My Query Experience + Landing An Agent

Jay Coles, Author - Blog Ageism, Social Media, and How We Can ...

My Query Experience + Landing An Agent

Hello. Y’all.

This is going to be a post
about my query(ing) process/how I landed my agent. This post will also be
featuring gifs and a song that I listened to over and over again as I wrote the
book that landed me my agent—who, for now, will be referred to as Amazing
Superhero Agent.

Warning: this may end up
being a long post—so hang in there for me, okay? (Unless, of course, you don’t
want to.) That’s totally all right. I won’t hate you—promise.

Anyway the stats summary:

(The span of 4 years)

Manuscripts – 7 (6 Young adult and 1 middle grade)

Queries – OMFG! So many goddamn queries. Probably
almost 200!!

(This is the part where I say that the first 4 YA
projects yielded absolutely no requests! They were the books that I was
supposed to “learn from.” They were “test books.” And that’s okay, because
agent feedback helps you get better, rejections make you stronger, and the
experience is one that you carry forever and grow from. The most recent two YA
projects that I queried (a dual-POV LGBT YA and a book inspired by the Black
Lives Matter Movement got requests…and eventually…offers!)

Requests – 27 (9 requests on my LGBT YA that I pitched
through Brenda Drake’s #PitMad; 16 requests on my BLM-inspired novel; and 2
requests for the middle grade.)

R&R: 3 (one
agent asked me to revise and resubmit and gave me the heads-up that if she
liked the revision she would make an offer.)

Offers: 5

All came down to: 1 Amazing Superhero Agent!!!!!!!

It all started in 2012.

Querying my first four *serious* books
that resulted in no requests, I felt beat. Seriously. I felt like I wasn’t good
enough, like I was the world’s worst writer, like I’d never be able to live my
dream of being an agented and traditionally
published author.

I had gotten over 50
rejections on my first couple books, and as much as I’d write other more books
and query, the more rejections came around.

It was so easy for me to
interpret “Unfortunately, this is not quite right for me” as “You are a
failure.”

But, oh boy, how I had been
wrong.

You see, it took me years
after getting my first rejections to realize that the rejection doesn’t mean I
am a failure. And it doesn’t even mean that my book is a failure. It could mean
that the book just needs revising. Significantly. Or that it’s just not “THE
BOOK.”

I am admittedly very stubborn
and very anxious. So, instead of revising the project(s) that flooded me with
rejections, I decided to shelve them and try other books, writing for different
audiences, and testing out different genres.

Fast forward to 2016…FOUR
years later. (Yeah, you know what they say about landing an agent? It’s true. That
shit ain’t fast. At least, it’s not the norm if it is.)

I took a few months off from
querying (it’s totally OKAY to do this—do NOT let anyone tell you otherwise)
just to work on my craft, attend writer’s conferences, take classes, etc, and
then #PitMad came around. In the months that I took a break from querying, I
had wrote my LGBT YA and a MG. Two books that I hold near to my heart, and
after seeing the power of what is #PitMad, I put together a pitch for the YA in
140 characters. It didn’t get much attention during #PitMad, but I entered this
same pitch again in Beth Phelan’s #DvPit along with one for the MG—those got me
closer than ever.

FYI: These twitter pitch events
are what first connected me with Amazing Superhero Agent. She “favorited” one
of my pitches.

I sent out my fulls and
partials to all the agents I felt would POTENTIALLY be a good fit for
me. I spent nights, literally pulling all-nighters just to research agents,
purchasing subscriptions, and talking with their clients—you know, just in case.

Something I had to learn the
hard way: Waiting is so hard and it is inevitable in publishing. If you cannot
wait to hear back from an agent, you’re not going to make it in this industry.

The wait to hear back from
agents felt like eternity. Man, I swear I got some gray hairs on my head from
stressing myself out. I looked online for some suggestions on what to do while
I waited and the most frequently suggested thing was, yep, you guessed it: WRITE
YOUR NEXT BOOK!

I went into my “office” to outline the next book, and I
just so happen to turn on the news and Twitter to see a series of hashtags. An
innocent, unarmed black teen had been gunned down by the police.

My first thought: OH MY EFFING GOD, MAN. IS THIS REAL?

My next thought: My heart goes out to that boy’s family.

Then, after that was: That could’ve been me.

