How I Got a Literary Agent + My Querying Journey | Shelves of Samantha
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- Excited to share my journey to becoming an agented author, as well as some of the most valuable things I learned along the way.
Some of my favorite querying resources:
♡ The Bookends Literary Agency channel: / bookendsliteraryagency
♡ The QueryShark blog: queryshark.blo...
♡ r/PubTips: / pubtips
Where to find me:
♡ Instagram: shelvesofsamantha
♡ Story Graph: storygraph.com/profile/shelvesofsamantha
♡ Email: shelvesofsamantha@gmail.com
♡ All Links: msha.ke/shelvesofsamantha
♡ Keep an eye out for an author website coming soon!
Hashtags:
#writing #writer #writingcommunity #author #authortube #amquerying #querying
My critique partner queried hundreds of agents. It may have been upwards of 400 across three books. She now has a 5 book deal.
I just started querying for my debut a few days ago and an agent already requested a full ms! I sent it right away and im anxiously awaiting a response. I only sent to 5 agents so far so im so encouraged even if she decides its not for her. Im gonna take your advice in taking the grace period if she offers rep but i really hope she becomes my agent, id have the quickest query process of all time haha ahhh
That would be amazing to have your querying process go so quickly 🤩 Regardless, what a great sign to get a full request so quickly! Your query letter is definitely doing its job. Sending you positive energy on your querying journey ✨
@@shelvesofsamantha thankyou so much!
Sooo? What happened??
@lisev415 i got an r&r from 2 agents so far and im working on one of them!! I ended up withdrawing my queries from 8 agents cuz i really want one specific r&r to work out but if it doesnt at least i have a better book! (I ended up querying to alot more agents and getting 5 requests in total. Out of those 5, i got 2 r&r and 1 rejection so far)
Did you get rep?
Congratulations. I can't wait to finish my book so I can join the ranks!!! Much success!!😊
You're so lucky! Writers House did Twilight and Our Fault in the Stars via Jodi Reamer!
Luck you!
Congrats on getting an agent. I am currently working on what I hope will be my debt and videos like these are so insightful and uplifting.
I’m so glad it was helpful! 🤍 Wishing you all the best on your querying journey!
Good luck on your literary journey. A lot of it is down to luck and knowing/connecting with the right people. The majority of authors will remain relative unknowns, but carry on doing it because you love doing it. That is the only reason to write.
I am in the query trenches now. Six agents have requested the manuscript and I'm trying to be chill about it. This was very helpful!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'll be starting my query journey soon. Honestly, if I don't get an agent, I was thinking of just self-publishing. I was originally going to go the self-publishing route, but a few people advised that it is worth the effort and rejections, so yep...we'll see!
I am so incredibly happy for you! I can’t wait to read this book!
Thank you so much - I can’t wait to have more updates to share as things move along! 🫶🏻
Congrats, this is so exciting and well done on having a relatively short and sweet query process - sounds like a sign of a strong manuscript package. :)
Thank you! Luck definitely played a part in it, but it was also wonderful to know my manuscript was strong too 🥰
Thank you so much for sharing your tips and experience! So happy for you!!! Can’t wait to read it.
Thank you! ✨🤍
Dear Samantha: Very helpful and honest video. I am in a similar stage as you were in when you make this video- 3 requests for Full MS including one from Writers House (fingers crossed). I can relate to ALL the points you have shared (query in batched, letter over 400 words, query tracker, etc). Great Job!
Congrats! Thank you for the helpful advice! I dream of being agented and traditionally published. I'm still writing and have a lot of rewriting to do, but I was born to do it. This has been my dream since I was eleven.
Your humility was really refreshing
congratulations!!! this is such a great video on the process :) I’d love to hear about ur writing journey on this book as it sounds like we have similar styles haha (starting over at 40k twice lmao also self-editing heavily along the way). I’m two years in to my book baby, and hoping to have her query ready in around one more!!
Wishing you great luck on your querying journey! 🫶🏻 I’m definitely planning to make more writing content in the future! It’s a hard thing to make videos about because it’s such a personal process and I struggle with how much to share 🧍♀️
This was SO helpful! Thank you! And a huge congratulations.
I’d love to see your first query letter and then the edited (and successful) version! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thank you for your great advice!
Thank you! I appreciate your kind comment 🫶🏻
This was so very helpful- thank you for sharing! It would be neat to learn about the differences in your query letters! I'm working on drafting mine now and would love tips from someone who's successfully gone through it (recently)!
My early draft focused WAY too much on trying to introduce too many characters and not enough on the actual meat of the plot. I was trying to show what a rich world I had built and how all of these people would affect the MC’s life, but I think it ended up becoming too muddled for its own good. In the end, I cut all of that and just focused on the MC, the antagonist (her father), and her two sisters, who represent the paths she can choose going forward (revenge vs. remorse, which is my major thematic element). I also explicitly stated those themes in my first draft, which was a big no-no.
Also, if you ever want another set of eyes on your query letter, feel free to reach out to me via one of the email addresses in my little link pages (as long as you’re comfortable with it, obviously!). I love any opportunity to help other folks embarking on this insane journey. 🤍
@@shelvesofsamantha thanks for the reply and for the amazing offer!! That’s all super helpful! I’ll absolutely hit you up on that when it’s in a good place! I’ll take any help and opinions I can get. 😊♥️
This is awesome advice, thank you!
Wow! I hope everywhing goes well!!
You are incredibly succinct, well spoken and helpful! Thank you for this video.
