How I Got My Agent: Pandemic Edition
There were so many times during my querying journey where I wanted to start drafting up a “How I Got My Agent” post. I’d read so many, and they got me through a lot of tough times. But drafting the post was dangerously close to allowing myself to dream, so every time I got the itch to start, I was always held back by a single thought:
What if I never got an agent, and I was just wasting my time?
Folks, I’m here to tell you that if you want to draft up a “How I Got My Agent” post before receiving an offer of rep, DO IT. In fact, this whole post should just be called:
WHATEVER I DID, DON’T DO THAT.
As a writer, it’s in my job description to torture you all with background on my novel writing process, but if you want to:
Skip to my querying journey, click here.
Skip to The Call, click here.
Skip to my query stats, click here.
Skip to what I’d do differently if I were starting my querying journey over, click here.
But if you want to stick around for the whole 3500 words, I’ll make you a cup of tea.
#SPOOKYCHINESEGHOSTS
I was always a writer—until I wasn’t.
When I was a kid, I made picture books for my younger brother. I won writing awards in high school competitions and placed at the provincial level. I wrote poems in the margins of my university notebooks and exchanged fanfics with my friends.
And then I graduated from university and started working.
I was really lucky. I found a full-time position in my chosen career field of teaching English as a Second Language rather quickly, and I went on to sink all my time into that. I loved what I was doing. It was fulfilling, people-centered, and allowed me to engage in many of my passions. I even ended up co-founding an ESL school. It was so emotionally fulfilling that for many years, I didn’t realize that I hadn’t created a career for myself, but that my career had ended up shaping me.
In the summer of 2019, my English language school closed its doors for the last time, and I was left adrift. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but that’s exactly how it felt: me, at sea, with everything before me and not knowing which direction to turn because everything looked the same. I had always thought I’d wanted to be a teacher, and now that I wasn’t, I didn’t know what to do.
So I took the rest of the summer to myself—just a couple months, I said, to recover myself enough to pursue my next job. I’d never taken an extended period of time off, even during summer vacation in high school, so having all this free time was actually uncomfortable. I did what I could. I walked the dog. Cooked. Tidied.
And eventually, I started writing again.
I often start scenes with dialogue. That’s it. Not even dialogue tags, but just straight up dialogue. And that’s what I started with—I opened up a Google Doc and just started writing whatever was in my head. Eventually, scenes started appearing, and I realized I could link things together. Towards the middle of August, I finally figured out that I could write a novel.
I won’t bore you with the entire writing process, but I ended up with my completed first draft that October. Prior to #SpookyChineseGhosts, I think the longest thing I’d ever written was 10k words max, so going from that to a full-length novel was a huge jump. And folks, it showed. My first draft was TRASH.
I revised. Revised again. Sent it off to beta readers. If you take a look at #SpookyChineseGhosts now and compare it to the very first draft I wrote, they look like two completely separate manuscripts with very little overlap. Let me tell you, my first beta readers were SAINTS. If any of you are reading this, I am SO SORRY. I think I revised this first version of #SpookyChineseGhosts around six times before I finally felt good enough to start querying it.
You know how people tell you to make sure your manuscript is ready—REALLY READY—before you start querying?
Yeah, I thought that was me.
(Spoiler: it wasn’t.)
I started querying in July 2020. When I first started querying, the BIPOC/other marginalized communities discourse hadn’t yet come to a head. #OwnVoices was just becoming a thing, and agents were starting to take to Twitter to announce ally solidarity. I think that we’re in the full of starting to see the issue now, and I’m excited for this, but also sad because I wonder how many other manuscripts weren’t picked up because the timing just wasn’t right. I also wonder how much of that original discourse was just professionals jumping on the bandwagon. Please remember that actions speak louder than words, and to vet the agents that you query carefully.
I spent a lot of time curating a list of agents who:
repped my genre (YA contemporary fantasy);
seemed like genuinely good and professional people; and
supported BIPOC and other marginalized writers—and had evidence of this.
