053: How I Found My New Literary Agent
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How i found my new literary agent
Hi, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for listening and an extra big thank you because I realized that the podcast has been around for a year I released my first episode back in November like early November of 2022, which is awesome. I can't believe it's been a full year. So if you've listened, downloaded, shared on social media, sent me DM, left a review. Huge thank you for your support, for listening, for being here. It means the world to me, and I'm so happy that, you know, I get to keep doing this. I love creating the podcast. And I always appreciate hearing what's helpful too. So you know, if there's an episode that resonates with you, where you got some some help out of, of course, I would love a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. But you can also just take a screenshot of it and share it on Instagram and tag me and that way I know kind of like what you know what's resonating with people. And I can create more of that type of content. Because I want the podcast to be helpful, whether it's helpful for writing or editing or mindset, whatever it is.
Yeah, and I've got more exciting episodes coming up, got a good queue of episodes for the next month or so. So excited to keep going. All right, I have an exciting update about finding a new literary agent. I've recorded a couple of podcasts about my experience, I recorded one back in December episode number seven, which was about how I found my agent. And in that, in that episode, I kind of talked generally about the process of querying, but I'll just talk about it really quickly and give a little definition in case you're not totally familiar with what that means. If you want to go down the road of getting traditionally published, where you get a book deal at a bigger publisher, you need to have a literary agent to represent you. And querying is simply the process of sending out something called a query letter, which is like a one page letter summarizes your project give the agent gives the agent a little bit of a preview of it. And then you send a sample of your manuscript to agents.
And in that episode, Episode Seven, I'll link it in the description of this episode, I talk kind of about like resources. And there's also a more recent podcast episode that talks about where to find agents to query because not every agent is going to be a good fit for you. Some agents only represent nonfiction for example, some agents only read represent very specific genres, or even specific types of books in specific genres. So you want to make sure that you're sending your query and your book to agents who represent the kind of book that you are writing. Episode 46 is the top three querying resources that I recommend. So you can check that out if you want. But I left my agent this year. And I also recorded an episode kind of talking about that process, which was episode 35. And you don't have to have listened to all these episodes to listen to this one. I just want to give you more context, if you if you want to go check those out, you can. But I left her and it was scary. It was really scary because I had to cut ties with her completely before I could start the process of querying again. Just because it's kind of shady to be like still officially represented by someone and have them doing work for you. And then you're like on the side talking other agents on the DL? Yeah, it's just not it's just not a good way to go about it.
So I had to completely cut ties with her. And then I had no idea what the process was going to be like, I didn't know how many queries I would have to send out. I didn't know if I would find an agent. It was very, very scary. But I felt like it was the right step for my career. And yeah, I just ended up doing it taking the taking the plunge taking the leap. So I ended up signing with Molly Glick, an agent at CAA, which is Creative Artists Agency and I'm so excited to be working with Molly. She's like an absolute dream agent and really understands my book really understands my vision for my book and for my career as an author, and I'm just like over the moon excited to be working with her. I sent out my first query in May, May 23rd. And then it's October as I'm recording this and I think this episode will be released early November, so took about roughly five months or so. So I started my querying process in May and On May 23, I sent out six queries. And what I did is I created a spreadsheet of agents that I thought would be a good fit. And I started out with like dream agents top of my list really excited to work with them. And interestingly, Molly was not on that first, that first list, I actually didn't query her until August.
Because when I looked at CAA 's website, where they were talking about what kinds of genres they accept, I didn't see thriller. And so I initially thought that Molly actually maybe would not be a good fit for me, because it seemed like she might not be open to thriller, to thrillers. But I went and looked on Publishers Marketplace, which is a listing of deals that have been done in publishing so that you can get a listing of like, agents and agencies and editors who are, you know, selling and acquiring books in a particular genre, but you should have done a fair amount of thrillers recently. So then in August, that's why I decided to query her. But back in May, she wasn't on my original list. And yeah, I sent out six, there are different strategies for querying, everyone does it differently, I decided to kind of go kind of be conservative with it, and only send it out to the to six, just so that I could see if my query was working, what kind of response I got, if anyone had any feedback for me. So that's why I only went with six. And then you know, the strategy, the benefit of doing that strategy is that way, if a couple people get back to you, and they have feedback, or you know, then you can kind of fix your manuscript or fix the sample or fix the query letter, you kind of know. And then you haven't sent it out to every single agent on your list, and you're like, Oh, crap, well, there was a big issue with it that I should have fixed earlier.
So I sent it out. So over the course of and then I got more aggressive as I went on, like June, I sent out quite, um, quite a lot of queries. But between May 23, and August 17, I sent out 60 queries when it got to August. Oh, so let me go back to my number. So I sent 60 queries, I had 11 Full requests and two partial requests. And a full request is when the agent likes your sample, whether every agent is different, sometimes they'll ask for 10 pages, sometimes I'll ask for three chapters. But if they liked that sample, they'll ask to see the full thing. So I had 11 Full requests from agents and then two partials. And a partial is just when an agent likes the sample, but for whatever reason, they don't ask to see the full thing. So I think one of the agents who requested a partial, I sent her the first chapter. And she liked that. And she wanted to see the first 50 pages. So that's what a partial request is. And then the idea being if she likes that, then eventually she'd asked to see the full thing. In terms of strategy, something that I relied on a lot more this time than my first time around.
