How I Got My Agent + Book Deal
Procrastination finally lost the battle, and here I am with the compulsory ‘how I got my agent and book deal’ post. However, a warning before you begin – this will be a lengthy post because (a) two seperate topics are involved and (b) I tend to go on tangents. The latter happens often in conversation, so of course this habit transfers over to the written word. If you can believe it, this is also the summarised version.
So, many apologies in advance.
While I was in the querying trenches, I devoured these posts, hoping to find some kind of magical answer on exactly how I could get a literary agent. Unfortunately, you quickly come to realise that they aren’t how-to manuals because each writer’s experience will be vastly different from another’s. They’re more so a reflective piece than anything else, and mine will be too. So, for any aspiring authors, I just want to say – I understand. I get the lowkey anxiety when you send off a query, and the highkey dejection that comes with a pass (or even no response at all). And I hope you’ll get your breakthrough one day.
Now, to tell you how I got my agent, I should probably tell you how I wrote The Prince Without Sorrow (hereafter called TPWS for efficiency’s sake).
Well, how was that I basically sat on my desk chair and typed away on a laptop, so let me rephrase – this is going to be about the when and the why.
- beginning -
Back in ye olde days of 2020, I was in my fourth year of dental school. Fourth year is a placement year, but any hope of doing said placements were dashed when COVID-19 hit. Naturally, like most university students, we were sent home for months on end. And what did I do in these months? Diddly squat. Zoom lectures. Zoom catchups. The occasional zoom movie night. Zoom everything.
I did, however, start writing again. It was something I did often from primary school all the way till the end of high school. To be clear, writing wasn’t something I did back then with the intention of getting published. First of all, I was a child. No, writing was a hobby, and a fun one at that. Stress-relieving, in a way. And honestly, the thought of becoming an author never crossed my mind back then. It seemed almost…unattainable? Also, my favourite genre is fantasy, and all my favourite authors seemed to be from the US or the UK. My tiny brain registered that information and just assumed it wasn’t a thing I could do in Australia.
(I was, of course, very wrong. Making assumptions without valid proof is bad, kids.)
Once I began studying dentistry, though, this hobby of mine immediately vanished. Dental school, personally, was full-on (and also gave me stress) so I just stopped writing. Strange, considering it was a form of stress relief, but I can’t explain it. It was difficult to come back from a 3-hour lecture, go to pre-clinic, come back, study for hours on end, and then muster up enough creative energy to write make-believe. Maybe it was laziness. Maybe it was the iron deficiency. Either way, it was a no.
(For the people who can – honestly, I applaud you. I simply can’t relate.)
Months of doing not much during lockdown made me think creatively again. I finished a portal fantasy novel that I’d started in high school during the first few months of lockdown. This novel will never see the light of day. It was such an absolute dumpster fire of a book that even Oscar the Grouch wouldn’t claim to love such trash. However, I’m thankful that I wrote it because once my head was emptied of that story, ideas for The Prince Without Sorrow came trickling in.
I don’t remember the exact day and date, but I do remember what I was doing. Out on a government-mandated walk one sunny day, I recalled this random little project I did in school about ‘good people’. My dad had been like, ‘hey, this dude Ashoka the Great existed, maybe look into him’.
Emperor Ashoka’s name wasn’t unfamiliar to me: I’d heard of him because he was a notable figure in Buddhist history, but that was where my knowledge ended. Researching had me finding out that before he was called Dharmashoka (Ashoka the Pious), he was known as Chandashoka (Ashoka the Cruel). Like, that’s a 0 to 100 switch in epithets. And the more I read (which wasn’t much – knowledge of Ashoka and the Mauryan Empire comes from limited sources), the more it seemed to me that fact and myth were inextricably linked when it came to the emperor. Legends were recalled as history – something to be cautioned against. This was what initially sparked my interest.
Then came a whole lot of what-ifs. What if I created a character loosely inspired by his ‘bad to good’ arc? What if it was reversed? What if it was set in a completely different world - a fantasy? What if there were witches? Spirits? Magic? What if one witch had her whole life destroyed by the monarchy and wanted nothing more than to burn it to the ground – yadda, yadda. You get the point. This was how Ashoka and Shakti wandered in. I’m sure other writers can attest to this, but whenever characters are born, some of them are insistent. They won’t leave your head. In fact, they’re in there all the time and refuse to vacate until their story is told. Ashoka and Shakti were exactly like that. Not that I minded – they were pretty good company.
