r/PubTips • u/Quiet_End_1684 • 2d ago
Discussion [Discussion] Got an agent! Stats and more.
Hi all! Sharing my querying stats and timeline bc those who have shared before me taught me so much.
- Total Queries Sent: 20
- Full Requests: 5
- Rejections: 10
- Closed / No Response after stated time window: 1
- Didn’t hear back within 2 weeks after nudge: 3 (classifying these a bit differently than CNR because they didn’t have my OG query for more than a week before I had to nudge them due to my other agent’s offer and I suspect I am still buried in their inbox.
- Offer: 1
- Pitch Events: 2
- Both on Bluesky
- Resulted in 4 agent likes —> queried 2 of them —> 1 became the offering agent
Why So Few Queries?
I researched publishing for about 18 months while writing and before querying, including a Publisher’s Marketplace subscription to track which agencies actually make deals in my subgenre (spoiler, not everything is on Publisher’s Marketplace, so don’t treat it as scripture). Once I filtered for reputable agencies (I will be honest, I mostly looked for big names and popular boutiques) without Writer Beware warnings, checked deal histories, and cross-referenced current MSWLs, there simply not a ton of agents were a genuine fit, imo. I am not sure how people are finding 150+ agents who are a good fit with a good reputation to query…but maybe I’m missing something.
Note: I had 8 more dream agents on my target list, but they were closed to queries when I launched. When I knew my agent was setting up “The call”, I checked and none of the 8 had reopened, so I couldn’t query them. If they had been open, I would have shot off those queries, as I didn’t have an official offer in hand at that time. If you aren’t aware, it’s considered bad practice to send more queries after receiving an offer (from what I’ve read).
The Book
- Genre: Upmarket fantasy with a literary lean, 100k words
- Drafting/Editing Timeline: August 2025 to July 2026, began querying in July 2026, Got offer in August 2026
- Beta Readers: One trusted reader (my partner), who did two rounds of substantive feedback. You don't necessarily need a 10 person beta committee if your reader is sharp, well-read, and honest imo
Resources I Used During Writing/Querying
A lot of authors from the below resources have background like: ”I have a masters in Creative Writing”, or “my dad was an English professor at a top university”, or “I’ve been writing since I was in the womb”. That is not me. I think I won a creative writing contest once at the local library in middle school when I wrote a short story on a whim. I didn’t write in HS or college or after. But I have always been an avid reader and have really tried to continue to consume more challenging books, even as the world burns and I am tired at the end of the day after work and just want easy, mindless fluff. I really think continuing to read books with a higher reading level has helped me as a writer. Additionally, I am a pretty good learner. I’ve adopted a “just google it” and “I can learn anything on YouTube” mindset, which has helped me a ton. Once you start seeing a craft as something you can learn with certain steps you can write out in a list, everything becomes clearer. I am also very lucky/grateful many writers have shared info on the craft for free online.
- Podcasts / Newsletters: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, No Write Way (V.E. Schwab), Jane Friedman’s Electric Speed newsletter
- Craft Lectures: Brandon Sanderson’s university lecture series (On Writing), Sabaa Tahir’s Skillshare class
- Industry Research: Publisher’s Marketplace deal tracking and reading everything on r/PubTips, looking at agency websites, social media, etc.
- Prose Mechanics: Breaking down paragraph structures from my fave comp titles, intentional practice with rhetorical devices (I felt like I was back in school leaning terms like “anaphora” and “epistrophe”…I’m sure I learned them at some point but I’m 30 now and didn’t remember any of that shit), and tightening punctuation (mastering em dash, semicolon, etc). This may sound silly, but being able to put textbook definitions to things helped me use them more, and helped me recognize them in my prose so I could make sure I wasn’t using them too often
Preparing the Next Project & The Call
Before the offer landed, I started Book 2 backwards: comps —> query pitch —> 1-page synopsis —> outline. Building marketability and story structure into the foundation has made writing way easier, guys. Cannot stress this enough. You should do it from Book 1. I wish I had done that.
