How I Got a Literary Agent + My Querying Journey | Shelves of Samantha

foreign or welcome back to my channel my name is Samantha and these are my shelves and today I'm once again bringing you something a little bit different in my booktube newbie video that I posted a month ago a few weeks ago I don't really know I don't think time is real I mentioned that I was in the process of trying to find an agent for my debut novel and if you follow me on bookstagram then you would know that I am now an agented author and saying those words out loud is absolutely bananas to me that I am an agent and author it feels surreal it feels like I'm living in a dream this has been my dream since I was probably nine years old that's I think when I started writing to finally be here 16 years later which again I'm only 25 so I'm still young but good God 16 years seems like a long time it's just absolutely insane to me that I'm here and I can say that I am an agented author so what I wanted to do today was to talk about my experience from the query trenches and also to maybe share some advice or some tips that I have on Surviving the querying process because if you are a querying author or you know it is absolutely brutal and soul-sucking and it's like getting punched in the solar plexus every single day every single time your email pings you're like so I just wanted to talk about that a little bit and see maybe if there's some insight that I can bring to the conversation as I said I am an agented author I recently signed with Joanna Castillo at writer's house and being agented by someone at writer's house is if being agented was a dream come true being agented by someone at writer's house is a dream come true within a dream come true I can't even believe that I can say that I really love Joanna I have loved working with her so far she is absolutely wonderful and our Visions from my book just aligned perfectly she has so much skill and expertise especially in the editing world and I know that she's going to take my book really far and I am I'm in really good hands and I just feel so lucky to be agented by her now as far as my book goes I'm not ready to share very much about it and part of that is because my title is most likely changing and I don't want to tell you guys that my title is going to be a when it might actually be B we haven't it could still be the original title it could be a different title we're really not sure but I love my title but my agent brought up the fact that it has some flaws and I won't go too much into it but my title may be changing and um I don't know what might change in my book I'm doing one round of edits and most of the developmental bones should stay intact but there could be things that change down the road so I don't want to share too much in specific what I will share is that I query my novel as literary suspense complete at 90 000 words and my protagonist is a formerly incarcerated sex worker and the Heart of this book is about relationships between sisters relationships between mothers and daughters and the idea of Revenge versus remorse can you have both is that possible uh and that's about all I'm going to give you at this point in time I really love my book and I really love my protagonist I think she's a badass and I think she's really unique in the literary space so I really cannot wait to bring her into the world and bring my story Into the world but enough about me I'm gonna jump into my querying experience after I finish my novel this year I did multiple rounds of edits I did about two rounds of self-edits one round of Developmental edits with beta readers and then I also did a round of line edits with a beta reader who I trust a lot who is also a writer and I knew his opinion would be hugely helpful for me in getting agented and I was right about that he was absolutely invaluable to me throughout this process again I went through four rounds of edits in total and I know some people are going to say that's not enough I think you know how many rounds of edits your book needs I tend to draft really cleanly so I knew that I didn't need 10 rounds of edits and what I mean by drafting cleanly that's not me being like I write great first drafts it's nothing like that it's just that I tend to do a lot of editing as I go and I'll fill in the blanks that way so I will catch a lot of plot holes myself I will go back and I'll be thinking about a scene that I wrote 20 000 words in when I'm at the 80 000 work Mark and I'll go oh okay I can fix that now so four rounds of edits yes but I did so much editing throughout because that's just that's my writing process and that's what I like to do I started drafting my career letter in late September and then by early October 2022 I was ready to query and I found query tracker hugely hugely hugely helpful throughout my querying journey and I will talk a little bit more about them when I get to the tips section of this video but I went through query tracker to help me keep track of who I was querying what they were looking for all manner of things again that website is absolutely invaluable to you if you are an author looking to query your book I did three batches of query submissions and in total I ended up querying of 40 Agents from October 2022 through January 2023 and that is a really short querying experience I do want to say that I have a very different and in a way privilege perspective on querying uh the novel that I became agented for was my first novel I had never queried before and that's generally not the case a lot of people will not get agented for their first novel and again I'm not saying that to Pat myself on the back or to say I'm a