Wow, thank you so much - that means a lot to me!
Many congratulations!🎉
Thank you!
I love hearing your experience as I am similarly waiting on responses from 5 full requests from agents :0 - I don't know how to bide my time!!!
What an exciting time! 🤍 My best advice is to find something new to write, if you can. From personal experience, I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s so helpful to feel the infinite hope so starting a fresh new project during what can be such an uncertain time. Crossing my fingers for you! 🤞🏻
Congrats Samantha. Where did you get your list of agents and the genres that they specialise in
Great video!❤
Thank you! 🤍
Hi I am so proud of you good job! I am currently creating my list of agents for querying and it's not as easy as I'd hoped (but I know it'll be worth it). My question is: What was your process in finding agents for your specific book type and deciding which ones you were going to query? So far I'm at 17 but I haven't vetted yet as I'm planning to gain a big list before then.
Also, do you have or could you make a video for creating query letters?
Love the video and your channel, subscribed 🤗 Can you do a video on how to finish a book while you have a full-time job/school (if you did that)? Thanks! 👋
Thank you for subscribing! 🫶🏻 And thank you for the video idea! Definitely writing that one down ✍🏻 It can be super hard to make time for writing when you have so many other obligations, so I’d love an opportunity to speak about that 🤍
as someone just starting out quering, I find the whole concept a bit baffling, that it is the authors chasing after agents and not the other way round and don't really understand why that is. After all, if you want to rent out an apartment, real estate agents climb over one another to get a shot - I get that with these agents its different and they need to do more, but I think it should be at least equal and not "the author is applying for a job" type of thing
Thanks for the insight and congrats! hi. I'm starting my query journey and wondering what sites did you use / approach to find agents to query?
I think Query Tracker is by far the best resource for this information. I’m not sure if this is exclusive to the premium version or if it’s in the free version as well, but you can sort by which agents are open to queries, what genres they rep, etc. Once you get that preliminary info, I would go direct to the agency website for more details on what specifically they’re after! MSWL is a great resource for this too, although not every agent uses it or keeps it up to date.
I'm now up to 6 full requests and 4 of those have turned into rejections.
What sucks is, I've received no feedback other than a stock answer along the lines of "loved the work...can't offer representation" or "enjoyed the read...can't see an editorial vision" 😪
How do I interpret this?
Agh, I’m so sorry! There’s nothing more frustrating than a request for pages than leads to a form rejection. Until you get actionable feedback, I would chalk it up to a matter of taste or just not quite a perfect fit. If an agent says, “hey, I enjoyed this, but the ending fell flat for me,” then you know you need to look at your final pages again. Wish I had better advice - form rejections are the worst. On a full, I frankly think it’s discourteous for an agent to not offer at least a little personalized feedback. 🤷🏻♀️
The positive though: 6 full requests is AMAZING! You’re obviously doing something right to get multiple bites on your query and sample pages. Keep querying, but also remember to take a step back and check in with yourself sometimes. 🤍 Crossing my fingers one of those outstanding fulls becomes an offer! 🤞🏻
This must be really frustrating, but still such an achievement to get 6 full requests, sounds like you have an enticing query. Have you heard of the podcast The Shit No one Tells You About Writing? It's hosted by a writer and two literary agents and they share a tonne of advice about the query process and how to interpret different feedback/rejections. Might be worth a listen. Good luck!! :)
Thank you for cheering me up lol. A query rejection is one thing, but a rejection of a full after having waited a 3-4 months is an entirely different punch to the gut.
To touch upon a point you made. I really should've made a second email address for querying. If Gmail had a counter for how many times I've visited over the past 6 months, I bet I'd be in the thousands 😅
@@najeev93 hi there I only saw your comment now but I have an idea. I’m not sure where you’re currently at but I hope this will maybe help
Talk more to the readers. I wish you had better luck but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for your book. Of course keep trying but also get feedback from readers. From the people who will be recommending your books to others and writing reviews on social media. The fans will come back and reading other books you write. Lots of people you should also focus on getting feedback from. People you know like friends or family members are great but also just random people on the Internet. That’s where you get a wide variety of tastes and therefore a lot of different feedback. You also could specify that you’re looking to be critiqued so that you can improve and then apply that feedback. I’m not saying that he’s going to convince anybody to do anything but it also will help you as an author
I unfortunately am just an avid reader and so I can’t do anything in the sense of promoting your book but if you are looking for someone to read it through and give you some feedback I would be happy to.g
Also I am legally blind
As of right now, I am a self-published author looking for an agent. It's hard and time consuming looking for an agent, but someone has to do it, right?!?! 😊
I think people underestimate just how time-consuming it can be, especially if you’re really trying to personalize your query letter and tailor it to each agent. Best of luck in your search! 🤞🏻😃
What happens if you are writing thr query letter from another country?
It’s my understanding that you can easily query agents from a different country than yours, although be aware that the expectations for a query letter addressed to a US agent vs. a UK agent. I don’t really know much beyond that, sorry! I’m a US author repped by a US agent.
Did your agent sell your book? Is it going to be published?
Congrats, thank you for the info.
Thank you! I’m glad you found it helpful ✨
💝
Girlll i will be sending my query too. Cross fingers to get my agent.
Yes! I’m crossing my fingers for you 🤞🏻
So, are you an agented author?
😘 Promo sm
I’m about to start my third batch now, -5 this time- because I listened to the “don’t send out too much”, a little too hard. Only doing 2-3 at a time. So in 3 months, I’ve sent out only 4 😖