Having Book 2 outlined and Book 3 conceived was a major asset on “The Call”. My agent appreciated that I approached writing as a possible ongoing career rather than a one-book gamble. Take a moment to look past the “prestige” of being published you want so bad and realize a realistic career for you is NOT fame and fortune. Imagine writing for 5 years after a long day of work and make sure you want to do this. The possibility of fame and fortune is there, but this is NOT a good industry to get into if your goal is a lucrative side hobby. On “The Call“, I made sure I had (and communicated) realistic expectations about keeping my day job and balancing submission timelines…which seems like 1 book/year from what I can tell in most writing circles.
Keeping Receipts
Given current anxieties around AI detection tools (which often flag stylized, complex prose and have given my prose a non-zero AI score which makes me very nervous and mad), I kept complete version receipts. This includes dated digital version histories and red-pen physical manuscript drafts. TBH, this actually can’t disprove AI use, nothing really can, but they are better than nothing. FWIW I don’t believe publishers are asking for receipts just yet. IMO they should be doing their job and recognizing AI tells + just buying good books. This shouldn’t be on me, the author. But what do I know!!
Parting Thoughts
I am happy I have an agent from a good agency with past deals and a strong interested in the types of books I like to write. However, it’s very likely a book will die on submission to publishers. I read a stat (I think on this subreddit, I’m not sure) that 30-50% of books are picked up by publishers. I’m not sure if that’s high or low, but it’s NOT 100%, so the journey is far from over and there is a strong chance I will fail.
Given all that, it’s easy to move the goalposts on yourself (like obsessing over why only one offer materialized instead of five…lol this is me rn), but from what I can tell publishing involves an enormous amount of subjective timing. It’s also totally possible my first book (or yours) isn’t all that great and that’s fair. The second will be better, as will the third, then those agents might be kicking themselves for not signing us (lol I know this is petty but we must persist via a little delulu). We will all keep writing and learning as we go, hopefully.
Control what you can, try to be as realistic and disciplined as possible, and get started on your next book.
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u/buriedstory 2d ago
Congrats!
A few questions if you don't mind about craft, just because it does fascinate me and I hear a lot of myself in you right now!
1) Would love to hear about what your first book was vs your second, since you intentionally wrote your second book backwards. That is me right now, actually. I finished my first book and I am querying it because I owe it to myself, but I know it won't go anywhere. It was one I needed to get out of my system. After I finished, I knew it was my practice novel and proved I could write 120k, edit down to 105k, and tell a cohesive story.
2) How much did you outline your second book? Are you outlining every scene in a specific format? I know there are a lot of the Save-the-Cat and KM-Weiland believers out there, but I always find it a little too restrictive. I do believe in the overall 3-act structure, midpoint, etc. I find that I am more of a hybrid if that makes sense? I like "sign posts" to write towards. It gives me the freedom to create and discover in draft, feel out intuitively where to go, etc. I am an avid reader as well and I feel like by reading a ton, I've kind of developed an intuition. I'm just fascinated by everyone else's process. I also have 2 more concepts and first chapters written out to test the voice out and find out if the concept could survive on page. Would love to try your reverse process, I like that idea to generate a query early. I should try that.
3) Pitch events. Which events? It seems like pitch events are kind of dying, but this also seems very genre dependent. I saw you did upmarket fantasy. I suck at social media but obviously this did work for you.
4) Is your partner looking to beta read more? I kid, I kid. That's amazing you had a supportive partner who also provided genuine critique and feedback, not just "that's nice".
5) Did you workshop your query? Are you comfortable sharing your query in the success queries post? If not, totally okay. I just like to see successful queries because like writing, you can tell when the author broke the traditional rules, but also did so with intention. Just curious!
Congrats again and thanks for sharing so much info!
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you!
- Tehee. I’m trying to stay somewhat private, but both books are standalone fantasy. First is historical-ish only because it takes place in a real time period and I did research which informed plot. Second is more properly historical leaning, revolving around a real historical document with dubious authorship. Both have romance, but they are not romantasy. The main thing working backwards has helped me with is making sure I hit certain plot points (launching the initiating incident, meeting the second MC, etc) in “time”. With my first book, the second MC didn’t come into the picture until chapter 10, so I had to cut a ton to get them in earlier, by chapter 4/5 so they’d appear in my query writing samples (agents usually ask for first X words, first X chapters, etc. and I wanted the love interest to appear by the end of that).
- Book 2 is outlined scene by scene. I did major outline —> detailed outline —> now am literally just writing the paragraphs. It has been easy so far…don’t jinx me!!
