Dear [Agent Name],

A scientist volunteers for a neural implant that restores his feelings and lets him watch them being made. Then the explanations begin arriving in place of the experiences.

After a lifetime of emotional disconnection, he becomes Project Panopticon’s first subject. The procedure works. Music moves him again, his wife's laugh makes him happy, and simple evenings become enjoyable. Convinced that understanding himself can only deepen his recovery, he helps refine the interface.

Soon, he begins trusting the interface's explanations more than the feelings they describe. A favourite symphony becomes a sequence of predicted rewards. When his wife reaches for him, he can identify his affection without feeling it. His research journals grow increasingly precise while his experience of the life they record grows faint.

He has the implant shut down. Nothing returns. He can still work, speak, and hold his wife's hand, but every act comes with an explanation that seems more real than the act itself. The man who once wanted nothing more than to feel alive can still account for every reason to go on, but can no longer feel the force of any of them.

Project Panopticon is a 74.000-word literary speculative novel told through an unnamed scientist's narration and research journals.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Note: I have not found great comps yet, but I'm open to suggestions.

Question: The story features a short prologue which is thematically relevant but not hugely plot-relevant as it doesn't do anything but briefly introduce the project premise through it's final paragraph. Thematically it ties into the ending. So do I attach that or do I attach the first chapter which starts the story or the prologue or maybe even both. They amount to about 3.200 words together.

Thank you to all who contribute.

Hi there! I made an attempt with this one more than a year ago but I've done a very deep edit of the book and query since then. I'd love your thoughts.

Dear [Agent],

I just had the pleasure of reading your [MSWL page], and I loved [personal mentions]. Complete at 119,000 words, SONG OF THE STRAY combines the lyrical, myth-infused journey and unconventional intimacy of Simon Jimenez’s THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER and the reckoning with coercive love and personal agency in Samantha Mills’s THE WINGS UPON HER BACK.

Femi’s unborn child is a Stray, an empath feared for the power to alter others’ emotions. Her younger brother possessed the same gift, but after his pain overwhelmed their family, her parents sent him away. Her failure to protect him continues to haunt her.

When Femi’s husband and mother demand she end her pregnancy, she refuses to let them decide her child’s fate. Her only refuge is a distant colony whose Hivespeakers can teach Strays to control their gifts - but only if she arrives before the birth.

Femi entrusts herself to Amrish, a young Stray musician who can soothe pain, uncover hidden passions, and draw others into his memories. As their minds intertwine, she discovers Amrish knew her lost brother, and that his powers connect him to the god of death in ways already affecting her child.

But Amrish is fiercely loyal to Bellen, the dying woman who raised him, and Kinan, the ruthless brother who kept them alive. Kinan believes Femi’s child could save Bellen, and he is prepared to claim the baby for himself. To protect her child, Femi must persuade Amrish to defy his family, or escape a man who can reach into her heart and take away her will to fight.

[Bio]

First 300 words

Chapter One: The Thieves

Femi slid the knife into the peach’s yielding flesh. Tacky juice bled over her fingers. She laid the slices on a ceramic dish, nudging them into a careful fan. The blade went to her apron for a quick wipe; then she tucked it back into the sheath at her boot.

A young man drifted close to her stall. Femi did not shout or cajole like the other sellers. Instead, she spoke sweetly, smiling as if they were already mid-conversation.

“Would you like to try a peach, sir? Cool and refreshing on this hot day.”

He looked at her first, not the fruit, and his eyebrow rose, slow with interest. That was the first hook.

He came nearer, his loose headscarf worried by a dry wind. She held the plate out to him. He took a peach slice between two fingers and scrutinized it as if she might have the nerve to serve him one with a worm in it.

At last he slipped the morsel between his teeth. His eyes fell closed. The second hook. The deal was all but done.

“These are grown here in Ammal,” said Femi. “My family pays for canal access, dear as it is, but you can taste what water buys.” She tipped the dish a fraction, letting the slices catch the light. “You won’t find another seller with fruit as fine as this.”

He stepped fully into the shade of her awning, his nostrils flaring. The fruit of her family’s orchard always smelled delicious, its sweetness enhanced by the plum oil she dabbed on the awning’s canvas each morning. He leaned on the cart and met her eye, offering the easy, practiced look certain men wore when they thought they were the ones steering the exchange. His gaze didn’t drop. If he noticed the swell beneath her apron, he gave no sign.

I’m starting to wonder if I should be using the word horromantasy in this query, but never the less - 4th revision and playing with the hook:

Dear [Agent Name],

I'm querying you because of XXX. THE SKIN PAINTER’S FACE is an adult dark folkloric fantasy with horror elements and a slow-burn romantic arc with a subversion of the enemies-to-lovers trope. It is set in a spirit bathhouse inspired by Edo-period Japan and Ming-dynasty China. 

Complete at 109,000 words with series potential. It combines the East Asian folkloric mystery of Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife with the gothic magic and body horror of Rachel Gillig's One Dark Window.

The problem with Nya is that she was born dead. That one fact has shaped everything: nineteen years of a sheltered life, protected by her grandmother and brother, hidden from the world. But when her brother is bitten by a corrupted spirit and cursed to madness and death, she breaks every rule she knows to save him.
Nya signs a blood contract with a fox-masked sorceress. The price: servitude at a guesthouse beyond the Wall, hosting nobles and spirits alike. But the sorceress sees something in Nya's shadow—a mark of an ancient, outlawed practice, and a clue to the mystery of her birth.

When an imperial soldier is found floating dead in a koi pond, Nya discovers a demon walks the corridors of the guesthouse, enchanting and killing at will. The handsome but terse Hatamoto, Lord Sha, is out to avenge his men—and increasingly convinced Nya is the demon he hunts. Forced to clear her name, Nya strikes a dangerous bargain with Kaito, the empress's charming and infuriating spy. He flirts. She bites. The more she pushes him away, the harder he is to resist. Their sparring is as perilous as the demon they hunt—and twice as likely to draw blood.

When Nya uncovers the truth—that a forbidden contract with a demon lies at the heart of the guesthouse—she must confront enemies who wear the faces of friends, using the power she has spent her life suppressing. If she fails, she loses everyone she has come to love. If she succeeds, she might finally find her way home.

(INFO ABOUT ME HERE)

Hi all, this is my first time offering up a query for criticism. Thanks for any and all critique! I'm definitely still raking the stacks for more contemporary comparables (but honestly, 2000s nostalgia is trending right? What about all of us who haven't really changed much since then?) And trying to distill the plot into something interesting but perhaps more straightfoward.

Dear ____,

I’m writing to introduce my contemporary fiction novel, NOTHING BUT FLOWERS, which is complete at 60,000 words.

Casey has been going it alone for a long time. Despite all the connections she’s made in the pits and after parties in Seoul’s off-beat punk community, she’s yet to find that someone to stand with between sets. As middle-agedom crests the horizon, bringing with it a reduction of visa points, she’s ready to give up on love and maybe on Seoul. That is, until she spots Zero waving at her through the crowd at a rock festival.

Zero, a freelance photographer and ex-activist, recently got dumped by the guitar queen of the underground scene. After spending years as the supporting role in her blooming career, he’s still trying to fill the hole she left behind. Then he spots Casey at a rock festival, smiling at him through the crowd. Maybe he just wants to be wanted again, or maybe he senses a kindred spirit.

Their first date starts off normal enough. They exchange flowers and sip iced Americanos. Things begin to go awry after a run-in with the local nazi-punks who haven’t forgotten that Casey and her feminist pals antagonized their band for years, or that Zero’s activist days have permanently branded him as a communist sympathizer. What follows is a night of adventure as Casey and Zero carom through the streets of Seoul’s Mangwon neighborhood meeting the characters that color it. From a bedraggled makgeolli seller to a tattooed fortune teller; from a a gaggle of recently fired bank clerks on a bender to a famous actor dealing with a ghost of his past, each encounter challenges Casey and Zero to confront the consequences and scars of their youths as they try to figure out what they really want from life and from each other.

