The first time I ever queried an agent I wasnāt ready. I had just finished my MFA. My thesis project was a novel that I still love and will one day make work. But it wasnāt working then. Still isnāt working now.
As part of the thesis submission process, my professors read the novel and gave their feedback. Everyone was generally positive, including an adjunct who was also a literary agent. He couldnāt represent students, but he told me heād recommend me to another agent at his agency if I queried. So, I did.
That agent, on my professorās recommendation requested the full manuscriptā¦and then promptly rejected me. I queried a number of other agents and no one even requested my pages.
I was not ready to query, and my novel was not ready to be queried.
So I wrote my next novel, and then I did the most logical thing. If you think I am about to say I queried again, guess again. I stuck that novel in a drawer and stopped writing for eight years. Thatās a whole different story, but just know that this novel had gone through a single draft where no one besides my wife had read it. And then it collected dust.
Fast-forward eight years and I was working a job that was painfully boring. So boring that I would literally curl up under my desk and read for a good portion of the day. It was during this time that I wondered about writing again. Could I do it? Did I want to do it? A few weeks later while on an airplane for a work trip (airplanes are the best for thinking), I realized I didnāt want to die without writing again. So, I pulled that novel out of the metaphorical drawer and read it with very fresh eyes.
And it was good. Very good, actually.
I spent the next eight months rewriting, refining. I sent it to beta readers, got feedback, did more edits. Finally, I was ready to query. Whatās interesting is I wrote a query letter for this novel before I ever wrote the novel, and I still had that query. I dusted it off and made some tweaks, then sent out a batch of queries.
As the rejections rolled in, I realized the query wasnāt working. I combed through Query Shark, reading everything. I used Redditās PubTips. I paid for query feedback. Eventually, I got the query into shape and sent out another batch of queries. I ended up getting three full manuscript requests with this batch and one offer.
After having a call with the agent who offered to represent me, and after letting other agents have two weeks to read my novel and decide whether they wanted to make their own offers, I signed with my agent. Together, we put together a submission package and my book went out on sub in the summer of 2025.
More than one year later, that book has died on submission, and the process was as brutally painful as you can imagine. Iām not alone in this experience. Depending on your source anywhere between 33% to 95% of novels dies on submission. But statistics do not understand the anxiety and hope of a writer.
When I was on submission, I distracted myself by writing my next book. Highly recommend this strategy. But also know, it doesnāt work. Thereās no such thing as distraction during this process. At least not for me. I was patient externally, asking my agent for updates only once every three months. Internally, I was refreshing my email every morning. Just kidding, I was refreshing multiple times per day.
The rejection feedback was not helpful, either. Every rejection that said they loved my writing but didnāt think they could sell it was an emotional roller coaster in and of itself. Do not pay attention to the feedback. This is a good rule, generally, but I wonāt follow it. I didnāt follow it and I think itās unreasonable to assume I will follow it in the future. But itās still a good suggestion.
After more than a year on submission, my book has died. It died in the depths of literary anxiety, the constant wonder if today might be the day. The anxious feeling of hope when you open your emails.
I lived through this. I did not die, my book did. And Iām going to do it again. Next time, I hope for different results. But if my next book dies on submission, guess what? Iām going to go through the process again. Iāll do it again and again until I get the ultimate yes and my book is published.
I leave you with the immortal words of Tupac:
Makin' money off of cuss words, writin' again
Learn how to think ahead, so I fight with my pen
Keep fighting with the pen.