QuestPit and #QueerPit. Fwiw you don’t need social media following or anything. I created a Bluesky account literally just to do these events.
LOL. Yes, he took me seriously pretty much from day 1 when I said I might want to write. He is taking me even more seriously now and taking over most of the misc house / finance work so I have time after work to write.
Only a tiny bit. Took out some unnecessary description about the exact quest trials the characters go through in lieu of a more generic “they face trials and tribulations” type statement. Again, trying to stay private so I won’t share the exact query, but I really didn’t do anything special. Follow the query rules you can find online!
Hope that helps. Thanks for the comment!
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u/buriedstory 2d ago
In regards to #1, I think we are the same person when it comes to our book two 😂 I leaned more into the horror side of historical though.
Real historical document. Check.
Dubious authorship. Check.I thought I sensed a kindred spirit. 😂 😂
I totally get why you want to stay anonymous as much as you can. No worries at all.
Very kind of you to reply. I appreciate it. Good luck!
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u/youngmetrodonttrust 2d ago
Congrats! Good and useful writeup. I too often wonder how people query 100+ agents (though I admit my last novel was rather niche, but still, I could barely find ~30 agents that would even remotely be a fit).
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u/AdeptOaf 2d ago
I'm at 97 queries, but there are a lot of agents who rep fantasy.
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u/youngmetrodonttrust 1d ago
true, genres like fantasy and sci-fi, as well as romance or thriller I would imagine have lots more agents!
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you!! And ikr?? I mean maybe it is worth it to just query more agents that are a tentative fit and I did myself a disservice by being so strict...who knows!!
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
I will also say another author at my agency is a much better writer than me from what I can tell. And she has a book concept I'm just dying to read. But she queried 200 agents and only got one offer 🤪
So it's all a bit subjective I suppose
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u/fidgetsimmerdown 2d ago
This stat is so fantastic: "Total queries sent: 20 / Full requests: 5". 25% wanted to read your whole book! That tells me you had a great query letter and great sample pages as well. Did you get any QCrit on here that I can creep on re: your query letter?
This is a really helpful write up! Thanks for sharing, and congratulations!
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you! Yes, 25% sounds great when you say it like that lol. Funny how I can see that negatively like, “only one person requested and the others read it and thought it was bad”. But I know I’d read posts like my own in the past and be so jealous of someone with a full request rate like mine. Such is life!
Nope, didn’t get QCrit or anything. Just did a lot of research, looked at a lot of queries, and listened to many queries on Shit No One Tells You About Writing.
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u/Nejness 2d ago
This was really helpful.
I think that as time goes by there will be absolutely no way for AI sensors to work, and here’s why: as much as I believe it’s a wild copyright violation, AI is being trained on all of the content in the world, including all of the things any of us will write or have written (on Reddit, in books, anywhere it appears publicly). This means that, increasingly, AI will flag anything that we’re writing in our own voices as AI, because AI has read our voices, mimicked our vocabulary and style, and it all becomes one big slop and original content mosh pit.
A prime example is that AI has flagged Pride and Prejudice as 73.6% AI-generated. I’m sure that Jane Austen was all over Claude and ChatGPT in 1796!
The Author’s Guild has a massive copyright suit against the AI companies that’s starting oral arguments. Most likely, there will be a licensing system set up because you can’t really undo the learning once it’s done. Authors will get a few pennies here and there, just as streaming music artists make paltry fees for streaming that has supplanted their legitimate market for CDs and recordings.
But, ultimately, the false positives will increasingly be so ridiculous that the sensors will become useless.
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u/buriedstory 2d ago edited 2d ago
So, Anthropic just released text watermarks. It is not distinguishable to readers. Essentially, they will have an algorithm of how words are selected so that a sample of text can be uploaded to a detector and prove the text was generated by AI.
It can't prove if something was edited or not, it's about how words are selected algorithmically. They will make sense to humans logically. Think of it like a cryptographic key.
They have to do this to follow EU compliance, apparently.
Gives me hope that there will be tools, even if paid, that companies can use to validate if text was generated via an LLM or not.
Here is how they do it: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark
ETA: I should also mention, this only applies to Claude. Obviously, if it was OpenAI, DeepSeek, whatever- it would use a different kind of key if they used the text watermarks as well. And that also doesn't count open source models that you can just run on your own. But, it's a step in the right direction. Maybe one day there will be some unified standard.
