Hey Readers, Hope you’re well! Happy June, Happy Pride Month. Gosh the time has flown—I swear it was just April, LOL. I often get asked for advice on querying and how to choose an agent. And usually when I do, I say something like you want to find someone who’s best for your career. But what does that really mean? I always feel like my “brand” is talking about things we often sweep under the rug, so this post is part informative (I hope), but also personal. I want to share a bit about my journey, why I parted ways with my first agent (which I've never publicly talked about!), and ultimately discuss what finding an agent for your career really means and how to do just that. So I started querying agents in college. I was one of those writers who had to be published before twenty. (If this is you, totally fine, but for me my work then just wasn't ready.) I think part of it was that I knew a bunch of teen writers and several of us were published, so it felt like a very attainable thing. But that didn’t happen. After college, I went into publishing on the editorial side. And, in 2017, I signed with an agent. Now there are many ways to get an agent, querying is only one of them. My agent and I attended a conference together as publishing professionals. We bonded in between sessions talking about vampires (aka how I truly bond with people, LOL). We got along great, and when he later saw me tweeting about a project I was working on he emailed me and was like OMG PLEASE SEND IT TO ME. I, of course, sent it. I emailed that project and the one I was actually about to query. I told him the project wasn’t complete, and he didn’t care. He loved the premise, he loved my writing, and we both agreed that this new project was the one of my heart and had so much potential, and so he signed me on a partial. The plan was that we would work on it and get it to a point where it was ready to be sold. But as it happens, things don't often go as planned. I got this idea for an amazing anthology, and I felt in my bones that we needed to make it happen NOW. So we did, and we sold it, and
Finding the best agent for your career
Finding the best agent for your career
Finding the best agent for your career
Hey Readers, Hope you’re well! Happy June, Happy Pride Month. Gosh the time has flown—I swear it was just April, LOL. I often get asked for advice on querying and how to choose an agent. And usually when I do, I say something like you want to find someone who’s best for your career. But what does that really mean? I always feel like my “brand” is talking about things we often sweep under the rug, so this post is part informative (I hope), but also personal. I want to share a bit about my journey, why I parted ways with my first agent (which I've never publicly talked about!), and ultimately discuss what finding an agent for your career really means and how to do just that. So I started querying agents in college. I was one of those writers who had to be published before twenty. (If this is you, totally fine, but for me my work then just wasn't ready.) I think part of it was that I knew a bunch of teen writers and several of us were published, so it felt like a very attainable thing. But that didn’t happen. After college, I went into publishing on the editorial side. And, in 2017, I signed with an agent. Now there are many ways to get an agent, querying is only one of them. My agent and I attended a conference together as publishing professionals. We bonded in between sessions talking about vampires (aka how I truly bond with people, LOL). We got along great, and when he later saw me tweeting about a project I was working on he emailed me and was like OMG PLEASE SEND IT TO ME. I, of course, sent it. I emailed that project and the one I was actually about to query. I told him the project wasn’t complete, and he didn’t care. He loved the premise, he loved my writing, and we both agreed that this new project was the one of my heart and had so much potential, and so he signed me on a partial. The plan was that we would work on it and get it to a point where it was ready to be sold. But as it happens, things don't often go as planned. I got this idea for an amazing anthology, and I felt in my bones that we needed to make it happen NOW. So we did, and we sold it, and