I Didn’t Get An Agent

I suppose I should start this by saying that although I am agentless; I have a book deal. 

But before we get into that, I want to talk about my querying journey and also my writing journey. They sort of go hand in hand. 

As with many writers, this book started when I was twelve, or some of it started when I was twelve. I have drawings my friends did of the five sisters, which have now turned into three. I had an idea, a few character names and a basic magic system. It would be another dozen or so years before I’d touch this story again. 

When I first started original fiction—thank you NaNoWriMo—I had very little desire to share it with people. I was in my early twenties and would balk at the idea of editing or getting a critique. Couple that with an awful experience in a creative writing class that stained my idea of what good critique can do for someone, I told myself I didn’t want to get published because getting published meant rejection and heartbreak. I was writing for myself, literally. 

I wrote my first three books with this mindset. Each a little better than the next, but my improvement from book to book was slow since I refused to let anyone read it and didn’t edit. Like at all.

Then I rediscovered Eirlys’s world in 2016 during NaNoWriMo where I redid everything, including making the magic system more complex, making her world a darker and more bleak place, and ultimately, giving her a goal and therefore a character arc. Though I won NaNo that year, all I had was a handful of chapters and scenes spanning what I assume would be a trilogy. 

Then in 2018, I would win NaNo and finish Eirlys’s story in December of that year. I started my rewrites with the help of a new friend, who would become my critique partner and one of my author siblings. Rewriting and editing took most of the summer. I had a few friends read over the manuscript. I got on PubTips on Reddit for querying advice and started making a list of agents. 

On September 5th, 2019, I would take part in the now defunct PitMad. This was my pitch. 

Abandoned to die by her parents for her shadow laced magic, a cruel twist of fate lands Eirlys’s mother’s crown on her head. Now ruling a realm who would rather see her dead, Eirlys’s only chance to live may be the magic she is condemned for. 

I received two likes, which for a first timer seemed pretty good to me. I sent out these two, plus three more for my first round of queries. Per usual for a first timer querier, I got rejections. But during this time, I also received a personalized rejection. 

To Tara Gilbert - Thank you for that rejection. You can’t know the impact it had on me, my writing, and I still think about where I would have been if you had not personalized your rejection. I was able to utilize your suggestion and see what I was doing wrong within my first pages. 

I redid my first pages as I would for the rest of my querying career around every ten-fifteen rejections. That was probably too many, but querying leaves so little in our control. The one thing I could control was my writing, my query etc, so I continued to work on them. 

As we neared the new year, I was still sending queries in batches of five. I would apply to Pitch Wars along with my best friend. Neither of us were chosen. And with the new year came Covid. There was so much advice going around at the time. Don’t stop querying, stop querying, query something happy, etc. I didn’t have a lot of happy in my book but I also didn’t think I could handle querying during a pandemic, alone at home with nothing but my thoughts. I stopped. I would receive my last rejection in May 2020, sent out in March of that year. 

Like most people, what I did in 2020 was survive. My best friend got married, I moved my wedding three times, finally pushing it until May 2021. 2020 can go suck it. 

Finally, life was back on track in 2021, mostly. I was getting vaccinated; I started a new job where I felt fulfilled and useful. I wrote two books in 2021, the first being a 1920s inspired fantasy about memory magic and one girl’s attempt to rediscover her lost memories, the other my 2021 NaNo novel was a second world urban fantasy about an archaeologist, the ghost of a dead god and three potential lovers. I still love both books and plan to go back to them. 

But back to the novel that would become my debut. After writing two complete novels, I went back to this one. Eirlys’s story could never leave me for long. With Covid—well, not being over, but the world moving at a different but somewhat normal pace—I felt ready to dive back into the trenches. My goal was to query as many agents as I could in 2022. Whether that ended in an agent or me shelving the novel, I would have given it my all. 

Around this time that I was going to dive headfirst back into the novel, my best friend and most wonderful critique partner signed with Lake Country Press for her debut novel, The Blood Hours. (shameless plug - it comes out 3/21/23 and you should definitely add it on Goodreads. A little birdie told me ARCs are going out soon!)

