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Writer's pictureRosie J.

How I Got My Literary Agent

Hello, friends!

an announcement on a purple background with pine trees and lights on the edges that says "I'm Agented!! Thrilled to be represented by Katie Monson at SBR Media"

It has been a whirlwind of a year, but on October 17th, I signed with my fantastic literary agent, Katie Monson at SBR Media. It was not a "typical" offer of representation experience, but hopefully this outside-the-norm story can give you some hope, because there's more than one way to get an agent.


In this post I'll include a bit about how this book came to be, my entire querying journey over the year, successes and failures, waffling between self and trad pub, and I'll include the query letter I started with and the one I ended with.


At the end you'll find a section of resources that helped me during my querying journey and that I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with if you're in the query trenches.


It's a long one, but I've used headers to denote different sections, so feel free to jump to the part you're interested in if you don't want to read the whole thing.



Here's the nitty gritty for those who just want numbers:


Time in the trenches: 1 year, 2 months

Queries (agents and small presses): 117

Requests (fulls and partials): 15

Offers (agents and small presses): 3

Rejections/CNRs (closed no response): 102


If anyone read my IWSG (Insecure Writer's Support Group) blog posts over the year, I talked a lot about where I was in my journey with querying and trying to decide whether or not to self-publish, and if so, when. I even went as far in the August post as announcing my self-publishing debut date of October 1st, 2024.


Welp, the decision wasn't as cut and dry as one might think. This year has been nothing short of a twisty-turny-topsy-turvy rollercoaster. Let's start at the beginning...


Where it all began || Writing the Book || November 2022


I wrote The Tinsel Twist, then titled Home for the Holidays, between November 1, 2022, and April 8, 2023. (Those dates link to Instagram posts commemorating the moments.) This was the first manuscript I'd written "The End" on since 2014, so it felt monumental. Like I got my mojo back. You see, at the end of 2017 the practically-married, nearly 11-year relationship I was in ended, and I moved back to Tennessee into a family home to get back on my feet alone.


I lost my entire creative support network (writing and music) with this purely financial decision to move back to Tennessee, and I spent the next few years floundering around and trying to figure out my new direction in life. I was starting to write a little here and there, but then 2020 happened and it sent me spiraling again.


In 2022, I got a wild idea to write a holiday romance for NaNoWriMo that year. Don't ask me why. I'd only written fantasy and spy thrillers before then, never contemporary romance. And I can not emphasize enough how much I strongly dislike the Christmas season for reasons I won't go into here. But I cannot get from Halloween to January fast enough.


What possessed me to write a holiday romance, I don't know. But here we are!


But The Tinsel Twist isn't a typical Hallmark-style holiday romance. It has plenty of that, but my spec-fic voice kept wanting me to turn it paranormal, so instead of doing that, I added a suspense/thriller edge to it to compromise with my creative brain (important info for later in the querying process).



Summer 2023 || First Readers


In June 2023 I found a new Discord, We Write At Dawn (WWAD), that I was invited to by a friend who was one of the mods (shoutout Hayls). This Discord has been instrumental in my success because I've connected with so many amazing, supportive, knowledgeable people here. Find your peeps and build your support system. It is absolutely necessary in every step of this journey. Even if it's just for commiseration.


WWAD offers channels for finding alpha readers, critique partners, beta readers, and ARCs. I did something I'd never done before, I had alpha readers who were reading what was basically my unedited NaNoDraft. That was terrifying, because it was so raw, but they understood the assignment (shout-out to Le-Anne, Chele and Rachel for being excellent first readers) to not worry about grammar and technical stuff and focus on the plot and what was/wasn't working.


After I finished my first edit based on their feedback, I decided to try this querying thing for the first time.


In hindsight, I realize this book wasn't fully cooked yet BUT the first time in the trenches wasn't entirely fruitless. More on that in a moment.


Here's my first query letter. I had a couple variations of it but this was the one I used the most. I sent only 12 queries this round, 9 to agents and 3 to presses that accepted unagented submissions.