In that moment, I knew I had to do something. I had to show
the world my outrage. I had to show my community’s outrage. So, the story I had
outlined changed almost instantly. It took a darker twist.

And I went back to work to work on this next book.

Fast forward a couple months, I had gotten several
rejections on the LGBT YA and the MG, but I didn’t care much because I was
giving my new BLM project my all—I felt compelled to. The story flowed out of
frustration, but also from personal experiences, making it PRIORITY.

I spent weeks polishing the BLM-inspired YA.

And then, I was ready to query.

Three separate agents asked for the full within EXACTLY 3
minutes after I sent the query, one of them was Amazing Superhero Agent. It was
a risk that I took because it’s not encouraged to query an agent two separate
projects at once. And it’s definitely not encouraged to query a project to an
agent who has another full manuscript of yours in their inbox.

When I queried her, I reminded Amazing Superhero agent
that she already had a different manuscript in her pile from me, which she
informed me that she had already enjoyed. She also wanted to read this new
project of mine.

I sent it to her that night.

Based
on the quick interest, I queried this novel like crazy—to more agents than any
other project I had written. When you believe in something enough, you have to
show it just how much. (I think I sent about 60 queries for my BLM-inspired
YA.) And unlike the projects I had already had floating in agents’ inboxes,
this book was semi-autobiographical, so I was crazy about it. And I was
pursuing an agent equally as crazy about it.

The requests came in faster waves, but so did the
rejections. One rejection in particular said, “I’d represent you and your novel
if the setting of the book wasn’t ‘the hood.’” And that caught me off guard for
so many reasons, and was very discouraging, but after further research of
agents, I kept at it, distracting myself through 90s rap music and revising
bits and pieces of the book while I waited to hear back from others.

After two weeks of sending my first query for the
BLM-inspired YA (which was unusually fast), I got a rather long email from an
agent. We’ll refer to him as Mr. Wonderful Agent. At the end of the email, he
mentioned that he wanted to call me and discuss my manuscript.

I choked on the Frappuccino that I was drinking, and spat
all over my computer screen. This agent represents many NYT bestselling authors
and some of my author friends.

Giving myself some time to calm down, later in the week,
we talked and he became the first agent ever to offer me representation. He
talked about some awesome revision ideas, but I just didn’t get that “spark”
while on the phone with him. He seemed—and is—great, obviously, just not the
right fit for me. And to prevent either of us from being unhappy later down the
road, I decided to decline his offer.

Fast forward a week, and I had four other offers. One of
the four was Amazing Superhero Agent who I later went with. The decision was a
rather hard one, but Amazing Superhero agent stood out for so many reasons.

I
knew Amazing Superhero agent was THE ONE because she had it all. She was well
known in the industry, she keeps a small and carefully cultivated list; she’s
passionate about working with underrepresented voices, and talking with her on
the phone sealed the deal for me.

Before talking on the phone, I knew that she live tweeted
my book a couple times. And it was confirmed that she’d spent a night blinking
back tears in a bar because of my book. This made me swoon and internally freak
out in the best way possible.

On the phone, she talked about her favorite parts of my
book—parts that I cherish so much. She even had such BRILLIANT ideas for
revisions—things that I wouldn’t have ever picked up on. And the love and
excitement was evident in her voice. We also talked about our personal lives a
bit, too, and found out that we’ve got some things in common. This calmed me
down so much.

Toward the end of the phone call, she offered, and man, I
swear, I said “okay” 50 times in a row and nodded uncontrollably like she was
in the room and could see me. I don’t think I would’ve stopped if one of my
pups hadn’t starting licking the M&Ms I had in my hand.

I talked with some of my author friends and they agreed
with me that she was going to be the best possible fit. I talked with my family
and reminded myself that in time, dreams do come true, that it takes hard work,
sweat, tears (at times), and a dash of luck, but they happen.

Four turbulent years later, I’m so very happy to be represented by the wonderfully
brilliant, incredibly witty, Amazing Superhero Agent: Lauren Abramo of the
Dystel and Goderich Literary Management. Saying this out loud for the first
time has me kind of tearing up…mainly because 1) stuff like this don’t really
happen where I come from, and 2) this is the beginning of everything—the start
of my career.

And I’m ready to embark upon this ride with Lauren and
DGLM!!