How I *didn’t* get an agent

In a few months, I’ll hit the ten year anniversary of the very first query letter I ever sent. If you couldn’t guess from the title or my constant whining on Twitter, I still do not have an agent. I guess this can be sort of a ten-year anniversary post, though. Note, this post does contain request rate numbers, so feel free to avoid if you don’t like seeing those.

How it started

I’ve been writing basically since I knew how. My first completed work that I can remember is a mystery short story that I wrote in first grade and submitted to the school paper. Through middle school and high school, I finished two very, very, very bad novels. In college, I got a little more serious. I even sent my first, not very good, query letter out.

Dear Agent:

Sixteen-year-old Aurelia’s second language just might get her killed.

When Aurelia’s father is brutally murdered, she suspects the crime had something to do with his knowledge of Runes, a long dead language said to hide dangerous secrets. In an attempt to find answers about her father’s death, Aurelia joins the Keepers, a group sworn to protect a mysterious gateway hidden in the woods surrounding Aurelia’s town. However, Aurelia soon learns that the gateway is capable of altering reality, and she’s left with more questions than answers.

Aurelia’s own knowledge of Runes makes her one of the only people who can control the gateway. It also makes her a target of the same people who killed her father. Aurelia falls into the hands of her enemies when an attack leaves the gateway vulnerable. Escape is crucial, because her enemies are willing to hurt her mother, brother, and a boy who may be more than a friend. Anything it takes to earn her cooperation. And as Aurelia’s life spins further out of control, she’s tempted to do the one thing she’s sworn not to—reshape reality to her own ends.

Complete at 65,000 words, KEEPERS’ SECRETS is a young adult light science fiction novel. The story can stand alone, but has potential to become a series. The partial or full manuscript is available upon request.

For obvious reasons, this book did not get picked up and queried with a 0% request rate (except for one contest request).

Almost there?

Around 2015 I was finishing up manuscript #4, a banter-filled YA fantasy romance where I was really starting to find my writing niche. It queried phenomenally with a 44% request rate and many PitMad likes. When I queried it, I felt like I was right on the edge of making it. I was so close I could practically taste it. That query letter looked like this:

Dear Agent,

Seventeen-year-old Livia would do anything to prevent her corrupt brother from becoming king, even if it means marrying into the family responsible for killing her first love, Emery.

Livia may hate Prince Caden for his role in Emery’s death, but she’s willing to marry him for the political advantage he provides. However, once they are married Livia realizes Caden has his own political entanglements. Caden’s family has enemies who are willing to kill, and once Livia joins the family, she too becomes a target. As Caden helps her survive the attempts on her life, Livia finds herself reluctantly falling for him.

When Livia stumbles onto the murder of Caden’s brother, she realizes that Emery is both alive and hell-bent on revenge. He has a plan to destroy Caden and everyone in his family. Livia becomes torn between her gratitude that Emery lives and her fear that Caden is his next target. Caught in the midst of a court as deadly as it is elegant, Livia is left with no choice but to outsmart Emery to save her new kingdom and the husband she’s only just begun to fall for.

UNTIL DEATH is a YA non-magic fantasy that will appeal to fans of Jennifer Nielsen’s False Prince trilogy and Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse. The story also features a romance similar to Pride and Prejudice. But with more murder. The full manuscript is complete at 65,000 words.

Looking back, I still think this book is very fun. Even if I was audacious enough to comp Pride and Prejudice. That said, I knew I could do better and I was eager to write the next thing when none of the requests on this one panned out.

And then grad school happened. Despite my busy schedule, I actually wrote through grad school. Pretty prolifically, in fact, finishing manuscripts #5-13. Which in hindsight is wild to me considering my grad program was actually a deeply traumatic experience. Consequently, even though I was finishing books, I didn’t have the bandwidth to query again until after I graduated. Which brings us to manuscript #14.

Back in the game

In 2019, with my mental health drastically improving post grad school, I decided to try my hand at YA contemporary, a genre I had only briefly dabbled in. I wrote a book that was deeply personal and meaningful. I like most things I write, but this book felt different. My betas agreed, two of them devouring it in practically one sitting with minimal feedback. I was so excited to query this book.

Dear Agent,

RADIO HEARTS is a 67,000 word YA contemporary romance novel with OwnVoices asexual representation. It will appeal to fans of Kathryn Ormsbee’s Tash Hearts Tolstoy and Erin Hahn’s More Than Maybe. The manuscript has received interest from several acquiring editors through Twitter pitch contests.

High school senior Rosie knows songwriting doesn’t pay the bills. Which is why she has a five-year plan to go to college and ride off into the sunset with her boyfriend, Noah. What she doesn’t plan on is the love song she wrote Noah going viral. On the night he dumps her. Her five-year plan definitely didn’t include that. Or getting an invite to record her song in LA. Or bursting into tears during her first television interview. And it definitely does not include accidentally barging in on Ethan Black, the lead singer of Noah’s favorite band, during one of his songwriting sessions.