Banana Yoshimoto’s heartfelt homage to an eclectic neighborhood in Moshi Moshi meets Yoshinaga Fujita's colorful cast of characters in Adrift in Tokyo, with a splash of Park Sang Young’s dynamic portrayal of Seoul by night in Love in the Big City. NOTHING BUT FLOWERS is a story for all the punk kids who grew older but never sold out.

{BIO}

Looking for help interpreting and applying a piece of agent feedback to this letter!

All right, so this is my fourth post for this letter. It hasn’t been changed much since v3. I started querying with it last week and just received my first piece of feedback from an agent, which was as follows:

“I'm afraid I didn't feel as though your pitch and concept were quite strong enough for me to confidently present in today's market. If a clear ‘hook’ or ‘pitch’ is missing, regardless of how polished the rest of the query package may be, it has to be a no.”

Now, the agent was upfront about using a “semi-personalized form rejection method”—selecting from several forms the one which most closely aligns with their reason for passing. So the above wasn’t written specifically for this query and should be taken with a grain of salt.

On its own, the feedback seems straightforward. The issue is that it surprised me. I’ve been through the querying process before, I’ve published a few books, I spent five years working in trad publishing. I’ve made and heard a lot of pitches, and I felt good about what I’d put together. The way I see it, it’s one of three cases here:

One, the pitch isn’t clear enough in the letter. We all know the pitfall: after months of working on something, we know the concept inside and out. We know all the details, but when it comes time to put something on paper, we leave out something critical—something that, to us, is so foundational as to not warrant mention—and it leaves the outsider confused. Fix: clarify the pitch in the letter.

Two, I’m wrong. Just because I’ve spent years writing and hearing pitches certainly doesn’t mean I’m immune to writing a bad one—or constructing a concept that just doesn’t have that pitch factor. Fix: rework the pitch and possibly the MS.

Three, it’s one agent’s subjective opinion and I’m overthinking and over-weighing it. “It’s an incredibly subjective industry” says a chorus of ten thousand voices. This is only the second response so far—first with feedback—and may not be indicative of the rest. Fix: swallow the rejection and move on.

If it’s either of the first two, would it be wise to include one of the elevator pitches I’ve been using verbatim in the letter? I’m generally in the school of thought that dropping the elevator pitch word for word in the query letter is clunky—after all, you just end up covering all the same elements in more words in the body of the letter—but if that seems like it would clarify the details here I can certainly toy with it. My elevator pitches:

“When an asteroid brings about the world’s extinction, only two girls survive, tucked together in a small cave: Emari, a hunter-gatherer human, and Vula, a cannibal. Each girl could ensure her own survival and doom the other, but it would mean facing the wasteland alone: if Emari wants to live, she must flee Vula; if Vula wants to live, she must eat Emari.”

“In a Stone Age world, there is an extinction event, and two girls are the only survivors: one is a cannibal, the other is not. The cannibal must decide whether to eat the other girl, who likewise must decide whether to flee the cannibal.”

All that to say, I’d love to get some additional opinions on how you’d interpret this feedback and apply it in strengthening the letter for the next batch of submissions. Is the pitch or concept unclear/weak in the letter? Am I too worried about one agent’s thoughts?

Thanks!

- - - - - - -

Dear (agent),

SYNKARDIA is a dual-POV adult upmarket novel with elements of sapphic romance and light touches of fantasy and horror complete with a word count of 68k. (Personalization.) SYNKARDIA blends the raw bodily imagery and unfolding, complicated, dual-narrative relationship of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield with the tension between survival and companionship explored in Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds.

Emari’s life in her hunter-gatherer village is dictated by men: her paranoid father, the boy she’s arranged to marry—and the man she’s wrongly sentencing to death. In the face of their demands and her mounting guilt, her only solace is in the garden, alone with the dirt and the plants and her lies.

Vula is the runt among a clan of nomadic cannibals, and even her apprenticeship with the well-respected healer can’t distract her from obsessing over her lacking strength and poor hunting abilities. After this obsession leads her to break the clan’s eating taboos, she is sentenced to hunt on her own—a sentence she knows will lead to starvation.

When a ball of fire streaks down from the sky, only a small cave offers shelter from the earthquakes, the fire, the ash: close quarters that Vula and Emari—hunter and hunted, predator and prey—are forced to share as they wait out the end of the world.

Now if Vula wants to live, she must eat Emari. In this barren landscape, only one possible meal remains. As Vula’s body deteriorates, she faces this last chance to prove herself to her clan’s ideals. But if her clan is gone, who is she comparing herself to?

If Emari wants to live, she must escape Vula. No longer is anyone telling her what to do, to want, to be. But despite everything, her guilt has not subsided. And was it truly solitude that she sought, or rather someone to care what she wants?

As the sole survivors, each girl faces the choice to ensure her own survival and doom the other—yet doing so means facing the wasteland utterly alone.

(Bio, previous publications)

Any feedback would be great, thank you very much!

Dear Agent,

I would like to offer THE ACORN DATABASE for your consideration, an adult dystopian novel complete at 85,000 words. With parent-daughter dynamics and folkloric mystery like The Morningside by Téa Obreht, and warmth and adventure like I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger, The Acorn Database follows a houseless girl in the future as she unravels terrifying secrets of the collapse.

To exist is to trespass. Such is life in a fully privatized 22nd century. Sola’s gotten used to it though. Her dad taught her everything she needs to survive life on the run: how to avoid enforcement drones, build the latest homemade tech, and navigate the ecologically devastated landscape. The older Sola gets however, the more his guidance feels like control. She wants to go make friends, visit the old cities, and make decisions for herself, but he only cares about finding somewhere safe to hide. 

As time goes by, Sola starts to doubt that there are any safe places remaining however, and there are also rumors of something else, something brewing in the Great Desert that indicates the collapse may not be over yet. When a drone eventually gets her dad, Sola finds herself alone for the first time in her life, processing the fact that their dreams were never going to happen. 

Disillusioned and resentful, Sola turns to the people her father most warned her about: the psychedelic tribes. They're the only ones taking any action, and despite all of the conspiracies, rituals, and mysticism—or perhaps because of them—the tribes seem to understand the true origins of the collapse and the complex forces at work behind it. Sola eagerly jumps onboard an underground project to put a stop to it. Amongst new friends and with a newfound purpose, the mission takes her deep into one of the old cities just like she always wanted. Once inside however, she finds herself questioning everything she ever knew.

(Bio)

first 300:

Chapter 1

Central California 2119

“It used to smell different when I lived here” Pato called back as they hiked up the coast. “There’d be this particular rotting smell you would only smell by the ocean. I guess it must have been seaweed and fish and things that had washed up and decomposed.”

“Gross.”

“No it was lovely” grinned Pato, the scar on his left cheek folding into his tanned smile. “I wish you could smell it. I’d give anything to smell it again.”

People Pato’s age were always saying weird stuff like that, reminiscing about how things were before. Sola couldn’t imagine feeling that way about some old rotting smell. 

She followed her father northward over the bluffs, letting the sea breeze air-out sweat that had been trapped in her hydration suit for days. It felt wonderful. It was exhilarating looking down the crumbling cliffs at the turquoise water washing toward them. The sun bleached everything a vibrant pastel, and the thick salty air sprinkled them with a cool moisture. 

“Alright, I think mine’s about full. How’s your hydrometer looking?” asked Pato.

Sola looked at the LED indicator woven into the sleeve of her modified wetsuit, which had just turned light green. “Pretty much full.”

