How I Got My Literary Agent!
UPDATE:
In February 2022, I left the agent in this blog post. I’m now signed with the INCREDIBLE Emily Forney at BookEnds! Click here to read about that story!
Hello, friends!
I’m Sydney—a Deaf-Hard of Hearing and disabled eighteen-year-old author who recently signed with a literary agent shortly after completing my first YA novel!
As someone who voraciously read “How I Got My Agent” blog posts while prepping to query, I wanted to share the story of how I ended up signing with my agent! Let’s get started, shall we?
(P.S. you can scroll until it says “Querying” if you want to skip all the background info! I won’t be offended, I promise!)
How It All Started:
The first kernel of writing inspiration struck me after my brother gave me a copy of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, & Royal Blue for my seventeenth birthday. (His reasoning was: “It’s pink and gay, so I thought you’d like it.”) And he was right. In fact, I devoured the book in under six hours. Shortly after I finished RWRB, I started writing a book I was convinced was entirely original, unique, and groundbreaking. But… in retrospect… I’ve come to realize it was basically poorly plotted RWRB fanfiction. Um, anyway, I digress.
After setting that project aside, my writing adventure truly began. In late July 2020, I started drafting my first real book. (Yes, that means it hasn’t even been a full year that I’ve been writing!) An Adult Romcom full of plot holes, terrible grammar, and entirely too many puns. And two months later, I had a completed first draft that totaled out at 215k words. Even though it was incredibly long and pretty cringey in general, I had written a book! These characters and plot lines literally wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me. I was so proud of myself!
Right after I wrote aforementioned Adult Romcom, I decided to take a step back before diving into edits. During this break, I read a ton of books. One of which was This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender—but little did I know this seemingly innocuous book was about to have a huge impact on me…
My “Lightbulb” Moment:
While reading Epic Love Story, I stumbled across stunning, heartwarming Deaf rep. My mom was next to me when I discovered the love interest is Deaf and she can attest to the fact I stood bolt upright, clutching the paperback to my chest, and excitedly yelled “HE’S DEAF!!!”
I couldn’t stop crying tears of joy and relief. I felt seen for the very first time. To this day, Epic Love Story is my safe space—a book where I feel understood, accepted, and loved. After reading it, I knew in my heart I wanted to create stories where people could see themselves represented. Share my own stories about being a Disabled teen in the hopes that someone—even one person—could think of my books as a safe place.
And thus, my second book idea was born.
The Book That Got Me My Agent:
On November 1st, 2020, I began the first draft of my YA novel about a Deaf-HOH girl; an anxious, A-Spec soccer captain; and a mutual passion for music. I ended up completing the 72,000 first draft of the book on December 1st—exactly a month later. A few weeks into my “post-drafting brain break,” one of my Twitter friends asked me if I was applying to Author Mentor Match in January. I hadn’t heard of AMM before, but after researching, I made the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants decision to apply.
This meant I had to scramble to edit my manuscript, get it out to beta readers, and write a query + synopsis all in the span of a few weeks. But—with the help of my amazing writer friends and pulling way too many all-nighters—I did it! I had successfully sent my book to the AMM mentors!
Long story short, I didn’t end up being selected for AMM. Instead of dwelling on that, I dove right back into revisions. And my god… there were So. Many. Rounds. Of. Revisions. If I were to go back and read the first draft of my book, I wouldn’t recognize it. The plot changed, the character arcs changed, the tone and emotion of the story changed. Everything changed. However, all that hard work paid off. My new-and-improved manuscript was SO much better than before. Thank you for your kindness, revision gods.
In early June, 2021, I sent it out to one last round of beta readers while prepping to query. While they read this new version, I decided to take part in #PitMad—a Twitter pitch event—and ended up with eight agent likes! I was ecstatic to know that agents saw potential in my manuscript. They wanted me to query them! So, that week, I finalized my list of agents to query and sorted them into various rounds, and after I received my final beta reader feedback and made a few last-minute edits, I sent my very first query.
QUERYING!