generational Talent I'm amazing it's not about that at all it's just to point out that my experience as someone who queried for a pretty short time on their first novel and got agented is going to be very different than someone who queried three novels got agented on their fourth and and did it for years that person's going to have a very different perspective than I am and I just want to be upfront about that that I did have a pretty Charmed querying experience even if it didn't feel like that for me in the moment which it certainly did not I started drafting my query letter in September of 2022 and by October early October I was ready to begin querying I wish I'd spent a little bit longer drafting my query letter I will touch on this a little bit more later but I was not happy with the first version that I sent out and I ended up sort of wasting my first batch which was really disappointing I ended up querying for almost exactly three months and I queried 40 agents in total I had three full requests one partial request that did not lead to more and I ended up with two offers of representation if you can hear this loud air outside there's an airplane flying overhead and I don't know why they fly so low hello to my neighborhood but they always do anyway I think another way that my querying experience was a bit of an anomaly is that I did not end up signing with the first agent who made me an offer this is totally anecdotal but from what I've heard it seems like a lot of people do tend to sign with the first agent who offers and I ended up signing with the second agent the first agent was really wonderful I liked them a lot I liked their Vision But ultimately I liked my agents just a little bit better and that's why I decided to go with her I got my first offer of representation in the first week of January and then I had one full request still outstanding and about eight queries that I sent nudges on and actually one of the queries that I did not John ended up being my agent I had just sent her the query and I was totally not expecting any of those nudges to get back to me but I got an email saying you know hey we'd love to read it and then within I think two days she read my entire manuscript and then we set up a call for a holiday I was just really floored that she read my manuscript that fast and again made the time for me on a Federal holiday to call me and talk and offer me new representation and again part of it is just Vision I aligned with her vision better and I felt like she could take my career a bit further ultimately I did decide to sign with her the next day and I officially became an agented author on January 17 2023. so that is the abbreviated version of my querying journey and now I'm going to get into some tips and I don't want to say tips and tricks that sound so patronizing but I'm gonna get into some tips and some things that I learned and also just share a little bit more in detail about some experiences that I had because that very short version probably makes you think oh my gosh she had it so easy there was no rejection of oh there were rejections I had a 10 request rate which I can't tell how good that is uh in the post pandemic querying world I think it's I don't know what the real request rate that you should shoot for is some people say if it's more than five percent you're doing a good job some people say it should be more than 20 I was exactly at 10 and I was relatively happy with that again my first version of my query letter was not as good as it could have been I think that didn't cost me so your mileage may vary but I did end up with two offers of reps so even if my request rate is at the standard below the standard again I don't know I do think I did something right to get two offers of reps so I'm a I'm a very minor Authority on this subject I touched on query tracker a bit earlier and I want to come back to them again because I absolutely do not think you can query without query tracker I have no idea how people do it specifically I don't think you can query without the premium version of query tracker which is 25 a year um this was not sponsored I don't think they sponsor people but I do want to be upfront query tracker did not pay me to say any of this um it's 25 a year which is more than reasonable and you gain access to all manner of reports you can can see over the last two years how many queries an agent has replied negatively to and how many they've applied positively to with a positive response being a request for Pages be it partial or full you can see how long they take to respond to queries and to submissions you can see timelines of when other users have submitted their queries and kind of get a feel for it did I get skipped over should I close it out with no response etc etc I really really recommend that you spend the extra 25 a year to sign up for query tracker because it was so helpful to me to have that premium version I I really would have been lost even even if you don't want to pay for the premium version absolutely sign up for query tracker it's hugely hugely helpful my second piece of advice is one that I thought was just common knowledge among querying on but I've seen more and more recently agent and authors advising against it um and saying don't query in batches no don't listen to that anyone who tells you not to query in batches is leading you astray I'm sorry to say oh that rhyme that was nice um always always query in batches um I cannot believe there are authors out there telling people not to query in batches that's you're shooting yourself in the foot if you don't um by querying in batches if you're not familiar it means if you find 60 agents