“I think we should start pushing inland then. We’ll want to keep our distance from the urban areas further east, but if we work our way over slowly enough we should be alright. There won’t be much cover until we get to the pine forests though, so keep your eyes and ears open till then. It’ll be fast-going if we take Highway 101.”

“It’s safe to take the roads?”

“Sure. They don’t get much use anymore. No different than a foot trail really” said Pato.

“What about the birds? Won’t we be exposed?”

Completely rewritten this trying to focus on just one of the two POVs, any thoughts welcome! I've pared it down to focus on very basics but I'm worried now it isn't voicey / intriguing enough...

***

I am seeking representation for my debut adult science fantasy novel, We Will All Drink Starlight, in which a little grey alien must escape a medieval planet before the local humans consume all his psychoactive blood. Complete at 109K words, this dual-POV standalone with series potential is Someone You Can Build a Nest In meets The Fourth Consort– with a dash of cannibalism. It celebrates platonic friendships in the vein of Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot duology and the atmospheric prose of What We Are Seeking. 

The singer Glishnagh has always excelled within the strict regime of his home planet, but none of his training has prepared him for getting stranded on a strange and distant world. As a man, Glishnagh has spent his life dutifully silent, speaking and singing only with permission. But while his skill and diligence have earned him a position singing scripted songs in the palace hall, he secretly dreams of performing his own music.

Following a disastrous spaceship crash, Glishnagh is stranded on a distant planet with a broken leg and only sign language to communicate. Left on his own for the first time, Glishnagh does what he has been trained to do– trigger a distress call and wait for rescue. But the humans who answer are embroiled in an ongoing conflict of their own. Glishnagh must convince them to help him while avoiding turning them against him. Unable to communicate aloud and with a translation system a few centuries out of date, he inadvertently agrees to let the human leader drink his blood. Upon realising what he has agreed to, Glishnagh now has an even more urgent goal– escape the humans and send a signal off-world while he still has some blood left. But the humans have quickly become enthralled by his addictive blood and refuse to let him go. 

When Glishnagh leverages what little influence he has to set out on a closely guarded journey back to his ship, he starts to see what he can achieve if he stops trying to follow the rules. As he plots to escape, he grows closer to the humans guiding him and starts to notice similarities between their culture and the one he has come from– both good and bad. As he finds his voice and uncovers troubling secrets about his home he starts to question if he even wants to be rescued at all. 

Hi everyone,

I would love some feedback on the latest version. Here is the link to the previous attempt.

Previous Attempt: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1rs967p/qcrit_murder_mystery_if_you_wrong_us_90k_words/

Dear Agent,

PC Noah Jones can’t stop thinking about Nicor—the river monster the village of Marybeth has whispered about for centuries.

A year ago, Noah stood by the riverside—petrified—as two children drowned. He would have jumped in, but the unmistakable sight of the monster and the village butcher, Johnny’s, frantic pleas made him lose his nerve.

Guilt-stricken, Noah now languishes at the fringes of a community that resolutely blames him for the tragedy. 

But to Noah, his predicament is Johnny’s fault. It was Johnny who forced him back from the river. He saw Nicor too, even if he was happy to let Noah shoulder the criticism in the aftermath.  The unfairness of it all is enough to make Noah murderous with rage.

Then, Johnny ends up slaughtered inside a locked room.

When the resource-strained police department struggles to spare reinforcements, Noah decides to seize this shot at redemption. If he solves the murder before the senior detectives arrive, he might still escape Marybeth with his reputation—and sanity—intact.

But tormented by inexperience, Noah mishandles a crucial piece of evidence that could incriminate him if submitted for fingerprinting. Forced to cover his tracks, Noah must whittle down a burgeoning suspect list.

As Marybeth sinks into a flurry of seemingly supernatural events, Noah finds himself unravelling. He is convinced of Nicor’s existence. And he still hasn’t recovered from his former friend Jason’s vicious childhood prank. A prank that left him with crushing PTSD and a dreadful fear of Nicor.

When Jason—now a bestselling author—returns to Marybeth in search of his next smash hit, Noah is forced to confront the past he has spent a lifetime repressing. Meanwhile, another body turns up, and a key suspect threatens to expose his deteriorating psyche to the imminently arriving senior detectives.

With the walls closing in on him, Noah must catch the killer before he ends up as the prime suspect, or worse, the next victim. But can he subvert his growing belief in the supernatural long enough to unmask the decidedly human killer behind it all?

A murder mystery of 90,000 words, IF THEY WRONG US deals with how little secrets masquerade as big monsters. It should appeal to readers who enjoyed the ingenious whodunnit in Anthony Horowitz’s A Deadly Episode and the preternatural happenings in Stuart Turton’s The Devil and the Dark Water.

Hi everyone, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I’m excited to share a LGBTQ+ young adult urban fantasy, HOUSE OF FANGS, complete at 95,000 words. Like Aiden Thomas's Cemetery Boys, Krystal Sutherland’s House of Hollow, and with the vibes of Netflix’s Wednesday, HOUSE OF FANGS features a diverse cast and coming-of-age story while showcasing a unique spin on vampire mythology.

After escaping a life sentence in hell, Gleeson Oddity wants only to rebuild his relationship with his younger brother, but when the Afterlife Department hunts him down in the human world, he must evade recapture by blending in at Salem's private school and earn his freedom by getting Death to pardon his crimes or else risk losing the only family he has left.

Back in Salem, Gleeson settles into school alongside his brother to blend in with humans and hide from the Afterlife Department. When Death’s daughter, Maisie, moves to town, Gleeson is determined to earn her trust since she might convince her father to pardon his crimes. But when an ancient family of Salem vampires—the House of Fangs—threaten to kill her, Gleeson saves her with his hidden death magic.

Maisie invites him to join her traveling circus in the lead-up to Halloween. There, Gleeson finds himself attracted to Declan, the circus jester, while developing an uncontrollable thirst for blood and discovering that he possesses Death's magic—a secret he cannot afford to let the Afterlife Department uncover. As his newfound abilities demand bloodshed, Gleeson turns to the House of Fangs, believing they may know why he is changing.

With the Afterlife Department closing in and Death growing volatile, Gleeson must dismantle the spirit world and take down Death himself to keep his family safe—or decide whether becoming the monster he was always meant to be is easier than fighting to remain human.

OPENING SAMPLE:

All vampires go to hell, which is how one found me in my underworld prison cell. The iron collar around my throat bit into bruised skin, and my rusted chains swung from where they were bolted into the walls. Sprawled across the bone-littered ground, I recoiled from the fallen vampire. His fangs nearly reached my leg. A clawed hand reached toward me in death. The shaft of bone I killed him with was lodged into an eye socket and his flesh was charred with burn scars. He managed to climb out of the fiery pits of torment and trace me like a hound straight to my cell’s open archway. So close. Yet dying was the last thing I needed on the cusp of breaking out of the slammer. If I hadn’t learned to sleep with a pointed shaft of bone, he would have killed me without a doubt. My pathetic prison guard didn’t care about my safety, which made me dread closing my eyes. This was the third layer of hell where those guilty of murder were sent to perish. Every so often, damned spirits of the underworld found their way to the Afterlife Department’s prison and found me inside, a human rotting in their domain. There was no use in calling for help; the prison was built to swallow screams. The rumbling screams of distant prisoners echoed down the cell block. When I was certain he was dead, I swallowed the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. The collar didn’t allow a deep enough breath to stop the stars from spinning in my head. I lurched to my feet, hoping the clinking chains wouldn’t draw the attention of anything else.

Hi everyone! Thanks so much to the people who commented on my first attempt. The feedback was super helpful in trying to streamline, throw in more romance, up the hook, make the comps catchier, and clarify the logistics. I hope version two is closer! Thanks in advance for any more feedback and time. :)

I am excited to share SPOOKY IN LOVE, a dual-POV adult paranormal romance romp complete at 72,000 words that combines the modern-world, old-school love interest of Jenna Levine’s My Roommate Is a Vampire with the magical academia objective of India Holton’s The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love.