Podcasts were on in the background for much of 2020. There was one in particular that I enjoyed listening to (88 Cups of Tea) where authors were interviewed about their writing and querying process. I have to credit 88 Cups for making me realise that, hey, I could? Publish? A book? Which was all well and good, but to reiterate my earlier point - each writer’s story is different to another’s. Some have agents offering representation within a week. For others, it takes years. Sometimes, you may have to abandon a project you really loved because it just wasn’t getting any attention, and move onto the next idea. You come to understand that it’s both timing and luck.
Anyway, I got the initial idea for TPWS in late October of 2020, and finished drafting it around late March 2021. Because we also resumed clinical placements by the start of the new year, my writing time was reduced. This time, however, I kept at it. I didn’t want to lose my love of writing again. During this period, I also joined an online writing group (hello, Writer’s Block). Writer friends are amazing. They understand the joys and frustrations of drafting, the often debilitating levels of procrastination, and the anxiety of being in the querying trenches. They are all a bunch of talented, wonderful humans, and I wouldn’t have had the motivation to start (or finish) The Prince Without Sorrow without them.
- querying -
As aforementioned, I finished drafting TPWS in 2021. Edited it twice. Searched up and created a list of literary agents on Querytracker (an absolute godsend, I tell you) whose manuscript wish list matched mine well enough.
(To the uninitiated, when a writer queries an agent, they need to make sure that what they’re sending is what the agent wants to see. For example, there will be no point querying a cyberpunk novel to an agent whose speciality is self-help. Or memoir. Also – a literary agent should NOT ask for payment to read your work and/or represent you. That is called a scam. If this ever happens, run away and don’t look back.)
I queried in batches to avoid immediate disappointment, and yet a steady stream of rejections came, with only a few requesting at least a partial manuscript request. I got discouraged, wondering what the hell I was doing with my life, doing all this in my final year of dental school and adding unnecessary stress. I had clinic. I needed to get my competencies. There were final year exams. Vivas. I needed to find a job for the next year. To relieve said anxiety, I ended up leaving TPWS alone. Then, I did the dumb thing and jumped to a new story, this time a YA contemporary that I drafted in 6-ish months (think She’s the Man x The School for Scandal). Don’t ask me why I do these things. It was partially because I had now rediscovered writing as a form of stress-relief, and partially for shits and giggles. Anyway, I queried that manuscript too, and even though it got more full requests from agents, I was ultimately told that it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Which, fair. Publishing is very subjective.
Come 2022, I officially graduated and could officially pull teeth and tell people to brush twice a day. And come 2022, Ashoka and Shakti were still in my head. They just wouldn’t let go. Pests, really (and I say this with all the love in the world).
Because those two gremlins refused to budge, I revisited TPWS with renewed vigour. Now, I do not love re-reading my own work. Most of the time, it’s because I will find faults in everything. It’s best summed up as:
This habit has its advantages and disadvantages. It’s like you hate yourself and you don’t while you’re reviewing your writing. Needless to say, I completed an additional, bigger revision. Fun fact: TPWS originally had 3 POVs. With some mild despair, I cut it down to two. Then, around July, I decided to send it off to more literary agents whose manuscript wish lists fit what I had in my story. There was a better response this time around – more full manuscript requests than rejections.
Around mid-September 2022, I received an email from an agent who had received my query from another colleague who thought it would be more up her alley. She liked the opening pages and requested the full, which I sent through. She emailed back around a week later saying that she loved TPWS and wanted to hop on a zoom call to discuss it. We set up a date and time (time zone problems) and I don’t know how else to explain it other than I got a good gut feeling. I’d initially pitched it as a young adult fantasy, but she thought it leaned more adult. This agent’s editorial notes, including what she liked about the story and what could be improved, was almost like, subconsciously what I wanted to hear? If that made any sense. It probably doesn’t, but that’s fine.
I woke up on September 29th with an email from said agent that read: offer of representation, and promptly dropped dead from shock.
(I am JK. JK is me.)
From there, I emailed the other literary agents who I had queried, and who had my full manuscript, awaiting their response. This was when my two old friends anxiety and self-doubt came barging in. Should I even do this? Is this feasible? What if this doesn’t work out? What if my story doesn’t sell? What if, what if, WHAT IF. Self-doubt proved to be more of a hindrance than anxiety, but at some point, I kicked both emotions out the door because they were about as useful as a vestigial organ.
I was given the standard time of two weeks to make up my mind, but to be honest, I already had. Sometimes, you have to go with your gut. Sometimes, you have to side with logic. But, when both gut feeling and logic are working in tandem, you know it’s a good sign. This was why I signed with my brilliant agent, Maddy Belton, at the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. She was as excited about TPWS and Ashoka and Shakti as I was, and honestly, the decision was a no-brainer! Without her, this would not have been possible.
