How I Got a Literary Agent + My Querying Journey | Shelves of Samantha 

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?

Thank you! ✨🤍

I’m so glad it was helpful! 🤍 Wishing you all the best on your querying journey!

Thank you so much - I can’t wait to have more updates to share as things move along! 🫶🏻

Thank you! Luck definitely played a part in it, but it was also wonderful to know my manuscript was strong too 🥰

Wow, thank you so much - that means a lot to me!

Thank you! I appreciate your kind comment 🫶🏻

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 🧍‍♀️

Thank you!

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. 😊♥️

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! 🤞🏻

Thank you! I’m glad you found it helpful ✨

Thank you! 🤍

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.

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 🤍

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 😅

@@najeev_n 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

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.

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! 🤞🏻😃

Yes! I’m crossing my fingers for you 🤞🏻