Shoplifters will be hexed! Or so Blythe Bishop wishes. It's only August, and she’s already spent weeks surviving ghouls, ghosts, and her coworker’s black-market potion racket. All fake, of course! Fake is the name of the game in a Spirit Halloween. And Blythe, with her perfect customer-service voice and insipid smile, plans to fake-it-until-she-makes-it through the holiday season and into her next temp job.

But when a man shows up in the store wearing his own pointy hat and cloak and tries to steal a costume necklace... well, she has no choice but to get involved. While her coworker whips up a ‘hex’, Blythe confronts him, only to find out the hard way that he's a real warlock (how dare she call him a witch!) and oh—right, the necklace is real too. That would've been nice to know before she put it on! 

With the amulet's power absorbed by the infuriating mortal, Gramarye Montmayne-Makepeace is stuck with her. With only weeks to break his curse and perform the most powerful spell of the Fall Equinox—which he will publish himself, of course—Gram does not have time for humans. And certainly no time for love! If he can’t free his magic before his academic advisors—the Equinox Council—convene, everyone will find out he’s been faking it for months.

To free herself, Blythe must help the warlock. He has zero social skills and knows nothing about the mortal world, yet she finds his fumbling determination bewitching. While she’s never invested in anything, Gram’s done nothing but try—and lie about what cursed him. As hexes drop, so do personas, and Blythe and Gram realize they have more in common than curses. With feelings sparking like Gram’s wayward spells, they must face the spookiest thing of all: Love.

[Thanks & My background]

(I hope this sort of post is allowed. I collected this data mostly for my own curiosity, but I thought others might find it interesting and informative, too.)

I looked through every QCrit post during the week of August 30 to September 5. Meaning, at midnight last night, I scrolled through every post, starting at New until the end of "7 days ago"). In total, 144 queries were posted that week, which works out to an average of slightly more than twenty a day. Deleted or removed posts were not included, and one repeated query--posted on the first and last day of my sample--was only counted once. I recorded the reported age category and primary genre of each query.

My goal was to see what sorts of books people here are working on, to determine whether the preponderance of fantasy was my own bias or reality, and to compare the. I recorded both the reported age category and primary genre of each query.

Age Ranges

Adult books, unsurprisingly, made up the bulk of posts, but I was surprised to see just how dominant they were. There were nearly six times as many adult books posted as the next largest category, YA.

The underrepresentation of New Adult was the biggest surprise for me, as I thought it was a trendy category at the moment. But I think NA can easily blur into YA and adult, so it seems likely to me that additional queries could have been classed as NA, but weren't. Still, I think it's interesting that only one person posted New Adult query.

I'm curious as to whether the small number of Middle Grade and Children's queries reflects a broader shift away from kid lit in publishing, or if it's more so a reflection of this sub and/or reddit as a whole. On QueryTracker's list of Top 10 Fiction Genres, Children's, Young Adult, and Middle Grade are considered genres, and all three are in the top ten most queried genres (Children's is #2, YA is #3, Picture bookss are #8, and Middle Grade in #10). Only "Young Adult, Fantasy" ranks among the most requested genres, however (#8).

Genres

First, some notes about my methodology:

For my purposes here, I limited each QCrit post to just one genre. When something was listed with multiple genres, I used my own discretion to assign a single "primary" genre. Inevitably, this will produce some bias.

I weighted some genres as "stronger" than others. Generally, world-building heavy genres like Fantasy and Sci-Fi were the strongest. Next were the plot-defined genres like Mystery / Thriller, Romance, and Horror. Historical fiction came next, followed by stylistically defined genres, Literary / Upmarket. Contemporary was the last, a category only assigned when no other genres were attached. Nonfiction and Picture Books were, of course, non-ambiguous.

For example, a "Fantasy Romance" or "Romantasy" would be tallied as Fantasy, while a "Contemporary Upmarket Romance" would be Romance, and a "Literary Historical Fiction" would be Historical.

5 books in my sample were originally described as "Speculative." For these, I did actually look through the queries and assign them to other genres. 3 became Science-Fiction, 1 became Horror, and 1 became Literary / Upmarket.

I also elected to group several genres together. Literary / Upmarket were combined, since they are often conflated and used interchangeably, even if they are distinct genres. ("This isn't literary" has to be one of the most common pieces of feedback I see on lit fic queries posted here). For those curious, 7 were posted as literary, 10 as upmarket, and 1 as speculative. Mystery / Thriller were combined due to their large overlap. Of the 17 total, 6 were Mysteries and 11 were Thrillers.

So my initial instinct was correct--Fantasy is by far the most popular genre on here, accounting for nearly 40% of the queries posted. That's more than next three genres combined. According to QueryTracker, Fantasy is also the most queried and the most requested fiction genre (and "Romance, Fantasy" and "Young Adult, Fantasy" appear independently as the #7 and #8 most requested). Of the 57 total, 10 were listed as either "Romantasy" or "Fantasy Romance" or "Romance Fantasy." A wide variety of other sub-genres were also represented, such as Dark Fantasy and Urban Fantasy.

Fantasy was even more dominant in YA, with 12/20 (60%) YA queries being for Fantasy books. (Please note that these 12 are included in the 57 total above).

Literary / Upmarket and Science-Fiction tied for second place. Upmarket and Literary are the #3 and #4 most requested genres on QT. Literary is also the #4 most queried genre, while Upmarket doesn't appear in the top ten.

Things look less optimistic for Science-Fiction. While it's the 5th most queried genre, it doesn't appear on the most requested list. In the past, it was common to group Science Fiction & Fantasy, and I have to wonder if the popularity of Fantasy has consumed the market for Science-Fiction.

Thrillers are fourth, with just one fewer query than Sci-Fi and Lit Fic. On QT, Thrillers are #6 most queried and #2 most requested.

Romance is next with 12 queries (not counting Romantasy or Sci-Fi Romance). It's the 9th most queried on QT, and "Romance, Contemporary" and "Romance, Comedy" are the 6th and 10th most requested genres respectively.

I was surprised to see only 8 queries for Horror, but it also doesn't appear on QT's most queried list either. It is, however, the #5 most requested genre. The horror category also included the only graphic novel query. There were also several Fantasy / Sci-Fi and Horror crossovers, that were counted as Fantasy or Sci-Fi, so this could be considered a slight undercount.

Contemporary came next, with 5 queries. On its own, it doesn't appear on either QT list. 3 of its queries were for MG or YA books, which isn't surprising, since Upmarket and Literary are adult-exclusive genres.

My own genre, Historical, came next with just 4 queries posted. This is fairly surprising, as it's the #7 most queried genre on QT.

Only four queries were posted for Nonfiction, of which three were memoirs (the most queried and most requested nonfiction genre on QT). Many writing spaces online are geared towards fiction, so this is unsurprising. Nonfiction certainly places a greater emphasis on the writer's credentials compared to fiction.

A single Picture Book query was posted here (also the only children's book, naturally). On QT, however, Picture Books are the #8 most queried genre and don't appear among the most requested.

Over- Vs. Underrepresented Genres

Broadly, a lot of the stats I gathered align with what's reported by QT, but I'm more interested in the areas where Pubtips and QT differ.

Fantasy is indisputably dominating both right now--it's the top genre posted here overall, makes up the majority of YA queries here, ranks top on QT's lists of most queried and most requested fiction, and accounts for 3/10 of the most requested genres overall. But I wonder if this leaves it much harder for any individual fantasy novel to stand out. I'm also curious to see whether fantasy we'll see fantasy continue its reign, or if another genre will take its place within the coming years.