I looked for evidence of support in the clients they currently repped, their deals in Publisher’s Marketplace, and if they were BIPOC or from another marginalized community themselves. It was really important to me that any agent I queried understood where I was coming from because even though I might not always be specifically writing about Chinese culture, my experience as a BIPOC writer will always inform my work.
In July 2020, I sent my manuscript to six agents and nervously awaited feedback. But while I was waiting to hear back from all of them, one of my last round beta readers got back to me, and they gave me incredible feedback. The gist of it was that my manuscript was not ready, and that while the idea was great, the manuscript read like…well, a first novel.
I thought about this feedback for a few days. I didn’t want to make a rush decision, but honestly, I knew what I had to do within a couple of hours of reading their feedback.
I knew I had a good idea. A great idea, even. I even got two full manuscript requests from this batch of six agents. But I wanted to give my novel the best chance it could have, and so I pulled out of querying and rewrote my book. I messaged the two agents back who had requested my full and said I wanted to revise my book, and if it was okay to send them the full after (they said yes).
I got to work and rewrote my novel from scratch between September 2020 and January 2021.
Folks, I won’t sugarcoat it: rewriting a novel from scratch is a special kind of torture. I had many sleepless nights, drank way too much caffeine, went on long, rambling “BUT WHAT IF I DO THIS??” monologues to my poor husband, and showed up to my day job with crazy, anxious teenage angst energy because damn if I wasn’t getting into character for my YA novel.
(Yes, I juggled a new day job amidst all this craziness, and bless my work for being so wonderfully understanding and patient. Kudos to all writers out there trying to juggle day jobs/family commitments/kids/pets/illness, etc. You are all gods in my eyes.)
After I finished rewriting my novel, I started querying again after a couple rounds of revisions in May 2021. Full disclosure because I did not get beta readers for this new rewrite. I revised based on the issues I picked up in my writing. Was it wise to not get beta readers? Maybe not. But I figured by that point, I was my own worst critic anyway, and honestly, I was just so done working on #SpookyChineseGhosts. It’d been almost two years of working on the same manuscript. I wanted to move on.
I started querying again in May 2021. I sent my queries out in batches of 6-8, and here is where I REALLY do not recommend following what I did.
If you’re reading this, then you’re probably already at least somewhat familiar with the publishing industry (if not, my condolences, because you’re in for a wild ride). The pandemic took what was messed up with publishing and threw it into overdrive. Overworked agents and editors? Put that to the power of ten. Long query response times from agents? Multiply that by a hundred. Agents wanting to take on new clients, but having to pull back due to having to juggle other life commitments? Throw another few clowns into that mix and you still wouldn’t have a view of the full circus.
The general query advice before the pandemic was to do a test batch on fast-responding agents. This no longer worked during the pandemic. Agents who responded within a couple weeks ended up taking months. Agents who had my full would promise to get back within 3-6 months and ended up taking 8-12 months instead.
I queried in batches of 6-8 and waited to hear back from the majority of agents before sending out another batch. Again, I strongly do not recommend this. Things are moving so slow right now. Everything is backed up. It could be months before you hear back from everyone in that batch, and in many batches for me, it did take months.
At this point, you might be wondering why the heck I kept on with this awful method when it’s clear that I knew it wasn’t working great, and let’s just reiterate that once again, I am my own worst critic. I am in full awareness of this. Sometimes, when you are your own worst critic, and that little voice pops up in the back of your head in the dead of night, you take the safe route because that’s all you’ve ever known—and that’s all I’ll say about that.
Eventually, agent feedback did come in.
If you want to skip to my querying stats, click here.
The months went by. More and more rejections trickled in. I thought of shelving my book. By that point, I’d started working on #vampWIP, and my writing skills had improved dramatically. I thought that if I couldn’t get an agent with #SpookyChineseGhosts, I was hitting all the right notes with #vampWIP, so it wouldn’t be too much of a loss.