August 2023 || Original Query Letter + Results


I am excited to present to you my semi-spicy, holiday romance Home for the Holidays: A Tinsley Falls Romance.
In this book, we meet Adelaide, a 36-year-old entrepreneur whose restaurant in Austin was forced to close leaving her with no choice but to return to her hometown of Tinsley Falls, a small, mountain town on the Georgia side of Chattanooga, TN. About the only thing waiting for her in Tinsley Falls is the house her grandparents left her and her best friend, Gemma. Things quickly go awry as Adelaide is wrangled into helping save the town's big Christmas feast when the organizer falls deathly ill. But before she can get her hands dirty putting out that fire, another erupts when Gemma's brother and Adelaide's college fling -- Jace -- shows up unannounced and newly single, seeking refuge from legal drama with his ex-fiancée.
Addie must juggle her lingering feelings for Jace, the persistent advances of hunky handyman Tyler, and Jace's criminal ex who shows up to crash Christmas, all while pulling together a village to save the feast.
Home for the Holidays: A Tinsley Falls Romance is stand-alone, second-chance, holiday romance complete at approximately 85k words. It is a heartwarming tale of best friends, small towns, and second chances, with an edge of romantic suspense and a healthy dose of Christmas cheer. The spice rating is about a 3, with some explicit content that ultimately fades to black. I also have plans to write a single-dad romance for Tyler and a sapphic romance for Gemma set in Tinsley Falls, as well.
While I don't have any writing credentials I can claim, I am a ghostwriter, and my first ghostwritten romance novel will be published on Amazon in about two weeks. I am also heavily involved in writing communities as a Municipal Liaison volunteer for National Novel Writing Month, and have been for ten years. I do write under a pen name, for various reasons. The biggest one is that my real name also belongs to an adult film star, and that's a Google search I don't want to have to compete with! 

Alright, so, as first query letters go it isn't awful, but it still makes me cringe in places. The main character is clear. The stakes are somewhat clear (save the feast) but there are higher stakes existing in the book. There are no comps, though, because I was like I'm gonna get an agent without comps because comps are hard and I hate them HA HA HA. There's also a lot of unnecessary stuff like "in this book we meet" and the "heartwarming tale" line could be replaced with comps, and the "spice rating" and potential series plans could be left out because I am pitching it as a standalone. And there are some details in the pitch part that are unnecessary and the words should've been used for something more necessary.


A picture of an email offering Rose a contract to publish her book Home for the Holidays with an option to sign others in her planned series as they are finished.

That being said... this query got me an offer (and 11 rejections). One of the small presses I queried wanted to publish my book.


On August 14, 2023, I thought all my dreams were coming true! I was in tears. I was jumping up and down. I couldn't believe it. Someone actually wanted to publish this silly little book that I wrote. And they wanted it off of my VERY FIRST QUERY I'D EVER SENT. Could this actually be happening? It was unheard of!


Being that it was with a small press, I was unagented and had never looked at a publishing contract before, so I was also freaking out for that reason. I had no idea what a good contract looked like or who to talk to about it. So I reached out to a couple of friends in the industry to ask some questions. One was even kind enough to look at the contract and contact a lawyer friend of hers to clarify her thoughts on some of the language. (This goes back to build your support system and industry network because these friends who know more than you are so, sooooo important. Might I recommend The Writers' Troupe on Facebook as another great group.)


I also talked to a friend who has books out with this press, and did a lot of soul-searching and asked myself what I really want out of being a published author and if that's something this publisher could provide.


And then I made one of the most difficult decisions of my life.


Through a lot of tears and the overwhelming feeling that I was walking away from my dreams and would never get this chance again...


I declined the contract.


Yup. That's right. I declined a contract to publish my book. The dream I've had since I was probably eight years old as an only child entertaining myself in my room by pretending that I was on Oprah being interviewed about my best-selling book that was being turned into a movie.


I knew deep down that it was the right decision. There were things I didn't love about the contract but didn't have the spoons to negotiate myself. Being impatient, the timeline of when my book would be published didn't feel worth it to me with a small press when I felt I would have the same level of marketing/visibility over my book in a shorter timeline if I self-published. And then there was this feeling in my gut that I didn't have to go with the first offer presented to me and that it would all turn out okay if I waited.


This is me giving you permission to walk away from offers that you don't feel great about.


This small press was actually the very first query I'd sent. I sent it even before I was ready to query because they were about to close indefinitely, and then when they requested my manuscript I was like "hey, lemme send some more" which is when I sent out the other 11.