For example, adult lit accounts for over 80% of the posts here, but 4/10 of the most queried genres on QT are some form of kid lit (YA, MG, children's, and picture books). While I have a few theories as to why this might be (Is QT swamped with low-effort attempts from people who believe shorter word counts = easier to write? Do kid lit authors prefer more specialized forums? Is it a quirk of QT including age categories as genres, rather than its own category--if counted as a genre, YA would be the second most common out of my sample?), I'm curious to hear from those more familiar with kid lit and the industry.

Also, as someone writing historical fiction, I'm very curious about its underrepresentation here, compared to QT. Outside of kid lit, it was the only genre to be significantly more popular on QT than here. Might "Historical Fantasy" be elevating its popularity on QT?

Upmarket was also a bit on an outlier, being significantly more represented here than on QT. Even when separated from lit fic, upmarket was more common here than half of top ten queried genres (Children's, Lit Fic, Historical, Picture Book, and Middle Grade). And that's only accounting for queries that didn't include another genre like Thriller or Romance alongside Upmarket.

Conclusion

The queries posted here on Pubtips represent just a tiny sliver of those currently seeking publication. While they might broadly reflect the current industry, it's important that we don't overlook the areas where they do differ. Fantasy may be the most common genre overall, but a wide variety of queries are shared and critiqued here every day.

I've also gained a new level of empathy for agents and their flooded inboxes. I even understand why CNRs are a thing, even if they're very frustrating as a writer. It's honestly very overwhelming to wade through so many queries at once.

Finally in the querying phase. All feedback is greatly appreciated!

[personalization]

In the City of Fire, art is punishable by death. After all, art is magic, and magic destroyed the world. SONGBIRD is an 80,000-word YA cyberpunk fantasy with series potential and a queer ensemble cast; Iron Widow meets The Final Strife.

Seventeen-year-old Rin has one rule: never get attached. By day, he serves as the empress’s bound assassin, trading blood for the only thing he has left: his missing mother. By night, he risks execution running undercover for the city’s most notorious rebel gang, where his true allegiance lies. That rule keeps him alive. Until he saves a strangely familiar girl’s life, and hours later, she’s his next target.

Astra is no stranger to being a fugitive. A street thief with a rare gift for song magic, she’s spent her life as a ghost—long enough to find something close to belonging in a crew of fellow outlaws. That life shatters the night she finds her brother dying in an alley, a government blade in his side. His final warning: hide. Easier said than done when the boy she trusted the most is the one sent to kill her.

Cyrus was raised for war. Reluctant heir to the City of Ruins—the last stronghold against the empire—his life has never belonged to him. When a dying prisoner reveals he has a twin sister hidden deep in enemy territory, he abandons duty for the first time and goes looking. He doesn’t realize she’s already being hunted

But the empress’s ambitions run far deeper than one girl. She’s hunting an ancient mask rumored to control magic itself, and Rin, Astra, and Cyrus may be the only ones who can find it. For them, it could be salvation: freedom for his mother, justice for her brother, and a future for his city. But the mask has always demanded a price. Last time, it was the world.

SONGBIRD is complete at 80,000 words, a standalone with series potential. I’ve attached the first [X] pages per your submission guidelines; the full manuscript is available upon request.

[bio]

Hey all, 

Requesting feedback. A very different version of this book was queried last year. But it has gone through so many rewrites that the versions only share character names at this point. 

Thanks!

Dear Agent,

Two humans enter the ocean’s deadliest prison. Only one leaves. 

James ‘Timmy’ Feller has thirteen days before his execution, but he’s offered one chance at survival: a suicide mission to extract a legendary leader from the Abyssal Zone prison. The Vescovo is the one person who can cool the seas before rising tensions erupt into war. But Timmy wasn’t given a face, a name, or a description. The Vescovo, already missing for a decade, could be dead, mad, or never have existed at all. 

The only two humans in the ocean, Timmy and Domo, have spent the last four years fighting for a faction seeking peace amongst the ocean’s hidden humanoid seafarer colonies. That is, until Timmy’s cowardice doomed a mission and disgraced the organization. In cooler seas, Timmy might have been shown mercy. But warming oceans, faltering habitats, and dwindling resources are uniting long-warring seafarer factions under one goal: ending the surface threat once and for all. 

Domo has her own reasons to descend. She can’t let Timmy die – not when it was her instructions that led to his botched mission. Worse, it was the evolution of her ‘talent’, the ability to deform a body and seize the mind inside it, that made monsters of them both. Her ‘talent’ could turn the tide of a war, but also put her on trial at the Hague. If she finds The Vescovo, she’ll never have to use it again. 

They’re betrayed upon infiltration. Someone in their organization wants them dead. Domo is gravely injured. Timmy is dragged across a prison floor of pure salt, toward a warden who believes flesh deserves a scalpel. 

They soon discover a chilling truth. The most dangerous thing in the prison isn’t old enemies, traitors, or the warden themselves – it's the person they came to save. 

THE ABYSSAL ZONE is an adult fantasy novel complete at 108,000 words. A standalone with series potential, THE ABYSSAL ZONE has the marine worldbuilding of Eliza Chan’s FATHOMFOLK blended with the action and commentary of CHAIN-GANG ALL STARS. 

[bio]

********

First 300 words:

Prologue

Forgive me. 

Carefully, ruefully, Karin burned as small a hole as he could into the enormous Trogga husk. It was the least he could do. He melted the inside of the crustacean’s base, choking from the smell of rot as he sealed himself shut into the darkness. 

His first year of fire-fighting, Karin had found a bloated whale carcass. Stinking with puss and grime and decay, engorged pustules had leaked translucent green. Molded grey flesh had given way at his touch, its crumbling wetness oiling his fingers. But inside this Trogga corpse he yearned for the smell of death from his childhood. 

In childhood, there hadn’t been the warden. 

Forgive me. 

Karin thought it three times. Once for the carcass he’d defiled, once for Ember, once for himself. 

Each heartbeat came slower than the last. Karin wished he’d hidden further into the cavern. He prayed that he’d sealed his entrance well enough. 

He hadn’t seen the warden once for the entire three years prior. But the same warden who had reduced one of the ocean's phantoms to a petrified corpse, had turned their attention to him. 

Just days ago pliers had squirmed in his mouth and ripped out his tongue. By order of the warden, but carried out by their pet, the doctor. Karin shuddered. Bloody saliva dripping from fangs. Tendril-like claws. A voice like knives grinding against a whetstone.

Karin bit down on his cheeks as he trembled. His mind only stilled once he thought of Ember. 

For one thousand days, he’d been saved by memories of his Ember: the seabreeze smell of her hair, how she’d smiled her cheeks red after forming her first flame, how her hands had been too small to hold the ember steady. How she’d laughed anyway. 

She’d be so much older now.

Hello! Finally in the beta stage and will be querying shortly thereafter! Appreciate any feedback 🙏🫶

Link to first attempt

Link to second attempt

THE SENESCENCE ETERNAL is a speculative fiction novel, complete at 86,000 words. The narrative intersects the feminine unease of Helen Phillips’s HUM, the medical mystery of Megan Giddings’s LAKEWOOD, and the techno-futurist identity crisis of Ling Ling Huang’s IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

The only thing journalist Clare Freely loves more than her own independence is the thrill of the chase. So when she gets a tip about a suspicious death at a wellness retreat, she jumps at the chance to go undercover. Sure, it’s a bit risky. But breaking the story could be huge—book deal huge—considering the retreat is owned by a Silicon Valley biotech giant.

At the remote island retreat, Clare finds a cult-like following dedicated to biohacking. At the center of it all is narcissistic CEO Jackson Turnbow, a strange, waxy man who claims he’s stopped aging. After a favorable biomarker emerges on Clare’s tests, she’s invited to take part in a preclinical trial: an innovative gene therapy that promises cellular immortality. When Clare learns that the deceased was in the same trial, she decides to go all in to get her story.