- submission -
After signing with Maddy, we spent about 5 months revising the manuscript. We did two rounds of edits before going out on sub. Truth be told, my submission experience happened in the blink of an eye. It was quicker than I thought it would be, and I’m baffled by it to this day. Flabbergasted, I tell you. FLUMMOXED.
We went on submission in late March 2023. Submission is when you and your agent have made your story into the best possible version it could be, and they send it off to editors. Again, this part of the writing experience is highly individualistic. You’re looking at weeks to months for a response from an editor, and there are instances when your manuscript dies on sub - i.e.: it doesn’t garner interest from editors. In that case, you and your agent can make the decision to revise and try again, or work on a different project.
Coincidentally, the submission period overlapped with my first solo trip to Japan, for which I’d managed to accrue two weeks’ worth of paid leave (yay).
I landed at Narita Airport on a sunny Thursday morning (needing a shower, and proper sleep but alas, hotel check-in wasn’t until 3:00 PM) and during the train ride to Tokyo Station, opened my email where Maddy had informed me that we’d officially gone on sub! *Cue internal screaming*
The manuscript was sent to US and UK publishers under both adult and YA crossover categories. I was also informed that the sub process could take a while. In the meantime, the advice was to focus on something else, maybe a new project. To be honest, I dimly registered that, yes, I should be writing something new, but also my mind was already going to be distracted for the next two weeks because ~ holiday ~. Add to that the fact I’m a cynic by nature, and it wasn’t too hard to keep my expectations firmly at bay.
The next morning, on Friday, I was navigating my way to the Meiji shrine when I received a rather cryptic email from Maddy asking if I could schedule a phone call with her on Saturday. Curiosity very much activated, we set a suitable time, and I went about the rest of my day without much fanfare. I visited the Meiji shrine. I found a cute little flower tea shop. I bought some lucky charms.
Saturday (Day 3), I left Tokyo and arrived in Nagoya. Maddy called in the afternoon and said that she had gotten some great responses to the manuscript. One editor had actually read TPWS overnight and wanted to pre-empt the trilogy.
!
!!
!!!!!
(Again - I am Nick. Nick is me.)
My excitement? Overflowing. My command of the English language? More questionable than it normally was. My squeaking? Inhuman. Like, this was so unexpected and mind-blowing. My dumb, cynical ass had not expected this at all. In fact, I’d originally predicted twiddling my thumbs for months before we would receive a response, but this had been so quick!
Immediately after the phone call with Maddy, I contacted my mum and dad who were SHOOK but also excited. I think we spent over an hour just talking about it, and I’m pretty sure that my inconsistent squealing may have deeply confused the room next door. I texted some close friends who were thrilled. I texted my brother, who congratulated me in the most sibling-like way imaginable. Case in point:
Since there were multiple editors who were interested, we went to auction. This is the process where publishers bid for your book. No paddle sticks were involved, though that would’ve been extremely entertaining. Rather, everything was done through email. The first and second round offers occurred over the remainder of my holiday, which went swimmingly.
The night before I was set to fly back to Melbourne, I hopped on a Zoom meeting with some of the offering editors. It was truly one of the most exciting but bizarre nights in my life. Like, here I was in a hotel room on my last day in Tokyo, half excited, half delirious, packing a tonne of stuff into my suitcase and meeting with editors. Because they liked my book and wanted to publish it. Wild, I tell you. Wild. All the editors were amazing, and I loved listening to their different, marvellous visions for TPWS, but there was one in particular whom I clicked with the most. So, when it finally came time for me to choose… *drum roll please*:
And now, here I am. The Prince Without Sorrow – the first book in The Obsidian Throne trilogy – will be published by Harper Voyager UK in March 2025. I’m thrilled to be publishing with this wonderful team! It’s all very exciting but also terrifying at the same time. It’s like birthing a child and then showing it off for everyone to see. Figuratively, of course.
I have definitely skipped and/or missed things, but this is the best non-summary summary I could write up. As you can no doubt tell, I’m terrible at them. To this day, whenever someone asks me to explain my book, the answer always begins with, “um…it’s a fantasy?” BUT, if I could leave you with one of its major themes, it would be this: the corruption of a self you once thought to be unshakeable.
(I’m making it sound like a thesis paper, it’s really not - I’m a dentist, not a philosopher)
I can’t wait for people to read about my very messy characters who would really benefit from therapy. If I managed to confuse anyone (which I probably have), feel free to ask. More news to come as the year progresses!