When those all came back as rejections, I decided to hire the wonderful Andie Smith at Sun & Spines Editorial for a full dev edit and a query package critique. You do not have to pay to have your book edited when you're querying, especially if you have a good group of beta readers/critique partners, but I was also one foot in the self-pub door, so to me this killed two birds with one stone since I'd have to hire an editor for self-pub.


If you're getting a lot of rejections on queries, a query package critique could be great though! And there's always the cheaper option of a manuscript evaluation versus a full dev edit.


On a scale of one to ten, I give Andie a twelve and recommend booking her. She gives amazing advice and is affordable. I say to book her with the caveat that if your book matches her MSWL and you want to query her, then do that first before hiring her, because she'd be a great agent.


Andie's dev edit planted a seed in my brain that I either needed to pull back on the suspense/thriller element or make it more prevalent throughout  and go all in on that suspense/thriller aspect (because it really was just in the back half of the book at this point).


Of course, I wanted to lean more into the suspense part.


But the idea needed to marinate and a lot of agents close at the end of the year, so I had the long winter to wait.



Spring 2024 || Second Round


Fast forward to the spring and I decided to enter into a few romance contests for unpublished books. I had to re-imagine my synopsis first for these and rewrite the first 5k words for the contests. I spent a lot of time in January and February working on that which gave me new, workshopped opening pages for my query package, BUT it didn't give me a fully updated manuscript.


This is where I don't recommend doing what I did at this point. I hadn't quite finished my rewrite (but I had the new synopsis) when I started sending out my next set of queries in April. I wanted to get started, though, because I told myself I'd send out about 50 queries to see if anything came of it and then switch to self-publishing steps. I should've started querying earlier, but I would've been even more unprepared then.


I sent 55 queries in April and May and started heavily participating in Twitter pitch events. These 55 queries yielded 3 requests:


A picture of a tweet that says "I am way too proud of this one... A Bingo card for my am querying holiday romance. It has a picture of a bingo board titled Adelaid'es Christmas in Tinsley Falls Bingo Card with plot points in each square

  • a small press full request from the Savvy Authors Spring PitchFest

  • a full request from a Twitter pitch event #ChaosPit that was an author hype event and the tweet wasn't even really a pitch... see the picture

  • a partial request from an agent on a cold query



I was getting traction, so my revised query, synopsis, and opening pages were working.


But remember when I said I don't recommend doing what I did here? Well, I wasn't ready to send these fulls when they came in faster than anticipated. I didn't have all of my changes done. I knew what I needed to change in order to up the suspense, but I hadn't finished all the rewrites and combing through the manuscript to make sure the ripple effects were updated.


But I'm a bit of a chaos monster and risk taker, so I'd went ahead and queried anyway. And in all honesty, I hadn't expected any requests, so I self-rejected and wasn't prepared, in true perfectionist fashion where I put everything off to the last minute and then have the excuse that I rushed into it when it fails.


I had some people beta reading the changes (shout out to Rachel, Steph and Carrie), but I couldn't ask them to read as fast as I needed to get these requests out, so I hired a Twitch writing community connection who is also a professional beta reader, Nova, to do a quick beta read for me so I could make sure all my changes were working before I sent out the fulls. Again, I highly recommend Nova! Fair prices and GREAT work.



I rushed to finish the edits after Nova got back to me and sent those requests almost a month after they came in. One of the agents even messaged me in the interim to ask if I was still seeking representation. It was stressful, but it also pushed me to finish the revisions during a hectic time in my life when writing could've been put on the backburner.


Again, I do not recommend doing what I did.



June/July 2024 || Shifting Gears... Sorta


All of the requests from April were rejected by mid-June, and I was starting to think more seriously about self-publishing and taking steps to do so as silence fell over my inbox. I only sent four queries out in June and July.


I was working on my potential cover. I had a copy edit scheduled for August. I was reading all the things and talking to all the people about being successful in self-publishing, how to do it right, and starting to form connections with networks of indie romance authors. I was looking into the tax side and how to setup an LLC. I bought Affinity to work on my cover. I bought Atticus to format and had started playing with it. I printed off a copy of my book for edits and to see how the cover and formatting would look.