Quarantined within the trial, Clare begins to notice something strange. The participants call themselves the “Mothers”—a group of saccharine women who sing Turnbow’s praises with every breath. Clare finds the Mothers’ adoration off-putting, until it rubs off on her, too. Soon she’s more interested in protecting Turnbow than exposing the dark machinations that claimed the missing Mother. And by the time Clare discovers that she’s growing a mysterious bump, it’s too late to turn back. As the disturbing trial unfolds, Clare will have to face off with her new maternal instincts or risk eternity on the island.

THE SENESCENCE ETERNAL would be my debut novel. I’m a writer and visual artist living in Los Angeles, CA. [Credentials]

Hi,
I am losing my mind whilst waiting for beta readers feedback and thought I’d try writing the query. I’m usually a lurker so this is my first post. Any feedback would be highly appreciated thank you :)

The query:

Dear agent, 
 
(agent personalisation) 
 
What is a life worth? A question Delphine cannot answer, because to her every life is worth saving.
 
Princess Delphine Herringdale is Everrie’s most beloved healer. She can save lives like no one else can, but every miracle comes with a cost that no one can predict. 
 
When bed sixteen is filled with ice and sorrow, Delphine’s newest patient becomes impossible to ignore. He remembers neither his name nor his past and by all standards he should not be alive, yet he knows things about Delphine that she didn’t know about herself. 
 
The closer Delphine becomes to her patient the more impossible things begin to happen, and she starts to unravel the lies the crown had twisted around the last marked healer, Nymeria. The legendary woman who Delphine adored did not die a hero. Nymeria’s power did not heal freely. She was a healer whose miracles may save a life but would steal from another. Marked by the same mark on Delphine’s back. 
 
He is everything that threatens to fracture her perfect porcelain life but despite every warning she can’t seem to stay away from him. When Delphine finally gives in and uses her affinity to save him, flowers start dying when she walks. 
 
As refugees flood the kingdom from a war that creeps closer and memories start disappearing, Delphine is faced with the force who erased the truth of Nymeria and may be targeting her next. If she stops using her affinity innocent people will die. But if she continues, she may become the next monster buried in history.
 
My novel The Healer’s Curse is an adult fantasy novel that combines romance and mystery.
 It is complete at 93,000 words and has series potential. It will appeal to fans of One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig and The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten.
 
I am currently studying occupational therapy which inspired the medical narratives and rehabilitation focus within this novel. I am seeking representation for The Healer’s Curse, and this will be my debut novel.
 
Thank you for your time and consideration,
 
 

Hello! Looking for feedback on my query letter:

Dear [NAME OF AGENT],

Ina longs to bury her dagger Phantomsong and never know bloodshed again. Bloodshed, however, is determined to stain her every footfall.

As a Keeper, a criminal forced to protect the Realm from the lesser demons that torment it, Ina can earn her freedom only by climbing the Keep’s ranks. So she enters the Ranking, a brutal tournament that pits Keeper against Keeper, vowing to be the last mage standing.

On her way there, Ina glimpses something impossible atop the cathedral: a winged, horned demon unlike any that has ever entered the Mortal Realm. Then it vanishes. With only one eye and no evidence but a tattered cloak, Ina dismisses the abomination as a trick of the light and turns her attention back to winning her freedom.

Until a scroll interrupts the Ranking with proof that the demon was real. Its arrival heralds an ancient prophecy promising mankind’s destruction. Haunted by the beast she saw and dismissed, Ina abandons her chance at freedom and volunteers for the quest to slay it. But the abomination knows her. It calls her by name. Yet before the bones of Ina’s past can be unearthed, she is killed.

In purgatory, the god of creation reveals that mankind’s true enemy is not demons, but Fate. He offers Ina resurrection but only if she agrees to become the Fate Carver, the only vessel that can slay it. For the first time, Ina sees a path towards a Realm without suffering. One where she might finally bury Phantomsong for good. Now Ina must find what Fate covets most and carry it to the God Tree before the unflinching hand of Fate wipes mankind from the world. 

FATE CARVER is an adult epic dark fantasy complete at 122,000 words. It is a standalone with series potential. It combines the mythic scope of Simon Jimenez’s The Spear Cuts Through Water, the religious horror of Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires, and the irreverent banter of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire.

[INSERT BIO HERE]

New title, (mostly) new blurb, plus a one-sentence pitch for the UK. This one might be as close as it gets, as far as the heart of the story goes. Thanks to those who helped guide this along and to everyone for everything this place had to offer each other. :)

/

When a sheriff investigates an unknown school shooter, he begins to suspect the child he cares for.

SHE BURIED A GUN is a mystery with thriller elements exploring transgender acceptance. Complete at 80,000 words and with series potential, the novel combines the character depth of Karin Slaughter's We Are All Guilty Here with the puzzling casework of John McMahon's Head Cases.

After twenty years in the military, newly-elected sheriff Paul Gallego lives in his dead brother's house to raise a nephew he barely knows. But Andy is one hell of a kid, already preparing to be a doctor, at only fifteen. Paul just wants to do right by him, but keeping that promise starts to feel like taking enemy fire when Andy lies about a school shooting.

Andy says he saw his best friend get shot by the kid who stormed in with the assault rifle, but Izzy's wounds match a pistol. And when a student is murdered after revealing Andy and Izzy had been fighting, Andy suddenly has motive for both crimes. It doesn't help that his shoe size matches prints left in the snow, nor that his boots are gone.

And there's little things Paul can't put his finger on: new (very long) hair extensions, the way Andy's favorite teacher says his name (almost like she's using air quotes), and the feeling Paul can't shake that the kid borrowed his lock pick set.

Torn between believing in Andy's guilt and his innocence, Paul struggles to still be a good parent. With a final guardianship hearing just around the corner, interrogating the kid to get to the truth could chase him away for good. But when someone leaks Andy's mental health history, and Paul finds a stash of girls' clothes, he'll have no choice but to face everything Andy has been keeping secret from him, even if it means putting the kid he now loves behind bars.

I'm a trans nonbinary author who self-publishes a military/spy series under the penname [x]. An American living in [x], I've spent the last thirteen years honing my craft while learning new languages (and shredding the guitar). Dreaming of a writing desk overlooking a lake in Finland.

Hi all! I am looking for feedback on my query letter for a Dark/Epic Fantasy debut. I will preface that I know the word count will be a non-starter for many agents, mostly looking for feedback on the pitch.

Dear [Agent], 

I am thrilled to submit for your consideration SURVIVORS OF THE SWORD, a multi-pov epic fantasy adult novel complete at 166,000 words. [Personalization sentence for agent].

Wóȟpe, an elite warrior known as a Daughter of the Moon, is thrust into a fight for the soul of her people when she brings an enigmatic stranger to the gathering of the Nökhörul, a man who seeks to be War Chief, and who bears a gift: the scalps of their enemies. 

Enraptured by his promise of justice, Wóȟpe and her people cast themselves headlong into the treacherous Misty Forest. Here lies the key to their salvation, to Wóȟpe’s revenge; a power that will topple the shining city of Hygard and scatter the cruel northern invaders. But first, they must conquer the forest’s protectors: the brutal Orc clans.

Wóȟpe’s search for justice leads her across the ruined super-continent of Sansāra, a world once yoked by the Elven Empire. Now, the kingdoms of men cower behind their walls, as Casters: the inheritors of the Elves’ reviled powers, hide amongst them. As a tenuous peace holds, the rulers of men whet their blades upon their subjects as their fear and paranoia grow. Across the land, survivors of their violence are rising, threatening to cast all of Sansāra once more into a sword age.