As I rewrote the novel, adding other POV chapters to the story and making it more cohesive, I watched my best friend work with this publisher. I was undeniably envious! She had an amazing support group, a publisher that really seemed to care and take her wants into consideration. I was very lucky to be a fly on the wall for this process, from helping her with edits to choosing cover art we thought would fit the book.

Then my querying journey began again. It had been nearly two years since I stopped querying. I spent time again on PubTips, got two query critiques from an agent and agent assistant, and went for it. 

Querying in 2022 was an experience. There are more writers than ever out there and more resources than ever. Queries are getting better, writers are getting better, and agents and editors can pick from the cream of the crop, so to speak. Many many agents left agenting, a good amount while they had my query. That was always rough, but I trudged along. I got feedback here and there, almost always good. I knew my query was working. My writing was fine. Many said they liked it and the premise. So there was something else missing. I worked very hard to fix that. 

I would finally get my first partial request in June, and the rejection would come soon after. They say don’t have dream agents but she was one of mine. That rejection hurt the most, out of the countless others I have received. For the next two weeks, I would spend basically every waking second trying to figure out how to rewrite my opening. How to gain an agent’s attention and keep them intrigued. 

At this point, I was feeling despondent. I thought I would never be good enough, never see any of my dreams that I worked so tirelessly for come to fruition. As a sort of last ditch effort, I participated in DVPit. 

Diversity Pitch Event. Now, I am latine (Mexican-American) on my dad’s side but extremely white passing. I am bi-romantic, asexual and polyamorous. And somehow, it still felt wrong to take part. I had to shove down all the shame I felt for not being enough anything and just went for it. 

This pitch event was two years and eleven months after my very first one. I got two likes again. This time a publisher, Lake Country Press and an agent. (To that agent, I am sorry I never got to send you my sub. Your coworker had it to the very end.)

This was the pitch. 

When shadow-marked Eirlys is cursed after saving an infant from the north’s religious sacrifice, she promises to end the practice once and for all. But when the northern crown falls to her, she must choose between keeping her promise or risk losing her life. 

I scrambled to finish the big edits on my first chapters and off it went on the 7th.

This is when my life went from just send a query, get a rejection, send another one. 

A mere two days later, LCP asked for my full manuscript. I was not prepared, to say the least. I was so used to slow turnaround times I thought I would have time to fix continuity errors made by my new beginning. I did not! I spent three days adjusting my manuscript, only to find a pacing error that time had allowed me to see. I cut an entire chapter and over 6000 words from my manuscript before sending the full. 

It would be a torturous ten day wait. 

On August 22nd, 2022, six days before my 34th birthday, I was sitting in a work meeting as we were wrapping things up. No harm in taking a peek at my phone and see what email came through. I have two email accounts, one strictly for author things, mainly queries at the time and my personal email. This was through my author account. I remember looking down and sighing. Might as well get this over with. My first rejection on a full because 75 queries later, I was not in a hopeful place. 

Although LCP raved about the book, made some suggestions for dev edits and a suggested title change, I didn’t know I was reading an offer until I saw the words. I had to somehow maintain my composure in a work meeting. The rejection would have been easier to hide, to be honest. 

I’m not going to lie. I wanted to accept that day, that hour, that minute. The DOJ vs PRH trial had just happened. It was not looking good for traditional publishing. I had multiple agents leave their jobs. Editors were dropping like flies. Some books die on sub, even if I got an agent, there was no guarantee of getting the book published.

But because someday, I might have a project that LCP may not want, or might not be within their market, I did not want to burn bridges with those who still had my query. And I had two other queries out with small presses. So I sent the “I have an offer” email. I gave them two weeks (I sort of forgot labor day was coming up). I waited. I received a full request from another small press. (Maybe someday I will tell that story but long story very short, I just never sent it) I got four step-asides fairly quickly, one from the last small press. On the 2nd of September, I got a very kind step aside from an agent that had had my query since February. The day I withdrew my queries, I received an apology from an agent who hadn’t had a chance to go through my manuscript, which I appreciated her communication, nonetheless. Four agents did not respond after my nudge email. I wasn’t sure what to expect except more rejections; the silence was a little baffling. 

On the 5th of September, exactly three years after my very first pitch event, I signed Her Dark Grace with Lake Country Press. 

I feel extremely lucky to have found a home for my writing. And for now, I don’t have to get back into the trenches.