I put together a giant calendar with my whole timeline of when things needed to happen to hit my October 1st release date goal. I wanted to release on October 1st (or even before if I could swing it) because I was invited to attend Multiverse Con in Atlanta as a writing guest, and I wanted to have print copies for the con.

a picture of an august calendar with deadlines for doing things like sending a book to the copy editor, starting ARC signups, creating an LLC, going to DragonCon, etc.
A september calendar with deadlines for final prep for self publishing such as proofreader edits, setting the book up in KDP, doing a preorder and releasing on Oct 1

But I still had a few unanswered queries out and I couldn't help myself from participating in Twitter pitch events because I'd get FOMO when I'd see all the pitches.


So, I participated in #JoyPit in June and got an agent like, which I sent immediately thinking "it's June. She'll have time to get back to me with at least a request if she's interested before my serious cut-off of August 26th when my proofreader is booked for self-publishing."


But nothing happened, except rejections off the April/May queries and a lot of crickets.



August 2024 || Chaos Ensues


The first week of August, I sent my manuscript off to my copy editor and the editor I contracted to write a blurb for my book. This was the week I told myself I'd pull my queries because I was sinking more money into the manuscript, but I wasn't going to have time to sit down and do it until the weekend.


Wouldn't ya know, before the weekend came, I got a full request off of a query sent in April.


The first one in four months. And it gave me pause, because it was an agent I would've loved to work with, and I wanted to give her time to look at it. Plus, the #JoyPit like query was still unanswered. So, I decided to cut my losses with the blurb/copy edit investment and keep the queries out.


It was followed up in the same week by a full request off of that #JoyPit like. This sent me into a frenzy, and I sent out twenty more queries.


By the end of August I had two fulls and two partials and had asked my proofreader if I could push back my booking, because after talking to the Write Track director at Multiverse who whole-heartedly supported me not rushing my release, I decided to shoot for releasing by Thanksgiving to give these requests time.



September 2024 || More Chaos Ensues


I went to DragonCon in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend. For those who aren't familiar with DragonCon, it's a big nerdy convention that takes over downtown Atlanta for practically a week with around 80k attendees. It's similar to New York Comic Con or San Diego Comic Con. DragonCon has an amazing writing track, and I was planning to spend a lot of time there soaking up the knowledge from industry professionals hoping to work out my extreme confusion about whether to put off my self-pub plans completely or to pull out of trad pub.


a picture of Rose with author Jim Butcher

Side note: I met Jim Butcher! (see picture) I also got to be on a panel talking to a packed room of attendees about writing erotica and erotic romance with industry professionals I can only hope to be as successful as one day.


One of my hesitations about sticking to the trad pub train was that I didn't want to wait and miss the very small self-publishing window I had each year because it's a holiday book. I'm impatient, and I recognize this. I'm working on it. Being a ghostwriter made me even more impatient, and things just don't move that fast in trad pub.


While I was at DragonCon, I had a one-on-one mentoring session with Jeaniene Frost who is both traditionally published and self-published. She encouraged me to stick with the querying journey just a little longer and seemed genuinely impressed with the amount of interest I'd been having between the small press publication offer to the requests from agents. It was inspiring to hear this from someone who had never met me before. I love my friends, but it's hard to believe people who know you because that voice just says they're being nice because they're your friend. Jeaniene suggested if I missed my winter pub window, I could do a Christmas in July release, something I hadn't thought about before which gave me more confidence to push back my plans into 2025. I knew if I couldn't get it published by Thanksgiving I'd have to wait, and that would give the full requests another month to reply. Plus, I was planning to have my next draft done and in the trenches by January, so I'd still have The Tinsel Twist in my back pocket if the new book got interest.


Since I was waiting, I sent out even more queries when I saw an agent open I hadn't had a chance to query yet and ended up sending twenty-four more queries in September.


These twenty-four queries yielded one full request and one partial request (which by the way that partial request wanted a HARD COPY, which was completely out of left field. And yes, I printed out five chapters and mailed it off to NYC with a hope and a prayer. A reel about this experience can be found here: Hard Copy Request Reel)


PLOT TWIST: Of the 116 queries sent by the end of September, none of them were to my agent Katie.

PLOT TWIST TWO: I received an offer of publication from a larger small press on September 30th on a query sent in the April/May batch that I'd forgotten about because it required a full manuscript with the query, and it'd been five months.


