Greenwald would become the first person to show true excitement about one of my books. I cried reading her edit letter. It was a crazy, wonderful experience. I revised super quickly, as I tend to do when I’m excited, and then I queried.
This querying experience was much, much different.
I got a full request right off the bat. Then another. I was surprised, because I thought the Steampunk element might turn people off. Shortly after, I participated in PitMad on Twitter, and my pitch soared to become one of the most popular tweets of the day. Agents said they were excited to read my book. I sent out another full. Then another. Before I knew it, I had over 20 agents with materials. And this time I knew who to query, thanks to my past experiences and my AMM family.
I waited. Remember that certainty, two books ago, about that manuscript being THE ONE? I felt it again, but this time more strongly. So many people were interested in my new book. My writing was better than ever before. I'd put so much work into the research, and I adored the characters. How could anyone not love it? For the first time, I didn't bother starting a new book while I waited. I played around with a manuscript over winter break, but never committed.
Then the rejections started to come in.
Some said they loved it, but couldn't see a spot for it in the market. Others said the setting was over-done. Some didn't like the characters, or thought the plot was too hard to follow. All valid reasons to pass! But hope was not lost. I ended up with something I hadn't experienced before: the R&R. And reader, I got 5 of them.
I won’t go too much into my experience with the Revise and Resubmits. I will tell you that they were not exclusive, and that I was able to edit my manuscript to incorporate 4 of the agents’ feedback. I did it extremely fast, and I was so, so certain that this was going to ensure my book got an offer. When did anyone do an R&R and not get an offer?!
Eye roll.
More often than I’d realized — that is the answer. But I sent out my shiny revised manuscripts to the agents who had requested the changes, as well as the ones from whom I’d withdrawn the unedited version.
I got an immediate form rejection. Then another. Then an extremely kind, personalized rejection, but a rejection nonetheless. I was bewildered and ready to quit. How could this be happening? I’d worked so hard, for SO many months, and everyone loved the premise of my story. It didn’t make any sense. I still had quite a few fulls out, but my hope was waning. I expected a good number of those to be ghosted, besides.
Fast-forward to March of this year. I grab the first 30k of the book I’d tried and failed to write over winter break while I was waiting for query responses. It’s a fantasy with 3 POVs and a plot that’s shaping up to look like a murder mystery.
I cut everything. Everything save half a chapter and a character named Roz. It becomes book number eight.
I rewrite it in March and April. I revise it in May. I send one query, to Claire Friedman of InkWell Management. Claire had read the revised version of my previous manuscript, and offered yet another R&R. I still loved that book, and I told her I intended to rewrite it eventually, but I was already deep into my new novel. I sent her a query on a whim. She requested in 2 minutes. I spat my water out.
While Claire had my manuscript, a friend was reading it as well. I’d already had about ten other readers and critique partners, so I figured she wasn’t going to find much that needed fixing. Clearly I need to stop making assumptions about stuff. This friend came back with a very important comment: my two main plot points were not well-connected enough.
Fuck. I knew she was right. How had I not seen it until now?
I withdraw the manuscript from Claire. I revise it in a caffeine-fuelled frenzy over the next week. I send it back with an apology. When I do, I send out six more queries, because it seems insane to only send one. After Claire’s comments on my previous book — which were both complimentary and constructive — I knew I liked her. I felt as though she got my work. I just had to send her the right manuscript.
That was the fourth manuscript with which I had queried her. Claire, if you’re reading this, I am so very glad you didn’t request either of the first two. Thanks for the third and fourth chances :)
11 days later, I was working late. Everyone else had left, and I was alone in the dark office. My phone lit up as I was slogging through criminal charges.
She wanted to call me.
Are you fucking kidding me, I thought? There’s no way. There is no way that after three years of querying, she wants to offer me rep on book number eight. I’d only sent 7 queries. It had only been 11 days.
I nearly hyperventilated, and I’m almost certain nothing else I did at work that night was completed properly. Sorry, guys.
Claire and I had a call two days later. I am usually confident and professional on the phone, but I was so nervous I thought I would die. I did not die. She offered me rep. I knew she was the one. I was so keen to accept, I did so only six days later. I’m still a little shell-shocked, to be honest, and I still jump every time I get an email.
But after 8 books, 3 years of querying — of getting up two hours early for work to write, of skipping social events (and class, heh) to write, of going to bed at an unholy hour, of sneaking a few pages in Google Docs at my day job — we got there, friends.
You’ll get there, too. It’s normal to suffer along the way, I guess ;)
Claire, thanks for not blacklisting me! Fourth time’s the charm, am I right? You’re awesome, and I can’t wait to work with you.
And you truly never know how your manuscript is going to land, because look at the stats for my two most recent manuscripts (I don’t remember the other ones well enough):
THE IRON ARCHER (AMM BOOK)
Queries sent: ~70
Full requests: 25
Partial requests: 4
R&Rs: 5
Offers: 0
Time spent querying: 1 year
SEVEN FACELESS SAINTS
Queries sent: 7
Full requests: 1
Partial requests: 1
R&Rs: 0
Offers: 1
Time spent querying: 11 days
You can’t make this shit up, haha!! So keep going. You got this.
xo
MK