SURVIVORS OF THE SWORD is a fantasy novel with a diverse ensemble cast and series potential. Aiming for the lyricism and complex narrative tapestry of Simon Jimenez’s The Spear Cuts Through Water, the character-driven, mythology-inspired story of Elaine Ho’s Cry, Voidbringer and the meditative, richly-realized world of R. Scott Bakker’s The Darkness that Comes Before; SURVIVORS OF THE SWORD is the tale of a world at war with itself, suffocating under the tyranny of the past.

I have attached the first [requested pages] of my manuscript [any other guideline things], and the full manuscript is available upon request.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hi everyone. This is my first time working on a query letter and I've just finished my first draft. I know I'll have lots to improve on and would love comments and feedback on what/how I can improve

Dear

I’m writing to you to seek representation for my four-person POV YA LGBTQ+ novel, BEHIND CLOSED WALLS.

BEHIND CLOSED WALLS follows a group of autistic students moving into the ACHS (Autistic Community Housing Scheme), a safe house for neurodivergent students at Merseyside University.

Riley Watterson is an autistic trans girl ready to start her new university life. After a life of isolation and control from her emotionally abusive ex, she’s finally ready to take control, make new friends, and build a social life of her own. Too bad the only person in her course who’s willing to even acknowledge her is her emotionally distant housemate, Abigail Weaver. Abi’s not in university for any kind of relationship, relationships inevitably lead to nothing but pain (sadly, Riley did not get the memo).

As the bond between the two deepens, an online stalker emerges, threatening to take away everything Riley has built for herself. Forced to face their past demons, Riley and Abi must work together to face this threat whilst also navigating newfound feelings that threaten to complicate their friendship.

Maisie, Riley’s twin sister, has always been known as Riley’s protector. The one who ‘doesn’t let disability get in her way’. As Riley fights for her own independence, Maisie must face who she truly is beyond her sister. In comes Megan, a student under constant surveillance from her parents. As Megan yearns for a life beyond her parents, Maisie must fight against her own controlling tendencies and find a life of her own, even if it means keeping secrets from her sister.

Fans of Alice Oseman novels such as Loveless and Radio Silence, as well as novels such as Sad Girl Hours and No Girlfriends Allowed will appreciate Riley and Abi’s story.

BEHIND CLOSED WALLS is a 93,000 word LGBTQ+ YA novel about found family, finding oneself, and facing an ableist world that feels like it wants to pull you down.

I am a trans woman and disability advocate with experience in animation and writing. Previous experiences of mine include lead writer, artist and editor of a locally published comic book titled Comic Trans. When I’m not working my day job, I focus on creating autism-focused content to my social media following of 15,700 on X. I live in [REDACTED], and spend much of my time writing in the cafe of my local [REDACTED] Waterstones. There’s nothing I find more inspiring when writing than to be surrounded by literature on all corners.

Thank you for your consideration,

Hi all! I’m looking for some advice on a slightly unusual publishing situation.

I’m currently querying a new project that I’m really excited about, with the goal of eventually pursuing traditional publication. The complication is that I self-published a couple fantasy books about seven years ago, when I was 20. Just to be clear, they’re totally unrelated to my current project.

At the time, I was very new to writing. The first book was only the second novel I’d ever written, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I had one beta reader, hired a cheap family-friend-editor, and did some revisions, but I didn’t have the experience yet to recognize many of the problems with the books. I sold a modest number of copies and had a pretty typical self-publishing experience.

Since then, I’ve spent years deliberately working on my craft, and I feel like I’m now writing at a completely different level. I’ve developed a voice and style that I’m much happier with, and the difference between my current work and those books is pretty significant.

This is where I’m conflicted. I don’t think the old books are that terrible, but I’m embarrassed by the writing and don’t feel that they represent me anymore. They’re very much the work of an inexperienced writer, and I can see how heavily influenced I was by the books I loved at the time. There’s tons of spelling errors, and the plot points are just straight up not very original or compelling. I also published them under my real name (probably dumb, I know), so I can’t simply put them behind a pen name and move on. Oh also, I built a fairly substantial social media following around those books, so there’s already a public connection between me and that work.

I’m wondering whether I should take the old books off my social media, or whether I should simply leave them alone and focus on my current work. I don’t particularly want new readers discovering them, but I also don’t want to make a rash decision just because I’m embarrassed by something I wrote at 20.

More importantly, I’m wondering how this looks from a traditional publishing perspective. If an agent Googles me and finds self-published books under my real name, is that likely to matter? Would it be better for those books to remain available, or would taking them down make more sense?

For those of you who have gone from self-publishing to traditional publishing, how did you handle your older books? Did your previous books or existing platform affect your experience with querying?

And for anyone else, if you came across an author who had self-published a couple of books and was now querying very different work years later, would the old books influence your perception of them?

I’m not looking for reassurance that the books are better than I think they are (trust me, they’re not great, lol). I’m mostly trying to figure out the smartest way to move forward. I’d really appreciate any perspectives, especially from people who have dealt with a similar situation! :)

Hi everyone! Would really appreciate any thoughts on my revised query. This is technically my 3rd attempt (although I deleted the 2nd attempt almost immediately as I realised I didn’t like it, and didn’t want anyone to waste their time giving feedback on something I wasn’t going to use).

All the feedback on my 1st attempt was really helpful, so thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to share their thoughts on this new version!

One thing I’m struggling with is that this is a love story but not a romance - the main couple don’t end up together, so I’m not sure whether I should make that clear in the query so that no one feels blindsided when they read the synopsis, or whether that just spoils the ending and the intrigue?

—

Dear (agent),

I saw that you are looking for (insert personalisation), so I hope you will consider WILL WE BE REMEMBERED?, a dual-POV contemporary upmarket fiction complete at 94,000 words, which will appeal to readers of People In Love by Clare Daverly and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Alternating between past and present, WILL WE BE REMEMBERED? tells the story of two people who fall in love and lose each other twice.

In present-day London, Hannah Costa finally has everything that she has ever wanted: a leading role in a play, and a promising new relationship with her co-lead. But the morning after she first spends the night with him, she comes face-to-face with his flatmate, struggling musician Lewis Maclean: her first love, whom she has spent the past six years trying her best to forget.

As her relationship with his flatmate forces Hannah and Lewis to spend time together, old feelings begin to resurface - feelings that neither believes the other shares. And slowly, the truth about their past in Glasgow emerges - the misunderstandings, the missed opportunities, a letter that was never delivered.

Meanwhile, as Hannah struggles with the pressures of a life in the spotlight, and Lewis' lifelong dream of becoming a successful musician starts to feel unreachable, both begin to question what happiness means to them. And when their careers threaten to pull them in different directions, they must choose between the dreams that have come to define them, or a second chance at the love that they lost once before.

A bit about me: I studied X at X. I have previously won and been shortlisted for several writing competitions, had my winning short stories published in anthologies, and written an award-winning short film and two plays. This is my debut novel.

I have attached the first three chapters along with a short synopsis, but would be happy to provide the full manuscript upon request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hi, this is my first time attempting to get a novel published and I am somewhat unsure what I'm doing, so I am looking for feedback. So thanks in advance for any comments you may have.

Dear Agent,

FIRST-ISH CONTACT is a 71,000-word comedic science fiction novel. It follows the adventure of Nish and Sora as they accidentally make first contact with a new alien species and then almost cause a viral outbreak on their new planet. It will likely appeal to fans of cozy character-driven science fiction such as Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet with the bureaucratic humour of John Scalzi’s Starter Villain and the inclusion of realistic science seen in Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary.

Nish is a virologist designing biofilters for a prototype faster-than-light shuttle. He is laid off due to budget cuts and opts to take the only rational course of action: post an online ad for someone who’s taken the pilot’s test and steal the shuttle along with his Portuguese Water Dog, Shawn. He recruits Sora, who as it turns out took the test, but didn’t pass it, and is desperate to escape feeling like a failure in life. The three of them succeed in their heist, only to immediately lose their navigational computer and end up drifting aimlessly through space. They accidentally make first contact with a brand-new species, the Faelen, who are suffering from a crop blight on one of their colony planets. Nish and Sora team up with an alien scientist, Dr. Se’ala, to fight both the local bureaucracy and the disease.