October 2024 || The height of chaos


There I sat on October 1st with an offer of publication in hand having déjà vu from the small press offer in 2023, but this one was different. This one was from a bigger small publisher with a much longer track record. This one had a generally fast publication speed from contract to published (which was important to me being so close to self-pub). The authors I spoke to with the publisher were happy. The sample contract terms looked great. The royalties were higher than the first contract I'd received.


And folx, at this point, I was tired. Exhausted from the emotional and mental rollercoaster of this year. Exhausted from navigating the query trenches simultaneously with the self-pub trenches. (I do not recommend this.)


This contract was my way out of this self-publishing trench I was about to jump into with a publisher I felt could do more for me than I could do for myself. A publisher that would offer the support of other authors who would help with word-of-mouth push for the books. A publisher with larger distribution than I could manage on my own (not quite big box bookstore distribution, but larger reach).


And the timing felt like a sign. And I'm all about signs from the universe.


So I nudged outstanding queries. I did not nudge my outstanding full requests while I was waiting to get a copy of the contract from the publisher because I heard it might be a week or two, but I did nudge the outstanding queries I had to give them a chance to respond. I felt like that was fair so they'd have more time to start on the manuscript if they wanted to look.


Short caveat... I did feel a little weird about it. I didn't plan to use a contract from a small press as leverage, and I understand why small presses don't like to be used this way and sometimes ask for exclusive submissions because they have a much smaller staff and are basically acting as the agent and the publisher. And it's hit or miss whether a publishing contract from a small press might move an agent. If you are excited about the small press and that's what you want, then go with them. You don't need the agent for that (although having someone to look at the contract and negotiate is nice) but if you secure a pub contract from a small press ON YOUR OWN you don't necessarily want an agent to step in on that and take part of the profit from something you did on your own, unless that agent negotiates terms or you just feel more comfortable having the agent there.


That being said, I had forgotten/written off this query because it was from May, and this was the push I needed to try to wrap up some of these outstanding queries in time to decide whether to self-publish or go with this publishing offer if no agents were interested in representation. I was interested in the publisher, but I'd learned a lot in the five months since I'd queried them and I was really set on the self-pub path if I didn't come out of the trenches with an agent.


My nudges of agents with outstanding queries yielded two more full requests.


The wheels were in motion. I had a deadline for all the nudges and was going to send a nudge to the outstanding fulls when I got the contract from the small press (which took a week). This saga was finally going to come to an end. I could relax and let it play out!


PSYCH!



Connecting with Katie


So, remember that plot twist where I hadn't even queried my agent at this point? How the heck does that work out?!

a picture of a discord message where Rose asks others if anyone else feels some type of way when a lit agents follows you on social media and she says Katie Monson followed her on IG.

In August, Katie Monson of SBR Media followed me on Instagram. I have no idea why (Katie, if you remember doing this and know why I'd love to know! lol), but I remember this because I said something to a group of Discord friends about it. We were always like OMG AN AGENT FOLLOWED ME WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?! anytime something like this happened.


As the screenshot says, I did not have a query out to Katie at the time, because she'd been closed the entire time I'd been querying. I did, however, have a query out to another agent at SBR Media.


On October 1st I posted this reel: Today Was Supposed to be my Self-Pub Date


While I'd never gotten to the point of actually setting up a pre-order, I had firmly imagined that by October 1st I'd have The Tinsel Twist out into the world, and I'd have books to sell at Multiverse two weeks later. It was a bittersweet day, regardless of having a publishing offer in hand, regardless of the requests I still had out. To me it signified an unreached goal, even though the goal post had been moving and changing, it was the initial goal and now that goal was on long-term hiatus. In a way, it felt like failing, even though it wasn't. But to my lifelong overachiever, perfectionist brain, no amount of logicking could keep me away from feeling sad about it, from feeling like I'd failed. I was second-guessing the entire year that you've just read about and my indecision (Hello, INFP) and commitment to running both paths simultaneously to exhaust all the options.


Enter Katie commenting on my reel that was part self-pity but mostly talking about the exciting things that kept me from publishing on October 1st. Katie said she didn't want to add to the chaos but I was all for it.


A comment on IG where Katie says "As an agent I feel like I need to see your book! Lol! I won't do that to you and add to the chaos! I wish you the best of luck!" Rose replies "I have a query out to someone at SBR. I'm all for Chaos" Katie requests that Rose DM her.