So I sent out one last round of queries.
I didn’t expect it to result in a Square Enix-style ending.
On Monday, April 14, during my lunch break, I checked my writing inbox. I had a new email. The subject was just Re: [#SpookyChineseGhosts]. I clicked on it, thinking it was another rejection.
It wasn’t.
I’d skimmed it quickly because I thought it was a rejection, and I had to go back and reread it. And then reread it again. And again. I was so overwhelmed that I actually started crying.
The agent said they’d literally just finished my ms, and had devoured it over the weekend. They knew that they had to email me about it right away. They wanted to jump on the phone to chat with me about my project, and if there was a day/time that worked for me that week.
Was it THE CALL?
My head went all fuzzy. I left the room. Composed myself. Went back to my desk. Then I carried on with my work day like nothing had happened, LOOOOOL.
Once I was off work, I replied back with “OH MY GOODNESS I WOULD ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO CHAT WITH YOU” but more professional, I promise. I set up a Zoom call for that Thursday with the agent and mentally prepared myself.
Then my favourite protective mechanism, self-doubt, started settling in again.
The following is a sampling of the many questions and doubts that ran through my head ahead of my meeting:
Okay okay what if this isn’t THE CALL but just an r&r??
An r&r would be okay but would I want to do that since I’m knee-deep in #vampWIP???
What if this call is neither an offer of rep or an r&r, but a REALLY SADISTIC REJECTION CALL??
WHAT IF THE AGENT HATES MY MS SO MUCH THAT THEY HAVE TO TELL ME OVER ZOOM????
I am building up my steel wall for coping with rejections BUT I WOULD FEEL TERRIBLE IF MY MS CAUSED THEM SO MUCH GRIEF???????
YES, this is exactly how my brain works.
Thankfully, that little voice at the back of my head got a good smack upside the head. Thursday rolled around, and I had a great call with the agent. We spoke about my manuscript, and what they liked about it—AND THEN THEY OFFERED ME REPRESENTATION. I cried. They spoke about their vision for how to make it really shine. Some of the feedback resonated with me, and some didn’t.
I left the call feeling mostly overwhelmed. I think I was still in disbelief that this was happening. I cried again after. I just cry a lot. I think I mumbled into my husband’s chest after that “it was an offer of rep sobsobfgbdgfkgjf”. I am married to the greatest person ever because HE HAD ORDERED A CAKE FOR ME in logical anticipation that the call was, in fact, The Call, and we celebrated with cake after. He took it out of the fridge and presented it to me with a huge CONGRATULATIONS!!!
(I’m sorry that I don’t have a better picture of the whole cake. I was so overwhelmed and honestly kind of nauseous that I just started eating.)
I asked for two and a half weeks to respond with my decision because I had received the offer of rep right before the Easter long weekend, and I wanted to give additional time to agents to respond. In light of what I know about querying now, I would ask for three weeks instead of two if I had to do it over again, but I also don’t think it would have made any difference in the responses I got.
Now that I had confirmation that The Call was an offer of rep, logical brain kicked in immediately. I set about creating a spreadsheet of the agents I still wanted to query—the ones I really wanted to work with, and not just whoever was left on my list. I had 30 at first, then narrowed it down to 16. Then, over the next day or so, I sent out my very last batch of queries with a notice that I had been offered rep. I also sent a follow-up message to any outstanding queries I had with an update of offer of rep. I found Sami Ellis’ Cheat Sheet templates really handy here.
Folks, when they say that publishing moves slow until it doesn’t, it’s so true. Despite the long weekend, the responses came in a matter of days. Agents congratulated me on the offer of rep. A few wanted to know who the offering agent was. Some politely declined my manuscript, stating that they wouldn’t have time to read before the deadline. Six more full requests came in, along with some promises from agents who already had my full that they would finish before the deadline.
On April 19, five days after my first offer of rep, I got another email asking for a call. And then on April 28, a few days before my deadline, I got my final offer of rep. I ended up receiving three offers of rep in total.