Partly just because I sent a lot more queries is query tracker. I love query tracker, query tracker is a website that you can do a lot of different things on it, and I talked about it in the querying resource episode, but you can search for agents if you want. But you can also just have a list of agents that you've queried, and you can get all kinds of data about the agents, you can, there are some things that are available for free, or you can also get a premium subscription that I think is $25 a year. And that gives you access to things like response times submission response time, so that when you get a full request from an agent, and you send them the full manuscript, on average, how long does it take them to respond? What percentage of those foals? Are they going on to then offer representation? And how many of them do they pass on and of course, this is all you have to take the data with a grain of salt, because it's self reported. And it's not the only resource that I used, but it just helped my sanity a lot. So that if I was querying an agent who took a while to respond, I could know that I could manage my expectations and not expect a response the next day.
And on the flip side, as well, like some of the agents that I queried in, I think July, I chose agents who had fast response times on purpose, I wanted to kind of like go through my list quickly and cross people off. And so probably eight or 10 of agents that I picked in July, were agents, I could see, you know, we're fairly responsive, like some of them would get back in a few days, some of them would get back in a week or two. And so I picked those agents Yes, because they'd be good fits. And I would love to have them represent me and they represented my genre, but also because they were responsive. That wasn't I didn't do that with all agents. I just did that with again, I think like eight or 10 agents in July, because I wanted to speed the process up a little bit. But it was just helpful. It was helpful to have that data. And then also, you know, when I got a full request from an agent, I could pull up the report and see okay, in the last six months or in the last year or so, How many full requests has this agent made, and how many offers have they made. So if I got a full request from an agent who was requesting full requests, like every single or full manuscripts every single day, and then they only signed one new client in the last 12 months, then I could know that my odds maybe weren't as good as an agent who rarely requested fulls and, you know, had and but also signed one client in the last year, I don't think it's a good idea to get to focus to those numbers. I mean, I remember my first my first agent had a response rate of like, 3%. And, you know, I ended up signing with her, so it doesn't, it's not that you need to, like live and die by these numbers.
Again, it's more just about managing your expectations. And it really helps you understand how querying can be a numbers game, sometimes where, I mean, think about from an agent's perspective, they get hundreds and hundreds of queries in their email, every single month of those queries, those hundreds and hundreds of queries, they might request 1% of them, they might request full manuscripts from 1% of those. And then of those 1%, they might only be able to take on like one or two new clients every year. So it's really selective, it's really, and I'm sharing that just to say that, like you do, it is a numbers game about sending a lot of queries and not just sending one or two. And then being disappointed when those one or two agents don't immediately sign you. It really is a long game. And that's, that's my biggest suggestion is to just, you know, check out query tracker, if you would like the free version, there's a ton of good information. But if you want to pay for the premium, I think it's worth it.
So that's something that I really relied on this time around. So those are my numbers. And by the time it got to August, I had received about seven, six or seven rejections on full requests, which means the agents looked at the full book, they liked the sample, but they didn't feel strongly enough about it to offer me representation. Sometimes on full requests, you will get reasons why they might, they might have a little bit of feedback for you. Sometimes it's just kind of general feedback, like I just, you know, didn't connect as strongly as I would have hoped. So I'm going to step aside best of luck. Or it could be for reasons that really have nothing to do with your like the quality of your book, it might just be that they read the full book and realize that it's very similar to the client that they just signed. And so they don't want to have two books going out to editors that are very, very similar. It could just be that, you never really know. So because I had received those rejections on a full, I had decided, in August that I was going to do a revision on my manuscript, I got a couple of pieces of feedback from two well, really from two agents. Yeah, who basically said that I'm paraphrasing here. But that my book wasn't quite thriller enough, there needed to be more twists they needed, the stakes needed to be higher. And so that was why they declined. That was why they decided to pass on, on the project.
And I, in my gut, I knew they were right. I knew that that was that that was kind of an issue with the book where I had sort of been toeing this line between thriller and women's fiction. And I just was constantly wrestling with that as I was writing it, and it was reflected in the final manuscript. So the fact that I was getting a lot of full requests meant that my sample was strong. And then my query was strong, but because a number of agents had passed on the full, that was a clue to me that maybe I needed to look at the manuscript again. I'm I'm assigning all kinds of meaning to it. It's never this simple. It doesn't mean that if you get five passes on a manuscript, that that means you have to go in and change it. It doesn't work that way. But for me, because I was really like, Oh, I think they were right about that feedback. I had decided I was gonna go do some revision. And that was around the time that I initially queried Molly.
