Once upon a time, a literary agent would arrive at their office on a Monday morning and discover a soggy pile of brown-paper-wrapped manuscripts blocking their doorway. Hence the term – slush-pile.

Now, nearly ALL querying takes place in cyberspace via email or online portals. That’s not to say getting an agent to represent you has become easier; it hasn’t. In fact, agents are now so inundated with queries that they spend less than 30 seconds reading each email, or, if they are part of a bigger organisation, delegate this task to an intern.

A few years ago, I spent a long time in the querying trenches. I was successful eventually, but it took me over nine months of sending out query emails, amending, refining, and changing my approach numerous times. In the end, my agent failed to sell my manuscript to a publisher, and we parted company. So, even if you have agency representation, it isn’t a guarantee of anything.

By a very convoluted route, I eventually got published by a smaller publisher, and then, after the success of my first book, I secured a contract with HarperCollins (HC), where I remain. However, I also self-publish, so I straddle both worlds, and without a doubt, I would not have made a success of self-publishing without applying what I learned working with traditional publishers. They also do stuff you won’t like. They might ask you to make BIG changes to the story. They might ask you to change the title, or they might design a cover you don’t like. These can be things authors find difficult to accept

Through a local writing group in Edinburgh, I met Lynne, who is a literary agent, and we now meet for coffee every so often. Whilst she says she “would never, ever represent me as I’d be hard work,” – which I choose to take as a compliment – she does share quite a lot of insight with me

So, here are some common mistakes that authors make that she has told me about:

QUERYING AN AGENT WHO DOES NOT REPRESENT YOUR BOOK’S GENRE

Lynne represents all kinds of romance authors, excluding Romantasy. This week, she has had 12 crime thrillers, 15 romantasy, 10 apocalyptic thrillers (there are a lot of these just now – maybe to do with the times we’re living in), and 3 werewolf/billionaire manuscripts appear in her inbox. These get an automatic rejection.

NO ELEVATOR PITCH

Lynne gets about 100-150 submissions a week, but only a handful have an elevator pitch. She and other agents look for these. When you are inundated with submissions, being able to see what the story is about in two or three short sentences – preferably fewer – is a real boon. Craft a good elevator pitch, and you’re more likely to get the rest of your submission read by an agent.

AN ELONGATED QUERY FULL OF WAFFLE

It must be no more than 250-300 words, including the elevator pitch, the story synopsis, and comparison titles (Comps). You can add a bit more about your personal stuff at the bottom. If the agent gets that far, they’ll want to know a bit about you. (see notes later).

COMPS – 2-3 MAXIMUM

Any more than that and they’ll think you don’t know what you’re writing about, and also – use bestselling books. The agent is not going to go and Google an obscure book by a Hungarian writing literary fiction in Russian.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Whilst, as noted above, they want to know you, they want to know your writing experience, and a little bit of detail. They don’t need or want to know you have a Labrador called Dougal, three children under six, all of whom are super clever, and that you weave flax into cat slippers in your spare time.

FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS

Don’t think because you think your story is wonderful, that you can break the rules. If the agents ask for the manuscript pages to be the first three chapters in 12pt New Roman script – don’t send them the middle three chapters in 14pt Baskerville Hound. If they ask for the first 10k words, don’t send them 5k or 12k words. I know this sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many authors think they’re entitled to break the rules.

TOUTING YOUR LOW-SELLING SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK

They are NOT interested in books you have already published yourself unless you have sold tens of thousands of copies. Colleen Hoover, Andy Weir, and others were successful at landing traditional contract for their previously self-published book, but those guys were selling books by the thousands, so that is different. If your self-published book is selling by the bucket load, they might be interested – but I’d have to ask: if you’re doing that well, why do you need an agent? And if you are looking at another angle (Film/Gaming Rights), what kind of agent are you looking for?

TURNING UP ON AN AGENT’S DOORSTEP

This has happened to Lynne on several occasions and, as well as being very creepy, doing that will not endear you to your prospective agent. Nor will delivering flowers, chocolates, hampers, or getting your cute five-year-old daughter to hand-deliver your manuscript, wrapped in gold wrapping paper, to the door make her change her mind.

Lynne receives over 7,000 submissions a year. Of these, nearly a quarter are rejected due to the above mistakes. Many are also binned because it is obvious that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has written the query letter, and often the rest of the manuscript. Most of the others are rejected because the story is not strong enough – the voice is not original, or, as sometimes happens, an author has had the manuscript professionally edited and the editor has removed the author’s voice. I queried Lynne about this, and she said, “A voice is more than a style of writing and more than the words on the page; it’s the way the whole thing is pulled together, and whilst hard to put my finger on, I know it when I see it.”

Last year, Lynne took on 12 new clients – one a month. She reckons that only 50% of those new clients ever make it to publication with a traditional publisher. Remember the cliché: It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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• BEWARE! How to Determine if a “Literary Agent” is Legit or a Crook
• Should You Rewrite Your Entire Book Just Because One So-Called Literary Agent Says You Should?
• Study Potential Literary Agents As Thoroughly As You Believe They’re Studying You By Damaria Senne

David Atkinson is an Edinburgh-based writer. His first Romantic Comedy, Love Byte, published by Buried River Press, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelist Association award. The follow-up book, SQUEEZED, was well received, as was The Second Life of Nathan Jones, published by Harper Collins. Future Proof was released in late 2023 and has amassed over 4700 great Amazon reviews, over 7 million KU page reads, and over 100,000 physical sales. The follow-up, Future Perfect, will be out early next year, and his next romantic comedy, Quiet Kisses, will be published by HarperCollins in spring 2027. David lives in Edinburgh with his wife, two teenage daughters and a mad labrador called Bea. You can connect with David on Facebook. 

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