Ever the optimist, Rosie is certain she can get back on track until she finds herself once again in the spotlight when she’s publicly outed as asexual. Meanwhile, despite their awkward start, she and Ethan begin to bond over writer’s block as Rosie struggles to put her feelings for Noah into her next hit. She just doesn’t understand why he would break up with her. Sparks fly between Rosie and Ethan, but Rosie can’t see herself dating a bad boy, and she can’t see Ethan committing to a serious relationship with a quirky ace girl.

As she begins to unravel the truth about her breakup with Noah and her feelings for Ethan, she starts to wonder if the future she planned is really the one she wants. With her newfound fame ripping her carefully constructed life plans apart, Rosie must choose; try to hold onto Noah and her past or embrace a future in the spotlight.

This book queried with a 15% request rate, which I was pretty happy with even if it was a steep drop from the 44% the previous book enjoyed. As I was wrapping up querying towards the beginning of 2021, I was starting to notice some of the ways the publishing machine wasn’t working as well as it seemed to in 2016. Response times were slow. So slow that I had two fulls out an entire year after I sent my last query.

Shelving this book has been so emotional. I still sometimes get hit with a wave of sadness over it. I have songs from the playlist I wrote the book to that I can’t listen to anymore because they make me too sad. The one bright spot was the next book in the docket. A co-authored book that my bff and I had been working on for years. A book that was super polished. And certainly with our combined expertise we couldn’t fail, right?

…Right?

Straight up not having a good time

Yeah, so the short version is, querying this book has not gone well. In a little over a year of querying, we’re at a 4% request rate. There’s still some outstanding queries so technically there’s still a chance, but we’re sort of mentally wrapping this one up.

Dear Agent,

BODY AND SOUL is an 89,000 word cozy YA fantasy with the romantic adventure of Blade of Secrets by Tricia Levenseller, and the character dynamics and tone of The Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. It is the first in a duology or trilogy.

Seventeen-year-old Viera wanted to save her sister. Instead, her spell destroyed magic, untethered her soul from her body and time, and her name became the embodiment of a scary bedtime story. Now she’s trapped in the body of a girl who owns zero axes and scolds her for dog-earing the pages of good books.

Tulia has enough problems without history’s most notorious villain sharing her body and causing stretches of memory loss. Her brother was wrongfully convicted of murder, and the real killer wants to ensure Tulia can’t speak the truth. Not to mention Viera’s lack of respect for her books.

The girls team up to restore magic and return Viera’s soul to her body, enlisting the help of Torin (Tulia’s best-friend-turned-boyfriend) and Aaric (the new boy in town who would very much like to turn Torin back into just-Tulia’s-best-friend). As Tulia’s friends shoulder the burden of Viera’s past, Viera fears she’s getting too attached to this life, especially when she begins falling for Torin.

Desperate to detangle their lives, Tulia and Viera search for answers only to realize someone has been sabotaging them. When the saboteur threatens Tulia’s brother, the girls will have to save him by mastering the same spell that destroyed magic in the first place. If their spell fails again, they risk more than Tulia’s brother’s life, but by succeeding they might play right into the saboteur’s plans.

So yeah. That pretty much brings us to the present. We are, uh, not having a good time.

Onward

I would say onward and upward, but since the trajectory so far has been decidedly not upward, I’m going to temper my expectations. I’m currently drafting manuscript #19 and getting ready to query #16. This query is still in the drafting stage but here’s a sneak peak.

Dear Agent,

NOT TODAY, GRAYSON is a 67,000 word dual-POV young adult contemporary romance that will appeal to fans of the theme park atmosphere in Jennifer Dugan’s Hotdog Girl and the rivals to lovers romance of Emma Lord’s Tweet Cute. The book also deals with toxic relationships similar to Mariko Tamaki’s Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me.

Coming off a bad breakup, Harper is determined to start feeling like herself again with a summer break fresh start checklist. Not on her checklist? Getting stuck working with her long-time nemesis Grayson Turner at her theme park concessions job. Harper has hated Grayson since the ninth grade when he broke her best friend Christa’s heart, sabotaged her chemistry grade, and talked a cute boy out of asking her out. The only thing that could possibly compel Harper to voluntarily spend more time with Grayson is the opportunity to set up Christa—who’s been a bit distant since Harper’s break up with her brother—with her longtime crush who also happens to be Grayson’s best friend.

All Grayson wants from summer break is to kick back and unwind after a school year filled with relentless pressure from his helicopter parents’ academic ambitions. His most pressing concern for the next three months should be writing the perfect next installment of his fanfic, but Harper’s constant bickering and the return of his contentious older brother leave Grayson feeling anything but relaxed. When Grayson starts to fall for Harper amid their matchmaking schemes, he realizes that liking her might actually be more of a challenge than hating her. Especially when Harper’s ex decides he wants to be back in her life.

Neither of them is having the summer they planned on, and as Harper and Grayson begin spending more time together, they find themselves strapped into their own emotional rollercoaster. 

Anyway. That’s ten year’s of querying. I did realize looking at all these side by side that every one of my solo books has been between 65-67k words, so I guess that’s some consistency right there.