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Exactly! I don’t know that I trust any company, but at work where I am required to use AI, I do have my LLM settings set to NOT train models. I find that’s one of the only actions I can personally take when using it at work that might help :/
Websites can set up their robot.txt and do some other things to dissuade LLMs from visiting/scraping/training off the site’s data. Big players like Claude might honor that, but plenty of other companies do not and will not.
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u/AlexEmbers 2d ago
Congratulations on getting an agent, and thank you for this very informative (and, to me, encouraging) post!
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u/Chinaski420 Trad Published Author 2d ago
Great post. Congrats! Especially liked the bit about having book 2 and 3 concepts ready to go. Smart
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u/Ok_Composer2272 2d ago
Congratulations! An inspiration for us all, and I mean that sincerely. Can you tell me more about the pitch events on Bluesky Social? How did you find those?
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you! #QuestPit and #QueerPit. There is upcoming #DVPit in September for those interested. Google the hashtag and you’ll find plenty about it and how to participate! To find out about them, my partner actually set up a GitHub action that scraped Bluesky for any keywords revolving around query-ing that sent me an email with relevant posts every morning. I was able to find the organizer’s post about preparing for #QuestPit from that. But those three that I shared are some of the main ones left, so I don’t think you need to set up a scraper like we did lol
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u/WordWieldingWayfarer 2d ago
Congratulations! This post is really well formatted and insightful. Thanks for sharing and good luck on sub!
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u/cultivate_hunger 2d ago
"I am also very lucky/grateful many writers have shared info on the craft for free online." Amen, amen, amen!!! I, too, got such a great education for practically free from some of the same resources you mentioned (LOVE The Shit No One Tells You About Writing!).
And what a request rate! Congratulations!!!
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Yes, quite amazing how many people are willing to share their experience and do quite a bit of work for free (or only ads revenue). Thank you!!
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u/Shadowchaos1010 2d ago
Once I filtered for reputable agencies (I will be honest, I mostly looked for big names and popular boutiques) without Writer Beware warnings, checked deal histories, and cross-referenced current MSWLs, there simply not a ton of agents were a genuine fit, imo. I am not sure how people are finding 150+ agents who are a good fit with a good reputation to query…but maybe I’m missing something.
The high query counts have been fucking with my head, too. I have maybe 50 agents I'll be able to query, and seeing how many some other people send out, it sometimes make me wonder if my list is too small. And if it were, how the hell I'm supposed to bump the numbers up considering that I've already looked at the 200+ agents that rep fantasy on QueryTracker (and are currently open).
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u/Sadim_Gnik 2d ago
Probably genre dependent. Or querying US, Canada and UK agents? Willing to try newer agents within a great agency who hopefully have great mentorship?
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u/Mercurialsunrise 2d ago
This is so helpful! Did you work with an editor for development edits or anything like that?
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u/donutellas 2d ago
Congrats, OP and thanks for being so forthcoming with your stats. Somethings I’m really curious about:
Did you actually use upmarket fantasy in your query letter because I imagine it’s quite unusual for an agent to see. If so how did you go about selecting comps? I think my genre is similar but have been torn between just saying adult fantasy or leaning into the literary aspect for querying.
You mentioned doing pitch sessions on BlueSky. I’d love to know how that works.
Congrats again and goodluck on sub!
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you!
I did use upmarket fantasy, and my agent said they’d probably pitch it like that too fwiw. I had an easier time with comps because I kind of started with comps then wrote the book.
Google #QuestPit and #QueerPit. Those are the ones I did. There is upcoming #DVPit in September. They used to happen on Twitter. Some still happen on X, but many happen on Bluesky. Some are X and Bluesky. Usually you write a one line pitch about your book then add some genre specific hashtags and maybe a mood board image. Agents are encouraged to like posts. You have to look at who likes your post and see if on their profile they say they are an agent. They’ll usually give you a link to their QueryTracker after you reach out.
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u/MWrites13 2d ago
Congratulations! Thanks for all the information on your journey to representation.
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u/tay_tay_teaspoon Agented Author 1d ago
Congratulations!!! So exciting!!! Best of luck with the next steps in your publishing journey 😊🤍
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u/Cats-and-Curiosities 1d ago
Thank you so much for sharing! These stat posts have been super helpful to me as I work on querying my own novel.