that you would uh like to represent you do not send your query letter and the sample materials etc etc to all 60 agents at once don't do it because if like me you go back and you're like oh I can make this query letter better but you've already sent it to every agent that's on your list well you've shot yourself in the foot and that's why we do batches that's why I started out with a test batch of eight I didn't get responses I didn't get any bites and I knew something was wrong and I went back to the drawing board had I queried every agent on my list at that point I would have been in really hot water speaking of someone who had a pretty Charmed experience as far as querying goes I think anyone telling you not to batch your queries had an extremely Charmed experience probably had a really high request rate and that advice is not advice I would give people always always batch your queries I don't care if your favorite Tick Tock author tells you not to I don't care who tells if your mother query and batches I'm begging you you will thank me later when you have not run through your entire list of Agents always always always do batches another thing I would recommend is go through make your list of all the agents you would feel comfortable representing you and then find the fastest responders which you will know using query tracker premium out of that group and send to them first because you'll either get bytes or you won't and you'll know if your package is working or if it's not I had some fast responders in my initial batch I wish I had included more because if you sent to someone who's very slow or often just doesn't respond whether it's a positive or A negative response um it's not going to help you because three months are going to go by and you're gonna be like I wonder if they've read it yet and you've lost time and maybe your materials aren't working and you should be going back to the drawing board and you're kind of setting yourself back third piece of advice and this is one I really wish I had known before I started querying make a separate email for it do not tie it to your main email because you need that space you do not need to be like me at 11AM on a Wednesday doing your job and your email pings and it's a rejection because it just deflates you for the rest of the day and maybe you're not in the headspace for a rejection maybe you're trying to do something else that weekend maybe you need a mental break and having control over whether or not you are seeing responses I think is really great for your mental health so I would create a separate email and check in with yourself before you check that email box make sure you are in the right headspace for it I would really really really recommend setting up a separate email so that you can control when you're seeing rejections and speaking of rejections my fourth piece of advice is to get comfortable with it you're going to get rejected a lot you are going to get rejected a lot more than you get a request for materials and that sucks and that's brutal and I say that as someone who really struggles with rejection this was an absolutely brutal process for me I'm extremely sensitive I'm more sensitive than the average person to rejection and for me querying 40 people and getting a positive response from four that's awesome that's great but I got a negative response or no response from 36 of them and that sucks and that kills your confidence sometimes there was one time in particular it was 9 30 on a Sunday night and I was querying my girlfriend was here and it queried a really fast responder and she responded within like 10 minutes with a one-line email saying like thanks but not for me and it just crushed me and that goes to the point of please have a separate email for this stuff so you don't get a rejection at 9 30 on a Sunday night and I started crying and I had a little bit of a breakdown because I hadn't had any requests for material at that point and then the next day I got my first partial request so that goes to show it can turn around really fast but you're gonna get a lot of rejection and it's going to hurt and it's going to break your heart and there is no way around it other than to get comfortable with it my fifth piece of advice is kind of advice and kind of just an observation I'm seeing more content creators who are authors advising against querying widely I think the traditional wisdom at one point was once you query 100 agents and you don't get an offer shelve it move on to the next thing and I've seen some author content creators say no stop at 50 no stop at 30. and I think this is such a your mileage may vary kind of situation by the time I stopped querying I had a list of 84 agents who I would have felt comfortable representing me and that's someone who is querying a suspense novel and I think that I had a broader pool to fish from so to speak than someone querying why a Sci-Fi so your mileage may vary there but the wisdom that no there's not more than 50 agents who could adequately represent your book I think it's kind of depending on the genre you're writing in I genuinely would have felt comfortable with any one of those 84 agents representing me they were all legitimate agents they were legitimate agencies they had made application deals and I would have been happy with any of them so anyone who's telling you no you hit 40 you need to stop it's not going to work out if you still have agents on your list go for it um I would say honestly run through the list if it's a hundred query a hundred if it's 50 query 50 your mileage may vary but don't stop at some arbitrary number as long as there are still agents out there who