I first started querying after I worked on edits for the 2016 Pitch2Pub competition, in around December 2016. I’d done all the research, read up about all the agents I liked, and revised my query letter to death (or so I thought). I was preparing to send out in rounds, to try to gage responses before sending out any more.
I sent my first query on 2nd December, and received my first rejection on the 5th, followed quickly by 3 or 4 more. But that, after all, was what I had prepared for. I looked at my query letter again, and sent out more. Anyone who has queried for any length of time will relate to the following few months, the endless email refreshing and finally either giving up on a query or receiving the disappointing “not for me”.
During this time I continued to work on and revise my query letter, taking advantage of both my online writing group (formed from the P2P16 finalists – they’re the best!), and any query critique giveaways/offers I saw on twitter. While I got a few requests for more, the majority of responses were rejections. I tried not to read too much into that, and spent a lot of time reading other writers’ blog posts on how they went through all that rejection before signing with an agent.
While those helped, in around February I began to feel a bit despondent with querying. It was a combination of things going on in my personal life, and the voice inside me telling me that my MS wasn’t good enough. I was also getting a lot of the same responses on my partials/fulls: people just weren’t connecting with my MC. I wasn’t exactly sure how to fix that, as part of her character is that she’s cold and unreachable. I tried to distract myself with a new MS, and told myself that maybe MS1 maybe wasn’t the right one to get me an agent, and perhaps I should just give up on querying it and focus on MS2.
But then I saw about the Manuscript Academy 10 Minutes with an Agent event on twitter, and figured I might as well sign up for a spot and get another look at my query letter. I ended up having a really lovely talk with an agent, who reignited some of my excitement with MS1 through her enthusiasm. That made me decide to give MS1 a bit more of a chance, and try to send out some more queries.
I tightened up my query letter again, added some stronger comp titles, and got ready to send it out again.
By chance, that next morning I saw an announcement on twitter that BookEnds had a new literary agent. They were an agency I had been following for a while, as I really liked their blog and it seemed like a really nice group of people. So I had a look, and I saw Natascha had several things on her MSWL that matched my book. I also read this BookEnds blog post about what she was looking for, and it really seemed to match my book.
I immediately went and filled out her online query form, with my first few chapters and query letter. I tried not to get my hopes up too much, but I definitely spent a good part of the next week following her twitter feed and scrolling through QueryTracker.
I don’t know why, but some part of me really felt like she would like this MS.
The waiting was (of course) the hardest part, but then one morning I had an email response from QueryManager (in my spam – why do the ones you’re waiting for always end up there!?). Even though I really hoped Natascha would like it, opening the email I didn’t let myself think it was anything other than a rejection. So when I saw the “Upload Submission” button at the bottom of the email, I think I actually made a little squeak of happiness (I definitely scared the people around me).
I sent her my full on 20th March, and then there was more waiting (it’s probably good – I need to get used to waiting as it’s such a part of the publishing industry!). I also spent a lot of this time stalking Natascha’s twitter feed (a very productive use of my time…), and reading far too much into any tweets related to submissions.
Then, on 28th March, I had another email. It took me a minute to register it was writing-related, because it didn’t say “query” in the subject line. It said “Phone Call”.
Needless to say, I freaked out. I alternated between being really excited, and being convinced that Natascha had probably just hated my manuscript so much that she felt the need to tell me over the phone quite how bad it was.
We scheduled the phone call for next week, and I spent most of my time looking up all about “The Call”. I’ll do a separate blog post on this in more detail, but the short version is Natascha was wonderful (talking to her, I immediately got the feeling she would be great to work with) and she offered rep!
I couldn’t really believe that it had come to that time when I had to send out “OFFER OF REP” emails – it still didn’t feel real. That following ten days of waiting was actually the hardest of the whole process. I kept expecting Natascha to email and say she’d made a mistake, or I’d misinterpreted what she’d said (my brain can be very creative when it’s anxious).
Then the magical moment arrived: on 15th April I got to email Natascha and accept her offer! I printed out the contract, signed it (with pictures, of course) and sent it off immediately.
So the next step is more edits with Natascha’s input – which I’m really excited for! But until then, I still have to try to make myself believe this is real. So, I guess I should celebrate!?
To find out more about Natascha, look at the BookEnds website, or check out her blog!