How I Got My Agent

You Have to Start Somewhere

In June of 2023, I was hit by the sudden compulsion to write a book. I’d always wanted to write one, I figured. So why wait? I had just finished Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After and knew I wanted to write a contemporary romance. I hunkered down and spit out a (truly awful) first draft.

I let some friends read it, and with their helpful—and brutally honest—feedback (one told me she hated my FMC), I got to work on edits.

TikTok of all places taught me everything I needed to know about querying—the process of submitting manuscripts to agents so they can decide if they want to represent you and try and sell your book to editors—and jumped into the trenches in late September.

Friends, the manuscript was not ready. This, I’m told, is a canon event. It’s not that it was bad. But I learned so much while writing it that I needed to channel all of that into a new manuscript.

I sent out 163 queries, received 157 rejections, and got 5 positive replies (agents wanting to read more). The fact that I got requests was super encouraging! It meant I was on the right track, so I knew I had to keep going.

Write the Next Thing

While furiously sending out query letters to any agent who had “romance” in their manuscript wish list, I knew I had to start working on something else. The standard advice when querying is to “write the next thing,” so I set off looking for an idea to take my mind off of the onslaught of rejections.

It was around that time that Gannett announced they were looking for Taylor Swift/Beyonce-specific journalists. My first thought was "What if the person they hire doesn't even like the band?" and it all clicked into place from there. I decided to write about a music journalist who goes on tour with a band she hates. She travels the country with them writing about their tour, and--surprise surprise--falls in love with the lead singer. I took this on as a NaNoWriMo project, where you write a 50k-word novel in the month of November. Except, because my sister got married in Wisconsin that month, I wrote it in three weeks.

This time, I had a gaggle of friends who were also querying, and they helped me immeasurably with everything from a new query letter to synopsis to editing. I cannot stress enough how helpful it was, both for my writing and emotionally, to have their support. It was invaluable to have friends going through the same thing I was and who knew how wild being in the query trenches was. I simply could not have done it without my Delulu Crew and my girl Lauren. 🫶🏻

I had betas who looked for specific things like where to add color and more oomph. I read a ton of books about classic rock and rock stars. I paid for an editor to proofread the first three chapters, and she told me she was sad when she realized she was finished with the pages. I felt good about this one. It felt like it was something special.

Making My Own Luck

I started querying RockStar WIP (as I affectionately called it) on March 13th, 2024. I was still querying my first project, but I was running out of agents.

The first query I sent out, I got a full request. That same week, I got three more. This meant my query and pages were working, so I blasted it out to all the agents on my list. The requests rolled in. And so did the rejections!

But this time, I was more proactive. “I make my own luck” was my mantra. There were several agents (Morgan Strehlow, from The Bindery, my now-agent!) who had pages from my first project, so I notified them about my new manuscript. Almost all of them requested the new manuscript.

Throughout the spring, I had a feeling this would be the project that got me my agent, so I reached out to agents that were high on my list to let them know I had X number of requests. This also prompted a slew of full requests. I wouldn’t say I was breaking the “rules” of querying, but I was pushing at some of the boundaries. I nudged agents who said if they don’t respond by X amount of time, it’s a no. This also garnered requests. With all of the work agents have to do, sometimes being at the top of their inbox helps.

In the end, my stats were much better.

150 queries, 107 rejections, and 23 positive responses. I even got some referrals out of it, which is rare. Many of my rejections were personalized, with agents telling me to query them with the next one.

Birthday Luck

In June, I got a message from Morgan letting me know she was going to start reading her full requests. I had my fingers crossed, because she was one of my top agents!

On June 24th, I noticed on Twitter that Morgan was reading what she called an “unputdownable” manuscript. I crossed all my fingers and toes that it was mine.

Sure enough, later that day, Morgan emailed me saying that she had started reading my Rock Star WIP and couldn’t put it down. She wanted to schedule a call to talk about it, so we set it up for June 27, which just so happened to be my birthday. We got on the call and Morgan told me she’d love to represent me.

Best birthday present ever.

In publishing, when you get an offer, best practice states that you ask the offering agent for two weeks to notify other agents in case they want to make an offer. Because this was over the 4th of July holiday, I set a three-week deadline and got to work nudging.

It felt like the longest three weeks of my life.

Responses from agents trickled in. Most stepped aside, but I got several more requests for pages. I got some very, genuinely kind step-asides from agents, which was, despite technically being rejections, boosted my ego a little!

As my deadline drew near, I was still waiting on several agents. The night before my deadline, one agent asked for an extension. The morning of my deadline, another one did as well. I weighed my options, but I was fairly certain that I was going to go with Morgan anyway, so it didn’t feel right to extend. I politely declined, even though they may have turned into offers.

I was so excited to accept Morgan’s offer. She checks all the boxes I wanted in an agent—editorial, Swifty, and had a clear vision for how to pitch it to editors. Plus, she gets the whole “working mom” thing, which was something I’d been hoping for. I’m really excited to work with her and her agency on getting everything ready for submission, and I’m counting on a long, productive relationship.

In the end, I had 1 offer. But it only takes one.

The Next Steps

So what’s next? I’ll be working with Morgan on edits in preparation for going out on submission. She’ll have a list of editors and imprints we’ll send it to, and then, as is the custom in traditional publishing, we wait. It feels like I’ve already done a huge thing, but there’s so much work ahead of me. There are a lot more rejections coming. A huge percentage of debut books die on submission and never see the light of day. If it does get picked up, it will still be two years until it’s published.

In the mean time? I’m working on the next thing.