Am I Ready for a Literary Agent? Here's My Answer...
You know by now that you need a literary agent to sell your book to most publishers, at least the big ones. If you’ve checked out some of my other posts, you may even know the steps to get one.
But how do you know when you’re ready for a literary agent? Today, I’m going to share with you four must-dos before you’re ready for a literary agent.
Quick story: about 12 years ago, I wrote my first draft of my first novel. I had no idea what I was doing. I had never even written a short story that I thought was any good before.
But I wound up writing a draft of a novel. And by draft, I mean that I had googled how many words are in a novel, seen that they were about 70,000 words in a novel, and just written until I hit that number.
A couple of months earlier, I had had a fortuitous interaction with a well-known literary agent who had heard my pitch for the novel, encouraged me to write it, and invited me to send it to him when I was done.
As soon as I finish writing the last word of the first draft, I stood up from my bed where I was writing, did a little dance, and suddenly thought, should I send it to him right now?
I am so so happy to tell you that the impulsiveness of this thought passed quickly, and I did not do it. Thank God. Because that draft, like any first draft, was not ready to be sent to a literary agent.
Please, please, please… Never send a first draft of anything to anyone. Not to an agent, not to a contest, not to a literary magazine.
It’s not because your first draft is crap. I don’t actually subscribe to the idea that all first drafts are crap. But I do know that while first drafts contain glimmering gems and the essentials of a new story in the world, they also need to be cleaned up.
Every first draft could use a good cleaning, even a really strong first draft.
And here’s the other important thing to know—you really get one shot at any particular literary agent. You don’t get to pitch them again later and say, “Ohh wait, I changed it and made it better, do you like it now?”
That…isn’t really done, unless they actually invite you to do that, and you can imagine why…their first thought will be, “So why did you waste my time if it wasn’t ready before?”
I’ve spoken to a ton of literary agents and heard them on panels, and they always say—beg even—writers not to query their books until their manuscripts are truly as strong as they can be.
So with all that said—how do you know when you are ready to query literary agents?
First, have you revised?
If you were to build a house, you would not try to paint the walls and choose the window trimmings as you were building the foundation. It would literally end up being a pile of materials.
The same is true when we try as writers to both get a story down on paper and worry about how it’s being presented. Those are completely separate tasks.
They are as different as hammering a nail and painting a wall. You cannot get a story down, and by that I mean creating something out of nothing, and also worry about whether it’s in its most presentable form yet.
When people say they are perfectionists, that’s not really what’s going on. Perfectionism sounds like it’s high standards. I have high standards… but I know when I’m building a house that’s only the first phase, and I’m going to be able to apply my high standards later when I’m worrying about what that house looks like.
You must revise; everyone must revise. Your first draft is just the foundation of the house. It’s not ready for someone to move in yet. Or, in this case, to be sent to an agent.
Two: have you gotten feedback after revision and then revised again based on that feedback?
Here’s the sequence I teach writers to follow in my program. I base this off of years of trying it different ways and the pitfalls of alternate approaches.
First, you get down your messy first draft.
Then, you revise without getting feedback on it yet. You’re going to go in and find things that you want to change… You don’t need feedback yet. There will be plenty of stuff you’ll spot on your own that you want to fix.
Then, once you’ve done that pass, you’re ready for feedback.
Feedback too early can be derailing…I think it’s dangerous because you risk replacing your own vision with other people’s opinions. Raise your hand if you’ve done that before! Yeah, I did that for years.
But at some point, it becomes essential, and I believe that point to be after you’ve revised once.
We just can’t see our work objectively, as much as we may try.
I recently wrote something I was sure was brilliant, and when I submitted it to my writing group, the collective response was… this is a confusing timeline, we can’t actually tell what’s happening and when.
Good to know! I was so close to it that to me, it was obvious what order the events came in, but to outside readers, it wasn’t.
You don’t need to get feedback from loads of people. Two or three will do. But get feedback from a handful of people you trust before you send out your manuscript.
Three: is it the proper word count for the genre you are writing?
The minimum word count for most adult and young adult books is going to be about 70,000 words.
The minimum word count for middle grade will be 40,000 words.
If you’re writing in particular genres, these numbers shift a bit…you can encounter maximums, as well. Like a lighthearted romance shouldn’t come in at 200,000 words. That’s going to be too long.
You want to check your genre’s word count and make sure you’re in the right ballpark, or you’re going to have trouble getting an agent to look at your work.
Word count matters a lot to selling your book no matter how good your story is.
Four: do you like it?
When you sit down and read it like a reader, not like a writer, do you like it?
Do you think it’s fun and entertaining? Are you bored? This matters!
Now I realize that at some point we’re so close to our work that we can’t see straight. It’s hard to know if it’s fun when you’ve essentially memorized it.
But this is why we need to set it aside and let time pass, then come back to it…so we can get some distance, and then see if once we’ve had some time away from our draft, we like it when we return to it.
Finally, how confident are you in your grammar?
This is important. I find that often people in my program know when grammar is a weakness, but they just hope that an agent won’t notice and will give them a shot, and that someone will help them clean up their grammar later.
Unfortunately that’s not how it works. Grammar will make or break you. I’m not saying the occasional typo is going to break you, but if every other sentence is not grammatically correct, it doesn’t matter how great your story is. You aren’t going to get a literary agent with that version of your manuscript.
You need to figure out a way to get a good copy edit. A copy editor goes in and cleans up all of the grammar and syntax in your story.
If this sounds overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. My program, the Book Incubator, is designed to walk you through each of these steps, holding your hand, showing you exactly how to do it so that you do it correctly and even have a good time while you’re doing it. We are all about the joyful approach to reaching your creative writing goals.
Ready to write your book?
If you made it this far, I’m guessing that you are writing a book, or want to write a book. If so, I want to talk to you.
When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it.
Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one. It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel.
Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process. The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave. Now, I teach it in my program the Book Incubator and it works for dozens of other writers.
If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book. You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program. You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll.
Just click below to tell me a little bit about you and your book—you can fill out a form online. I’m so excited to hear from you!