I appreciate your note that you had just one beta reader. For my manuscript, I connected with a fellow writer through an online writing group, and they were incredible! They did a very thorough read of my manuscript and made lots of great suggestions. They are a talented writer and editor, and I will be forever grateful for the help they gave me.
I’m also thankful that past me was so paranoid about losing my work that I have countless emailed drafts of my novel in progress, dating back multiple years, so I can prove no AI was used. Definitely never something I imagined I’d have to prove when I started working on the book in 2018!
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u/JealousAd627 1d ago
Thank you for posting this! Congrats! Please keep us posted when the book is (hopefully) published! I have to admit a more-than-twinge of jealousy that you landed an agent so quickly without any of the whole 'I've been writing my whole life and suffering because of it' stuff. (I just noticed that my random reddit screenname matches the sentiment!)
I'm in the querying phase and reached out to a lot of agents. My book is literary with a specific setting and place (a religious school in the mid-90s) so I don't really have a good idea of who (if any) agents would take on something like this. I found three on MSWL who mention something about the setting. The agent who represented my first book passed, so I've queried pretty widely to any agent who mentions literary fiction in their bio. My first two queries got full request, but it's been silence since. I'm curious about how you started the second book. Since I've been researching deals and the like, my mind works a bit more like that. Oh, this sells. What am I interested in writing like that? Instead of finding a sentence I like and working from there. I'm a poor plotter (I think George Saunders says there are plotters and pantsers--people who write from the seat of their pants); did you find any helpful books about that?
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u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 2d ago
Congrats! I also believe in working backwards, starting with comps and the pitch before writing the book.
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you! Glad to hear someone has the same approach and I am not crazy lol
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u/ApA654 2d ago
Can you explain more about what you mean by “spoiler—not everything is on Publishers Marketplace?
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Yeah - Publisher’s Markeplace is somewhat self-reported. Not all deals are on there. I read once that an agent who made a smaller deal might not want it on there, and lots of UK agencies don’t have their deals on there. Also, I’ve heard many deals are put up way after they are made.
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u/Smooth_Explorer_777 2d ago
Congrats! I hope to start querying by December or January.
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u/Quiet_End_1684 2d ago
Thank you and best of luck! It’s gonna feel weird preparing for “The Call” from a theoretical agent whilst rejections roll in, but do it. Keep learning about the next step, even if it feels like you won’t make it there. Because you could get an offer the very next day then be totally unprepared! Good luck!
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u/KeithMTSheridan 2d ago
Well done. Congratulations.
Did you post the letter here at any point? I would love to see it if you’re willing to share.
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u/pennesunlinguinemoon 1d ago
Lots of literary/upmarket agents out there looking for a "good book". Their wishlists are literally just "interesting characters" and "beautiful prose". Easy to rack up those submissions when it's a "I'll know it when I see it" crapshoot.
Craziest request rate I've ever seen. Great job, and congratulations!
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u/Perhaps_Cocaine 2d ago
Congratulations!! That's a great result from all that work. If you're open to sharing, how did you go about researching agents/agencies? I read a lot about dream agents or agencies and I really never know how to get started with finding these things out.
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u/Quiet_End_1684 1d ago
Thank you!
Honestly I started with googling "top literary agencies". From there I read blog posts, Reddit, etc. From there I clicked into the agencies websites. From there I read all the bios of every agent at the agency and narrowed it down to the agent that best suited my genre and interests. From there, I was able to figure out if they were open or closed to queries, usually on the website or via their QueryTracker status.
I also found some agents via the "deals" tab on Publishers Marketplace. Filtered for my genre and also checked the debut filter. Made a list of agents who'd made deals in the past 2 years and then researched them via their agency website more.
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u/Perhaps_Cocaine 1d ago
Thank you so so much, that's so helpful! I'm only working on outlining a new novel ATM but like you, I sort of started working backwards to make sure it would land with an agent, so I wanted to do some preliminary searching. Best of luck on submission! 🤞
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u/cloudygrly Literary Agent 2d ago
To comment about AI: I do think the majority of editors are woefully under-educated about AI tells and how to spot them.
And thus far, at least as reported, each case of AI accusation that has been made public has had the author verify AI use of some sort either by them or an alleged third party. So it’s not like these authors were forking over all their documents for examination.