I sent her my query in August and got a full request. And then, about a month later, I got an email from her in September saying I loved this. Do you want to set up a phone call? To which I freaked out. I'm not even going to repeat what I said when I got the email because it's like full of expletives. But I basically freaked the hell out and I screamed, and I scared the shit out of my husband, who's in the next room playing a video game. I was like it's Molly, freaking Glick. I was so excited. So and I knew that was a good sign. Because if an agent asks for a phone call, that means they're serious about your project. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so great. And I had already started working on the revisions a little bit I had already kind of made some changes to an earlier Chapter so I kind of went into that call, thinking that maybe she was going to have some similar feedback.
And she did she did. We had a great conversation. And when an agent has a phone call with you, a lot of times, they'll just answer your questions. You can have an idea of like their work style, how editorial they are, if they're going to what kinds of revisions they're going to want you to go through before you send it off on submission to publishers, what their strategy is for sending it to publishers. And just kind of more broad questions about like, how do they view their role as your agent in the process? You know, how do they collaborate with their authors, just all of that, so you can kind of feel each other out. And it's very important. I mean, first of all, it's like, so exciting to get an call with an agent. But you really have to make sure that you feel good about that particular agent, that you feel like you're going to be a good match, because they're essentially, in a lot of ways a business partner for you, right. So you have to make sure that you feel good about it, and that you feel like this person understands your book. And that's why talking about revision is so important.
Because if you get an agent who's like, yeah, you know, this draft is good, but it needs this change, and this change. And I would want you to do this, this and this before we send it out. And you don't agree with any of that. That's probably a sign that it's not the right agent for you. So you have to be comfortable, and kind of on the same page about the book and the revisions and all of that. So the phone call is a chance for you to do that, to get your questions answered and kind of feel each other out. And make sure that you would be a good fit. And I loved Molly instantly on the call, I felt like it was she really understood my book, she had some great suggestions for things for revision. Now what happens when you get an offer from an agent is that you have to go back to the other agents that you haven't heard from yet, especially agents who have the full manuscript, but who you haven't heard back from yet and let them know, you have to say, Hey, I received an offer offer of representation, I can give you, you know, 10 days or two weeks with the manuscript if you're interested. So I did that I gave i think i gave people like 11 days or something. And I heard back from some of the agents that they were stepping aside, you know, they were excited for me said good luck. But they weren't, they were just gonna step aside, I did have one agent who it was kind of like a half offer.
She's like, you know, Would you be open to a conversation? Are you open to other offers? And I basically said, you know, I'm really happy with Molly's offer. And I just, I want to be honest and respect your time. So yeah, I'm happy with Molly's offer. And she's like, No, totally fine. I understand. Thank you for letting me know that it was nice of her to say like, hey, I'm interested in offering but I don't want to go down this road and have this conversation if you're not really interested in another offer. And if you're happy with the offering agent, which I was. Yeah, so I heard back from some of the other agents and then some of them just never who I had queried and never heard anything from I didn't hear anything, which is fine. Obviously, that means they're not interested. And I am just so thrilled with Molly, that it really didn't matter that I didn't hear from these other agents.
Yeah, it's such a roller coaster, it really queering is very difficult. It's a difficult process Emotionally, it can be a very difficult process strategically, because, yes, there's lots of information online about how to do this, how to find agents how to write your query letter. But there's also just so much that's out of your control, you cannot control who responds to you when they respond, what their response is going to be. And you don't know if someone is not responding or passing because there's an issue with your book, or because it's just not something that they feel super strongly about, or they have another client who wrote a similar book, there's so many things that you're just never going to know. And I don't mean to be so like discouraging about the process, if you're going to be starting querying soon. But I think it's just important to kind of manage your expectations and know that it can be a really hard, long process. And 60 queries is certainly more than I sent out my first time, a lot more. And this process overall took longer, but I'm just very happy with where it ended up. And I'm so excited to be to have signed with Molly and now I get to go back into the book and make some revisions.
We talked about everything on the call and kind of gone back and forth about some plot changes, and I put together an outline. And so now I have an outline where I can, you know, I that I can reference as I'm going back to make changes, but I'm really excited about the changes and I think they're gonna make the book a lot stronger, and twistier. And yeah, I'm really, really excited about it a little bit daunted with how much like, I'm a little daunted by how much work it's gonna be but I think it'll be good to get back in. So yeah, that's my that's my story. That's what the experience was of signing with an agent this time around. If you are in the querying trenches or going to be soon I'm with you, and I hope this was helpful or providing some encouragement. Yeah, it's just it's an exercise and trust and faith as well, like, yes, doing all the work, making sure your book is solid, your query is solid, but also just trusting that things are going to work out the way that they're meant to, even if it takes a lot longer, even if it doesn't go exactly the way that you hoped. I think that's important too.
I mean, I started this journey in 2018. I signed with my agent 2018. So it has not been a straight path to publication. There have been a lot of bumps in the road, but I'm really happy about where I'm at and excited to kind of see what's next for my book. All right, thank you for listening. I really appreciate it and I will see you next week.