represent your genre and seem like they would be a good fit and are not a fake agent send it to them my sixth piece of advice is it is okay to query someone if they're not a 100 match for your book what do I mean by that obviously do not query you're a y a fantasy book to someone who only represents adult romance you're wasting your time and theirs if you're writing a suspense novel like me and you find an agent who likes um I don't know suspenseful Thrillers they specify that in their manuscript wishlist or on their website then I would say go ahead and query them I think I am going against the grain by offering this advice there a lot of people say like no no only query people who are 100 match and I think it's hard to find 100 matches and the first agent who made me an offer my manuscript was not a 100 match for what she was looking for it was about an 80 to 90 match but I took a little leeway and later on in our phone call she told me you know yeah this is a little bit more literary than I usually represent but I still took the plunge and queried her so I think that if you are like an 80 to 90 match for what someone is looking for and again you're within their genre and their age range specifications go ahead and query them the worst thing that happens is no but you might end up in a situation like me where yeah it's a bit outside of the agent's wheelhouse but they liked it enough that they wanted to read more or they wanted to make you an offer my seventh piece of advice is do not query until your book is done again if you query fast responders and you get a positive response someone might email you in 12 hours and say yes send me the full manuscript and if you're not done with it you're gonna look like a real dumbass quite frankly don't query your book until it's done don't query it and so you feel like you've edited it as well as you can edited it God I hate saying that it's like a tongue twister and it shouldn't be but make sure that the novel that you have you would feel comfortable submitting to an agent piece of advice number eight make sure your query is actually ready to go before you send it make sure you're 100 happy with it otherwise you end up like me and you burn 8 to 10 queries and you go back to the drawing board and you come up with a version that's so much better but you've already run through some of the agents you would have liked and you gave them a query letter you weren't totally happy with and this is hard because querying is a very different art form than writing a book it's more about sales than it is about literary Acumen and it's not a skill I totally possess I really struggled with my query make sure that your query letter follows the industry standard guidelines don't try to get cute don't try to get funny now is not the time to bend the rules I would say odds are you are not the exception to the rule and don't shoot yourself in the foot by trying to be and again maybe that's harsh but I think the standard is the standard for a reason follow the format of hook book cook with hook being hook them on your premise book being tell them about your book and cook being who are you give them your author bio if there's one rule I think you can break it is the one about word count uh the general length of query should be about 250 to 350 words mine ran a little long at about 400 obviously don't write them a thousand page query but I think if you run a little long or a little short and your query is strong it can work um again I got two offers of rep so obviously my query letter was doing something right for me to get them hooked and to get them interested enough don't start your query with a rhetorical question don't dump 18 names on them don't give away your big plot twist there are so many wonderful resources on the internet in general and on YouTube about how to write a good query letter and if you're just beginning your querying journey and you don't know where to start I recommend that you consume all of that content writing the query letter is extremely hard and it takes a lot of fine tuning it's a strength that a lot of writers don't have because it's not about writing anymore it's about selling yourself and two completely different skill sets and my ninth and final piece of advice is if you get an offer of representation take advantage of the 10 to 14 day grace period that the offering agent will give you to reach out to other agents don't immediately settle on the first agent it could be that they are the perfect fit for you and you are so happy and you do end up signing with them and that is wonderful but there's always the chance that the real perfect agent is the one that you're going to nudge and read your manuscript in two days and makes you an offer on a holiday in my case your perfect agent might still currently be reading your full manuscript and maybe you nudge them and they make you an offer too don't always feel like you have to go with the first agent and don't feel like you have to be loyal to them I don't say that to be cruel and again the initial offering agent for my book was wonderful I cannot say enough great things about them anyone would be lucky to be represented by them but I ended up finding a slightly better fit in that grace period so don't immediately go no no no no I don't want the grace period I'll sign with you right now take that time I am really glad that I did and I think you will be too and any agent who would bristle at giving you that grace period is not an agent you want to work with period so what happens now I'm out of the query trenches I'm an agented author what are the next steps I go on submission which is when my agent starts contacting