Of course I ran into her DMs so fast, because she'd been on my list! And after all the chaos I'd caused myself already this year, there was no need to stop now.


I explained the situation to her about how I'd been waffling between self-pub and trad. I told her who had my query at SBR and how long it'd been out and that I nudged that agent with the small press offer. I told her I was interested in the small press offer but I wasn't sure if it was actually better than self-pub. I told her that if I was going trad I'd rather it be a long-term relationship with an agent than a one-book contract with a publisher.


And honestly, it was pretty refreshing to have a conversation this way with an agent instead of the brick wall that is the query process. Katie had to reach out to the other agent at SBR and give her a chance to look at the query first. If that agent had been interested, then I would've seen that through, but the agent thought the book fit Katie's list better and forwarded the query to Katie.


Katie's enthusiasm in my DMs immediately after she got my query, before she'd even read my pages, had me feeling super hopeful about this whole thing. Like seriously, how can an agent send you a HEART EYES EMOJI and then reject you? I didn't think it was possible.


I tried to be realistic and not get my hopes up though, knowing how this industry is.


She was messaging me about my query at 9:30 p.m. on October 2nd and the next morning I got this message saying she was loving what she was reading and would like to set up a call.

Instagram message: I am loving this! I would love to be able to set up a meeting for possible representation. Let me know if you are interested.

Of course, I nearly died. I couldn't believe it! And I already loved Katie's vibe and enthusiasm. I'd been stalking SBR Media and Katie for the last day, of course. SBR is super unique in that they represent a ton of indie authors with subrights, and I LOVE that about them since I was a few steps away from being an indie author who needed that. Indies get so much pushback in the industry that it's nice to see an agency that loves and supports indies as much as their trad-only authors.


We met the very next day at 10 a.m. Katie answered almost all of my questions before I even asked them, just going over how she does things, and she happily answered all my other questions. I loved how she runs things and the transparency with her authors. I loved her enthusiasm. And I loved that if The Tinsel Twist doesn't sell, and I still end up self-publishing, that she'll just switch from her trad agent hat to her indie agent hat and start working on international translation rights and audio rights for me instead. I truly walked away from that meeting feeling comfortable and confident in a partnership with her and SBR Media.


I would've happily signed that day if I hadn't had requests out, but I wanted to give the industry standard two weeks to those agents who did have my full, and I wanted the time to truly weigh my options and think about it and talk to other authors who are signed with Katie (which only made my decision easier. My agency sibs are great!)


So I went about tying up my loose ends. I notified all the agents that I needed to with the new, official deadline and withdrew a couple of the partial requests (including the hard copy partial request because mailing the rest of the manuscript was not going to work on a deadline if she wanted a full).


Of course, we all dream about getting multiple offers and having agents fighting over us and our books, but as the two weeks progressed I started to find myself not wanting another agent request. Especially the more I talked to Katie's clients and the more I thought about my goals and how being an SBR Author aligned so well with them. The whole thing felt very kismet with the perfect agent showing up in the eleventh hour through a chance social media connection. And if I had gotten additional offers, those agents would have really had to impress me because I was super set on signing with Katie by this point.


I won't go into the details of the next two weeks, but I received a lot of really kind step asides, most of them having to do with not having time to read by the deadline. Some stroked my ego a little and said they were sorry to miss out on it and hoped to see it on bookstore shelves soon. I also poured over the SBR contract and talked to industry friends about it and asked for clarification on some things.

A picture of Rose in a pink and black striped sweater signing a contract on an ipad in a hotel room

A day before the deadline I messaged Katie to tell her I wanted to accept her offer of representation and signed my contract in the hotel room at Multiverse. While I didn't get to go to Multiverse with my debut novel available for purchase, I got to announce to everyone that I was officially agented.


And that felt pretty great.


My long, exhausting journey to finding a literary agent had come to an end. I wasn't published, but I was agented. I'd reached a milestone on one of the paths I'd been treading this year that put the other path to rest for a while.


But the real work was just starting, because now we had to talk about going on submission! In another whirlwind, The Tinsel Twist went out in its first round of submissions on October 30th in an effort to maybe catch publishers before the holiday slowdown or be on the top of the pile in January. Going out on sub this fast isn't really normal, I don't think, but because I'd had a dev edit and copy edit done on my book in my self-pub prep, it was in pretty good shape. I did another read through during the two weeks between signing and submission and tweaked a few things before we sent it out based on Katie's notes and some things I had been planning to update before going to the proofreader when I was going to self-pub.


