My Journey To Finding A Literary Agent

After months of gruelling work, tedious edits, rewrites, literal tears and that inevitable shadow of self-doubt trying to creep its way up my spine – my manuscript is finally ready to get bombed off to literary agents. That moment has eventually arrived. Along with the obvious thrill of this realisation is the harrowing prospect of rejection. I know it’s coming. I’ve been obsessively listening to so many writing podcasts and watching a steady stream of YouTube videos about literary agents to know enough not to be naïve.

An average literary agent can receive around three thousand submissions a year, maybe more. These literary agents rarely proceed to represent more than 1 to 5 of the writers swimming in those submissions. That makes the odds highly stacked against you. Dismal, right?

So…

• How do you stand out?
• How do you submit something that catches their eye more than the other two thousand nine hundred and ninety nine other submissions received?
• What happens when you receive a rejection?
• How do you pick yourself back up, heal the gash they’ve (obviously not intentionally) left and try again?
• How do you decipher their response to you? Was it just a standard form rejection or was there something personalised in there? Is there anything laced into their response that you can potentially use to grow and better your submission?

I’m starting this blog as a way of documenting my personal journey to finding a literary agent (hence the title). Perhaps that’s presumptuous – or maybe it’s just optimistic. Either way, at thirty-three, heavily pregnant and about to start maternity leave, I’ve reached the querying stage of my publication journey. I’m excited to share this experience with you all and hopefully share some titbits and advice along the way!

For a bit of context about me, I’m a writer of psychological thrillers. The novel I’ve reached the querying stage with is completed at 80,000 words. Regardless of genre though, this blog will offer advice for anyone floundering through the same stage that I’m at. There’s so much to learn and certain rules to follow to help you succeed at finding an agent of your own – so I’m going to navigate that, one blog post at a time.

For my next blog entry, I’ll share how I drafted my actual query letter and explain how this can’t just be the same standard letter you send to each and every agent. It’s a constantly evolving work of art to suit each agent’s specific want and need. You thought the hard work was over when you typed those glorious six letters at the end of your manuscript: The End. Think again. The hard work is only just beginning. Not just on your work but on yourself, too – but don’t be disheartened, because one day all that hard work may just pay off.