I know I was in a very lucky position to be able to choose from three different agents, but at the time, it didn’t feel that way. By the time I got my third offer of rep, I was already so torn up with choosing between the first two agents that I almost declined the third call. I am incredibly glad I didn’t, though, because I loved chatting with the third agent, and they helped me revitalize all the love I had for #SpookyChineseGhosts amidst the panic of having to choose an agent.
And making that decision was hard.
Like many writers, I’m an anxious person. I want to know all the details of something before I go into making a decision, especially one that could potentially be the start of a huge change in my life. I talked to friends and to anonymous strangers on the internet. I deliberated my choices and went over pros and cons with my work colleagues. I obsessively read over the agents’ bios and did the Google deep dive on their backgrounds, trying to find as much information as possible. I scoured every inch of their Twitter profiles and their agency websites. I wanted to know how long they’d been in the business, what kinds of sales they or their agency had made, and if they were active in their support of BIPOC writers. I researched them so thoroughly I actually started dreaming of their profile pictures.
I won’t go into the details of why I chose the agent I did because everyone has different reasons. But on May 3, 2022, almost two years after I sent out that very first query, I chose my agent. Again, it was a hard decision because I felt that each agent who had offered me rep was brilliant in their own way. Yet I am more than thrilled to be working with Amanda Orozco of Transatlantic Agency, and I’ve always felt that she understood the heart of my story, and who I was writing it for.
I never set out to write #SpookyChineseGhosts as the novel from my heart, but it became it. This novel has the beginnings of all I’ve wanted to say. And even if this is the furthest I get with my writing journey, at least I know that for once, I was true to myself. I wrote what I wanted, and said what I wanted, and I said it unabashedly with my own voice, and not how I wanted my voice to sound to others.
And for now, that’s enough.
QUERY STATS
Quick query stats:
87 agents queried
57 query rejections
20 CNRs (query closed due to no agent response)
18 full requests
6 partial requests
0 R&Rs
3 offers of representation
More in-depth query stats:
87 agents queried, 16 of which were post-notice of offer
57 query rejections, 14 of which were step asides (post-notice of offer)
15 CNRs, 6 of which were post-notice of offer
5 ghosts (agent responded with plans to read after being informed of notice of offer, but never gave final answer)
18 full requests before offer, 6 of which were post-notice of offer, and 2 of which were partials that turned into fulls
6 partial requests
0 R&Rs (one agent responded post-notice of offer that they would have offered an R&R if I didn’t already have an offer in hand)
3 offers of representation
AND FINALLY, WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY
If I were to go back into the query trenches right now, here’s what I would do:
I would absolutely, without a doubt, make sure my manuscript is ready.
I would send out a test query batch to 10-15 agents who generally respond within a month, as shown on their QueryTracker stats.
I would query in batches of 12-15.
I would not wait to hear back from all agents in a batch; rather, I’d wait to hear back from 75% of them, and if that 75% included 2-3 positive requests, I would continue with another batch.
If I didn’t hear back from enough agents in a batch, I’d set a date to send out another batch of queries, regardless of whether or not I had received any positive requests. HOWEVER, I would only do this if I absolutely knew for sure that my query, synopsis, and opening pages were working. I would gauge my query package’s effectiveness based on the request rate for my initial test batch.
Please keep in mind that this would just be for #SpookyChineseGhosts, a YA contemporary fantasy, and with very strong targeting towards agents interested in representing BIPOC projects.
If you are currently in the querying trenches or you’re about to enter them, I also want to acknowledge that although it’s dismal out there and things are moving much more slowly and rejection rates are higher than before, I still see writers signing with agents. Querying is an experience that will make you doubt many things about yourself and your writing abilities. That’s normal. But please don’t give up. Find a community to support you. Put yourself out there. Get feedback. Be open to it. Revise, revise, revise. And whatever you do, keep going. We need your voice.