While the small press offer was still on the table, I wanted to go all in on submissions. If I was going to sign with an agent and try the trad pub route, then I wanted to knock on the doors of those publishers who weren't accessible without an agent.


I am extremely grateful to be a part of #TeamKatie. And if my querying journey were going to end with me signing with an agent instead of pulling my queries to self-pub, it fit perfectly that I didn't connect with Katie in a traditional manner.


Moral to this story is to put yourself out there (if you're comfortable). Do those pitch events, go to those in-person or virtual conferences with pitch opportunities, post about your journey on social media. You just never know who might be watching and where it might take you.



Fall 2024 Query


To close, here is the query I was using for the requests that came in August/September. Even though it's a bit longer, it is more to the point and actually says more than the shorter one. It has comps! It also has some punny language playing on the holiday and restaurant nature of the books and includes my log line. I will also add that the overwhelming majority of my query letters I did not personalize, and most of the ones that got requests weren't. If I saw something that stuck out on the MSWL or something we had in common I'd mention it.


I also had more relevant writer bio things to add this time. I don't think that bio necessarily makes a difference, but for me, it shows I already have a bit of platform and relevant romance experience. It is a little longer than necessary.


This query is 372 words. The pitch is 231 (199 without the added log line which sometimes I included, sometimes I didn't), the meta data is 54 words, and the bio is 88 words. Most querying advice tells you not to go over 400 words, and shorter is often better.

This Christmas there's more at stake than cranberry salad and Christmas ham, as Adelaide must fight to save the town's holiday feast, herself, and the man she's desperate not to lose again.
Failed restaurateur ADELAIDE (36) is forced to close her restaurant and return to Tinsley Falls, Georgia – a small, mountain town she called home fifteen years ago. She's alone, disheartened, and in need of some peace and quiet to get back on her feet but can't tell her best friend 'no' and agrees to help rescue the town's annual Christmas feast.
Before she can get her hands dirty putting out that fire, another erupts when Adelaide's college fling, JACE (34), shows up unannounced and newly single. Embers that never quite died out immediately ignite between them. But Jace is seeking refuge from legal drama with his criminal ex-fiancée, and Addie finds herself embroiled in the conflict, questioning if Jace will only ever arrive in her life at the wrong time.
On top of the emotional confusion, an unknown Grinch starts tampering with the festival prep. The sabotage escalates, reaching a boiling point, while Jace's criminal ex puts more at stake than the cranberry salad and Christmas hams. With Addie's heart and the festival on thin ice, she must race against the clock to save not only the feast, but herself and the man she's desperate not to lose again
The Tinsel Twist is an approximately 89,000 words steamy, suspenseful holiday romance. This standalone novel combines the swoon worthy second-chance romance of This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens and the small-town, holiday setting of The Mistletoe Bet by Maren Moore with the twists, turns, and hijinks of Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai.
I'm a 37-year-old Instructional Designer and live with my partner in Tennessee with our eight cats. I'm the ghostwriter behind two spicy contemporary romance novels that were published in 2023 but have yet to publish for myself. This year, I've been a mentor for new romance writers drafting their first novels for the ten-month Pen to Paper program. I've been invited to attend Multiverse Con in Atlanta as a writing guest/panelist and was recently a panelist at DragonCon for an event about Writing Erotica and Erotic Romance.

So there you have it, that is how I got my literary agent.


What's next? Who knows! This industry is wild and unruly (and very slow moving), but for now, the hunt is on for a publisher who is excited about my book and wants to put it on shelves while I finish writing my next book.


For those of you who are in or entering the query trenches, don't give up! And keep tweaking things. Keep updating your query, re-evaluating your opening pages, getting critiqued by others who are querying, get a professional query package critique (if you can afford it) or enter contests to try to win one, apply to mentorship programs (there are so many!!).


And have a support system of people who understand what this process is really like. Because it's soul-sucking. It's intense. It can be degrading and beat you down with rejection after rejection. I wouldn't have gotten here without a whole group of amazing people commiserating with me through this entire process. I would've thrown in the towel long ago.