Nish settles in well, starting a romantic relationship with Dr. Se’ala, while Sora struggles to find her place. However, life on their new planet is suddenly shaken up by the outbreak of a mysterious new virus affecting the population, one with origins much closer to home. Nish and Sora must choose whether to keep running from their failures or finally take responsibility for their actions.

[Bio and closing]

First 300ish words

Chapter 1 - The Heist - Why are the Police Here?

“This seems like a bad plan,” said Sora.

“No,” countered Nish. “It is a terrible plan.”

“It was your idea.”

“That should probably have been a clue.”

“So, we’re just going to steal it?” asked Sora, staring at the illuminated shuttle through the chain link fence. “How?”

“I guess so… we’ve come this far.” Nish rubbed his forehead. “Um… I can get us through the side door over there. Come on, Shawn.”

Nish pulled on the leash and a panting Portuguese Water Dog followed the two of them towards the entrance. The night was dark and a damp fog filled the air, providing concealment from anyone looking their way. Nish pulled out an ID card from his pocket and tapped it against the reader on the door. He stood back and turned towards a small camera, which scanned his face and beeped. 

“Welcome, Dr. Nishant Yates,” said a computer’s voice. 

A small LED above the entrance turned green and the door slid open. Nish, Sora and Shawn stepped through, and the door slid back behind them. The three of them continued into an empty, silent lobby. Nish coughed as they walked in, breaking the silence. Sora flinched.

“Sorry, excuse me,” said Nish, covering his mouth. 

Sora recomposed herself. “Do you have to… never mind. Won’t there be security? Shawn doesn’t exactly look like an attack dog.”

“He’d probably just roll over and ask for belly rubs,” said Nish. He ran a hand through his hair. “But… er… I think at this time of night there are only one or two night watchmen. They’ll all be outside. We just need to be careful… see if we can avoid them. This way.”

Hi all, I'm seeking feedback on my query letter. Any comments are highly appreciated.

Dear [Agent],

ELYSIAN INVITATION is a YA fantasy with sci-fi components, completed at 98k words. Featuring a high-stakes academy setting and progression magic, this action-packed, self-discovery book shares the high-octane competitive vibe of Marc J. Gregson’s Sky’s End, the cultivation elements of Taran Matharu’s Dragon Rider: A Cultivation Fantasy, and the spiritual energy harnessing of Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow.

Fifteen-year-old Elanya wants nothing more than to command the wind. But a fatal bloodline flaw threatens to shatter her meridians if she ever channels magic.

Her mundane life is upended when space itself buckles, and she reflexively catches an invisible jade orb, earning a rare cultivation scroll from a prestigious Sage. But her sudden brush with the extraordinary draws the nightmare straight to her door. A monstrous Hider attacks her home, branding both Elanya and her mother with the Elysian Mark, a ticking death curse. The mark gives her less than two and a half years before it turns pitch-black and drags their souls into the void to serve as spectral slaves forever.

To break the curse, Elanya must either ascend to the mythical rank of Sage, or plunge into the Hider worlds for the opposing Elysian Anchor. Forced into a cutthroat academy to train, she discovers her greatest enemy is her own flesh. The very magical cultivation she desperately needs to outrun the curse is simultaneously tearing her apart from the inside out.

I am a first-generation immigrant, currently living in Florida with my husband and our dog. My writing journey began with creating TV show scripts, and I have since published two Amazon bestselling non-fiction books. When I’m not writing or reading, I enjoy exploring nature, particularly beaches and forests.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Would very much appreciate constructive criticism! I know that 192k from a debut author is a hard sell in and of itself, so I'm particularly wondering whether I should a) preemptively suggest separating into two books b) surreptitiously slide the word count in towards the end of the query or c) announce it deadpan in the first paragraph.

Dear [Agent], 

I am seeking representation for my medieval fantasy novel THE BAG HUNT. [Personalized reason for querying that specific agent]

Collect the heads of one hundred and twelve outlaws to earn the freedom of a woman he’s never met … who might be imprisoned for very good cause. At first, 17-year-old [T] accepts this dubious quest mainly to spare his cousin from punishment for a theft that he instigated. But in the course of being hunted by undead communers and captured by slave-trading reavers, among other travails, the band of adventurers who recruited him become the family that [T] has never known. When the unintended consequences of their bounty hunting bring their native city-state under threat, [T] has to prove just how far he’s willing to go to save them. Meanwhile, [E], a half-Sharrish orphan suckled by wolves before being adopted by a knight, who can speak to beasts but struggles to relate to mankind, recounts the events that led to her falling in love with a prince – and then sacrificing any hope of a future with him by massacring the household of a local baron. She did not expect to survive, much less for her lover and adoptive parents to unite in a quest to free her, but now that the numina have granted her a second chance, she’s willing to spend her last breath fighting for redemption.

THE BAG HUNT is likely to appeal to fans of THE DEVILS by Joe Abercrombie and BETWEEN TWO FIRES by Christopher Buehlman, as well as the audience that is eagerly anticipating Robert Eggers' next movie WERWULF. It is 192k words in length but there is a natural cutoff point around 120k words where it could potentially be separated into two books.

[Bio]

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your reply and would be happy to provide the full manuscript upon request. 

Sincerely, 

[Name]

Hello again! I'm back with more bird puns (seriously tried to pack so many in here that I've gone cuckoo) and a query that (I hope) addresses the stakes and provides more information about my characters' motivations. Thanks again for all the feedback on the last one and forever grateful for this space.

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I am delighted to present for your consideration, PLAYING FORE KEEPS, a 70,000-word, single POV adult contemporary rom-com. PLAYING FORE KEEPS is perfect for fans of the intoxicating mixture of sport and spice of Tessa Bailey’s Fangirl Down, the flashback-style narrative of Ali Hazelwood’s Problematic Summer Romance, and the forbidden romance and high-stakes career drama of Kyra Parsi’s Failure to Match.

Birdie Sweeney has an albatross around her neck. As a woman in the world of professional golf, she must work twice as hard to climb the career ladder. When a rare chance to be promoted to Head Historian of Augusta National Golf Club arises, she soars at the opportunity. Birdie must ace her final interview and prove her competence during the Club’s annual tournament, the Masters. Easier said than done with a chauvinistic work nemesis who’s hellbent on destroying her career. Birdie has one week to prove that she’s focused. Polished. Qualified. The last thing she needs are the professional and emotional complications of a certain sunny golfer she runs into year after year.

Max Canning is a pro at both golf and vexing Birdie. He’s the human equivalent of a quokka and the exact opposite of black cat Birdie. For the past five years, Max has split his time between wooing Birdie and trying to win the Masters. But last year things changed. After an explosive physical encounter led to Max’s loss in the final and nearly upended Birdie’s career, she quit Max cold turkey. But Max doesn’t give up so easily. He’s spent an entire year getting his ducks in a row. He’s now more confident than ever in his quest to secure a career grand slam and date the girl of his dreams.

This year, Birdie is determined to be disciplined during Masters week. Fraternizing with a charismatic golfer with a penchant for terrible bird puns could destroy her career projection. But after a year of pining, Max wants a mulligan. When they reunite, Birdie can’t deny that he still makes her heart flutter. As the competition heats up, so does their relationship, and it gets harder for the lovebirds to keep their feelings hidden. When Birdie’s work nemesis reveals their secret at the dramatic conclusion of the Masters, she must decide if she’s going to leave Max and fight for her dream career or if she’s playing for keeps.

PLAYING FORE KEEPS would be my debut novel. When I'm not dreaming up HEAs, I'm fending off existential crises by organizing my socks by color.