editors with a pitch letter and getting them interested in my book and hopefully buying it when you go on submission the shorthand for that is on sub I'm not on sub yet but I may be in March which is really exciting and really fast and crazy I have one round of edits to do and I will be working on that over the next few weeks and then from there will eventually go on South my agent is sharing her sub list with me so I know what editors and what imprint she's interested in and it's it's a very collaborative process I don't have that much input because I'm not making that much input I really trust my agent she worked in editing for about 15 years and she knows her stuff so in Joanna I trust in my agent I trust but she's still involving me in those decisions and telling me who she's submitting to and why and why she thinks they'd be a good fit and we had a call where she asked me you know what are some books that you feel were really well done and really well marketed that you think could be like somewhat of a match for you and it was really wonderful to have that to have that level of input and it was a great way to look at my bookshelf because I never thought about that before your agent may keep the sub list from you they may just tell you hey I'm submitting to this imprint but not telling you the editor in specific I feel really lucky that mine is a collaborative one and a very open one I like to know what's going on I'm I'm nosy so she didn't tell me I'm sure I'd be asking but it means a lot to me that I'm able to be involved and if I wanted to have input I could but again I'm not the expert here she is it's like a football game where you're like you're like at the you're like at the 10 yard line you got to get to the end zone I think that's how football works I'm I'm more of a baseball girl but I couldn't think of a good baseball analogy it's it's like the bottom of the ninth two outs Runners on the corners you know I trust her to get that runner on third to home play and score the winning run anyway now that I just outered myself as a baseball nerd so that's where I'm at now I'm still very early in the process and I also want to say it's very possible that I could do what's called dying on sub I could put my book on submission with my agent and no one bites and I don't get an editor and I have to shove this obviously I very much hope that's not the case and I have faith in my agent that she saw a book she could sell and that's what we'll do but it's a thing that happens to people and it's worth mentioning that this isn't the last hurdle I think being agented is the biggest hurdle I think I read somewhere that you are more likely to get into Harvard than you are to get agent in which is insane but there's still other hurdles to clear and there's still a lot more to go on this journey but it's a journey that I'm really looking forward to embarking on again this is going to be here in a way it feels like it still hasn't sunk in I think the most celebratory thing I did was right after docusigning my contract I was like I got an agent and I danced in my pajamas in my office because it's like 11AM and I work from home so I was not dressed but yeah in a way it still it still hasn't sunk in and part of me thinks it won't until I actually get a book deal I trust in my agent I trust in my ability as a writer and I trust in the ability to have all of this come together and I'm really excited to go on submission I do want to mention that as it stands right now today which is January 29th 2023 we are not planning to submit to any harpercollins imprints to support the strike if you're agent if that's a decision that you'll make on your own that's not something I want to do I want to support the strike but it's very possible that between now and when I go on submission negotiations could resolve and the strike could be over um at which point yes I would submit to harpercollins but as it stands right now I will not be crossing the picket line thank you so much for joining me for something a little bit different the other side of me I I'm a reader but I'm also a writer and it's really wonderful to be able to share that Hobby and that passion whatever title my book spawns into existence with I will be so excited to share her with you she was my baby for three years and she's still my baby she's not over yet but I wrote her alone in an office for three years I got 40 000 words into her twice and started over so I yeah this has been a novel of Blood Sweat and Tears and it's still coming to fruition and it's just been an absolute dream come true and I'm just so grateful to be here and to be on the other side of querying and looking ahead if you have any questions about querying or you want more details on my experience anything like that please don't hesitate to ask me I really wish that I had a support system when I did this instead of just me and some YouTube videos so if there is any way that I can be of use to you as a querying author please don't hesitate to reach out I am more than happy to share my experiences and give Insight wherever I can because I know creating is a very isolated eating and lonely and soul-sucking process if you've made it this far please go ahead and like subscribe leave a comment let me know if you're a writer let me know if you want to be traditionally published if you're looking at self-publishing do you want a query how are you feeling about all of it if you are querying thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Shelves of Samantha

Views: 8,601

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Id: 4MPq5eiloR0

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 30 2023