Huge shout-out to my most supportive partner who had to deal with all the tears and rejection and every bit of whiplash in this journey first hand. He is truly my rock.


My DMs/email are always open to writing community members. If you need someone to vent to or commiserate with, please reach out. I am more than happy to chat. I am more than happy to read your query letter (I am not an expert, but I am willing to give it a look and make suggestions based on my own trial-and-error and research). It's rough out here in the trenches, and I always want to pay forward the kindness and support that has been shown to me. I have a ton of resources I am happy to pass on if you don't know where to start. I'm going to link a few of my faves below, but there are so many!


I've alluded to reasons for my decision to try trad versus self pub in this post, but I may do another blog going deeper into that decision process and the things I discovered on my path to self-pub.


It's beyond time to wrap this up. If you've stayed around for the whole blog, thank you so much. I appreciate you for being here, and I hope you've found some nuggets of wisdom in here to help you.


Leave me a comment and tell me where you're at in your publishing journey. I'd love to hear.


And please connect with me on social media and/or sign up for my Newsletter that I'm trying to get off the ground. I promise I won't spam your email, but I'm working on a novella to send out to newsletter subscribers!



For now,


Rose



Here are some resources for the query trenches! There are so many more, but these were ones that were helpful to me.


  • This forum has an Index to Agents/Agencies and an Index to Publishers and even an Index to Other Services and Resources. Use it to hear about other people's experiences with anyone you're considering signing a contract with. Remember, money should flow TOWARD the author. If you're being asked to pay anything, it's most likely a vanity press. There are very few non-scammy, legit hybrid presses.


  • This website is also a writer's best friend. Victoria Strauss covers all the tea that might affect authors like scammy publishers and shady business practices from legit publishers



  • When you are looking at a contract for the first time, how do you know that it is standard? These SFWA contract drafts are a good jumping off point. (You should always talk to industry professionals or even get a lawyer if you can afford it.)


  • This is a paid membership but they do have some free resources.


Link || List of Small Presses by Nadine Bells

  • If you're interested in working with a small press, sometimes it's hard to find them. Here's two lists that are not all-inclusive but are a great place to start


Query Help - These are some of my favorite resources to help with writing your query letter. There are a ton of great, free resources. You don't need a $500 query writing course to get an agent. Find friends who are also querying, critique each other, read these resources. It can be done without spending money.


Link || Query Shark - Blog Posts by the late Janet Reid who dissected queries and explained how to make them better


Find Comps Help - Comps are hard! These types of websites can help.


Link || Romance.io


Writing Your Synopsis - The synopsis is hard because you have to boil your entire novel down into less than 1,000 words. Some agents want one page. Some will take 2-3. I've even seen 3-5, but I had more success with the 700-word synopsis I was using later on than the 1200-word synopsis I started with. Agents will have different preferences. I recommend having multiple versions ready to go.


THE SYNOPSIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. This is not your back of the book blurb, this is a play-by-play of what happens in your novel, including the conflict and resolution and all the genius plot twists your readers hopefully won't see coming. It's a "feel like you read the book without reading the book" document.



Writing/Editing Help

Link || Show, Don't Tell Book by Janice Hardy (will break your brain)


Finding/Querying Agents


Link || Query Tracker

  • Query Tracker is your number one place to find literary agents who represent your genre, and the place that you're going to use to submit to a lot of the agents. Some still use email submissions or website forms, but a large majority use Query Tracker. I highly recommend signing up to the weekly email that comes from QT that tells you when agents have opened or changed genres. When you're deep in the trenches, I also think the $25 for a year of premium is totally worth it.


  • I have found that MSWL isn't always up-to-date, but agents who do keep theirs up-to-date can be found here with their most recent wants for their query inbox.


  • A lot of things on Publishers Marketplace are behind a paywall. It's $25 a month and may be worth it to sign up for one month when you get an offer to check out the agent and the agency deals, but it depends on what other information is already available and whether the agent/agency posts those publicly. Many agents maintain a public profile on PM that you can view and that might list some of their big clients or recent notable deals as opposed to having a MSWL page.


Mentorship Programs (not exhaustive, just ones I'm familiar with. Most are free, some require membership in the hosting organization)


Link || SmoochPit

Link || WriteHive

Link || RevPit (this is a contest, not a mentorship program exactly, but gets you ready for querying if you're accepted)



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