*Drumroll* Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for! Query time! (If you’ve skipped until now, no hard feelings! As my 215k monster of an Adult Romcom has proved, I’m a very wordy person. If you stuck it out and read this whole lead-up, I thank you for your time.)
The night before querying, I didn’t sleep at all. The thought of hurling my book baby face first into the inboxes of literary agents made the task of resting impossible. Nevertheless, bright and early the next morning, I sent my first “test” queries. (After an anxiety attack and aggressive deluge of imposter syndrome… but that’s a story for another time!)
But before I had the chance to finish sending query emails, my inbox dinged with a notification from a Dream Agent, requesting a Full. Yet again, my mom was with me, and can attest to the absolutely ecstatic chaos-gremlin I became. My first response to a query had been a Full Request from a Dream Agent. I couldn’t believe this was happening! As soon as I calmed myself down enough to type, I sent them my Full, and then sent the last few “test” queries. I queried seven agents in my “test batch,” including three from #PitMad.
That same night, I got another Full Request from a Dream Agent. I was *this* close to losing my mind. So many doubts had been swirling around my head before querying and I was shocked by the agent response I was getting.
Then, on Day Three of querying, I sent out my first official batch. I had met my positive reply percentage on the “test batch,” so I queried ten more agents. Two hours after I sent those, I got an email from the second Dream Agent who had requested my Full. I braced myself for a rejection—after only two full days of having my Full MS, how could it be anything other than a rejection?!—but instead she asked to set up a Zoom call to discuss my book.
I legit Usain Bolt-ed my way downstairs and started waving my phone around and repeating on a loop “[Agent name] WANTS TO SET UP A CALL!!” After the initial excitement, I reread the email, and got confused. The agent hadn’t finished my MS but had questions for me and wanted to chat. So, I did what any other confused person would do, and consulted my Unofficial Mentor/Published Author Friend on next steps. However, she too, was confused. But the consensus was: “if an agent wants to talk to you—it’s a GOOD SIGN.” After talking it through, I proceeded to fling the rest of my queries into Dream Agent Land and hope for the best. By Day Three of querying, I had already queried my entire list of agents. Twenty-two in total. (I got several more Full Requests before the Zoom call with the agent.)
The following week, I had my Zoom call with the Dream Agent. I didn’t know what to expect, but with a list of questions and my fourth iced coffee of the day: I was ready to face whatever was coming. On the call, the agent told me she LOVED my book. We proceeded to talk about my characters, the inspiration behind the book, what I hope to achieve in my writing career, etc. By the end of the call, I had an offer of representation.
I was freaking out. There I was, eight days after sending my “test” queries, with an offer of rep from a Dream Agent. It felt surreal. After jumping around and squealing, I nudged the agents I had queried, telling them I had an offer of rep and I needed to decide by July 2nd, 2021.
The next two weeks were a whirlwind. Between talking to agents, reading contracts, asking follow-up questions, and sending out Full Requests, I was exhausted. Though I was tired, I was also floating on cloud-nine. However, things took a turn for “extremely stressful” when, during agent decision week, I suddenly had multiple offers of rep and had to decide which to accept. I talked to such amazing agents during this process, and I knew I would be incredibly happy working with any of them.
On June 28th, 2021, I had my last Zoom call with an agent. List of questions and iced coffee in hand, I hopped on the call and talked with her for thirty minutes.
With Decision Day creeping closer, I made a list of pros & cons and had my friends look at them (without mentioning agent names, to avoid bias) to get their feedback; I talked to clients, sent a bazillion follow-up questions to the agents, and read over the contracts more times than I’d like to admit. I reflected on the conversations I had with each agent, their vision for my book, and the feedback their clients gave me.
On July 2nd, I sent my acceptance email to the last agent who offered me rep. It broke my heart to send rejection emails to the other agents (especially the first one who offered), but I was thrilled to have found an agent.
I signed the contract that same day!
See you soon,
- Sydney
Disclaimer:
My story is not the way querying happens for most people, so I encourage y’all to stay strong in the trenches! It’s a very personal journey, but your book will find its perfect home someday!