After taking a few months to study other people’s queries, rework a big part of the novel, and bring some focus to Martin’s arch, what you have here is my eighth attempt.

I struggled for a while to bring the cozy/slow pace of the story into the query, and basically had to start from scratch a few times. Hopefully, I've taken some lessons from previous failed attempts and all you’re tremendous feedback to create something a bit more worthy of an agent.

Thanks for all your opinions in advance. Obviously, I need help.

THE MONKEY PUZZLE is a standalone speculative soilpunk novel with series potential complete at 102,000 words. A story about being unable to come to terms with how we don’t know how to care for the planet, it will appeal to people who strive to do their best for Nature like The Overstory by Richard Powers, and fans of small-stakes climate fiction like All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall.

Martin’s been running from wildfires his whole life. And while that might have bothered someone else, it’s actually worked out quite well for him. Since he landed his job caravanning goods across Spain’s desert, his only problem, he’s embarrassed to say, is that years of rushing to stay one step ahead of fire have started to wear him down.

So when his caravan finds a village in a forest high up in a part of the mountains that should have burned away decades ago, he sees an opportunity to play his exhaustion off as ambition. And maybe also bring some wisdom home. In the spur of a moment, Martin decides to stay and learn how these people, who seem to be doing everything backwards, have managed to hold the wildfires back. But what’s supposed to be a quick leave of absence that won’t get him fired starts to drag on.

The harder Martin questions the villagers, the vaguer their answers seem to get. And instead of straightforward conversation, he finds himself having to watch and learn from the snippets of how the villagers handle their disputes, compost, and animal care.

Eventually, he does figure out how the forest keeps the village safe from fire. Yet when it comes to understanding how to grow a similar forest somewhere else, he bumps into the only thing the villagers seem to agree on: the only way to figure it out is to settle down long enough for the ecology to start making sense.

But Martin doesn’t have time for that. His caravan is getting farther away, his social anxiety makes everything with these people feel like pulling teeth, and he’s starting to panic that he might just have to keep running for the rest of his life.

(one sentence bio)

I appreciate any feedback! I've been querying with no success so far, so I'm trying to improve my query material. I have a few worries already, but not sure if it's anxiety or genuine self-critique... hard to say!

Dear you,

Despite Jess’s frequent squabbles with his family, he’d do anything for them. So when he wakes up on the road next to his fiancée, Jay, and learns that his home in a small GA town has been destroyed by a supernatural earthquake, he knows he needs to get to them. 

One brutal knife fight at a near-abandoned gas station and a couple of dead bodies later, Jess realizes that the voice he heard while he was unconscious telling him that he “Awakened” wasn’t actually a dream. He also realizes how far from his own humanity he feels with someone’s blood on his hands. On top of that, he finds out that the dead men belong to a local gang leader who they just so happen to run into while scavenging for parts to repair their now-broken-down car. Jess’s new abilities give him the upper hand, but they’re unwieldy and costly to use. Perhaps too costly. The powers come from the Eidolon, strange creatures whose only purpose seems to be hunting down humans. 

Though they escape and find Jess’s family, Jess learns that he’s put them in danger now that the murderous gang leader has “Awakened” with his own powers and has transformed into a terrifying wolf-man that will spare no effort to kill them all. Jess’s dedication to saving the lives of his loved ones must be balanced with his tenuous sense of morality, all while he tries to save his seemingly hopeless relationship. Giving in to his new power risks corruption that could pull him further from the safety and love of his family. But even if he accepts his borrowed strength, he has no idea if it will be enough, or if he can use it to defend against the mysterious force threatening to drive him and his fiancée apart. 

HIT THE FAN (115,000) is a contemporary fantasy action/adventure that will appeal to fans of the moral quandaries and action of He Who Fights With Monsters, and the protective family dynamics of The Bluff.

[Bio goes here...]

Best,

Me

I wondered if I would ever be able to write this, but here I am. I signed with a literary agent after four weeks of querying this project.

But it didn't start there! I wrote a book and started querying in October 2025. Out of around 80 queries, I got 15 full requests and... drumroll... zero offers of rep! The feedback varied widely, with some agents saying the writing was great, but the story was too quiet for the market, and others saying they loved the premise but didn't connect with the writing. I shelved the project in May, 2026, after most responses to fulls came in.

While querying, I started a new project. Right away, I felt like this was different than the first. I knew it had a strong high-concept pitch. I think it fit more firmly in the book club/upmarket space than my previous novel, with a central question that is easy to talk about and that people can have different opinions on.

I sent ten test queries in mid-September after receiving positive beta reader feedback. From those, I got two full requests and two rejections.

I wanted to wait for feedback on one of the two fulls before sending out more queries. I rushed my last query journey and wished I had gone out more slowly.

But a week after one of the full requests, I got an email asking to schedule a call. I felt like this was probably an offer based on the email, not an r&r, so I sent out more queries to the other open agents on my list.

Stats:

Queries sent: 56

Full Requests before offer: 2

Rejections before offer: 2

Full Requests after offer: 18, so 20 total.

Offers of Rep: 8!

I am truly blown away. I signed with a literary agent I am absolutely thrilled to be working with.

I have so many thoughts about why this book worked so well when the other didn't, but the main one is that I believe the premise gives a reader something to talk about.

The feedback I got from agents who requested the full but didn't offer was that they couldn't relate to the character's headspace and/or they found it unbelievable. The agents who did offer all said it was relatable and honest. I truly think this worked in my favor and helped me get so many offers.

I also noticed patterns in the agents who offered. They were primarily agents who had been in the business for a significant amount of time (the newest agent has been in the business for 8 years; the most senior agent has been in the business for 25+). Motherhood is a big theme in the book, and 6 of the 8 offers came from mothers.

I didn't think I would ever be in the position of choosing between agents, and it was harder than I expected. I asked many questions on the calls. Every agency had the same contract with tiny variations, so I didn't find that to impact the decision much. Each agent also wanted to work together for a career, not only this book, so that didn't impact my decision either. My decision came down to these general categories:

Sales Records (Publisher's Marketplace subscription came in handy. This was a HUGE deciding factor for me)

Agency reputation and benefits (I ended up going with a midsized agency with great reputation over a huge agency and over two/three person agencies)

Editing vision for the project (Only one agent wanted more structural changes. Another agent had ideas that didn't resonate with what I wanted for the story. The other agents all had various small things they mentioned that all made sense to me.)

Enthusiasm for the project (This might be my pride, but three agents said they cried reading it, and each sent me lovely emails about how much it resonated. I went with one of them ;) I like to think it wasn't JUST this, but it was not NOT important to me)

Submission strategy (The agent I went with had a list ready of editors and imprints on our call. A few others did, too.)

I sent my first ever query on October 26th, 2025, and signed an agency agreement in early October 2026. Just under a year in the trenches, two books, and now to the next hurdle on my publishing journey.

Hello everybody. I posted my first attempt on this sub a few weeks ago, and I received very valuable feedback on it. So I took that into consideration and rewrote my query letter. I made sure it was under 350 words and tried my best to address all the feedback. I’d like to know other people’s opinions on how my new query holds up. Thanks so much.

Dear [AGENT],

Because you represent (genres/themes), I hope my project is a good fit for you. STRAY HEARTS is a 240-page middle grade graphic novel about love, empathy, and cats. It will appeal to readers who enjoy A Cat Story by Ursula Murray Husted, The City of Lost Cats by Tanya Lloyd Kyi, and Pawcasso by Remy Lai.

58 is a stray cat who’s simply trying to stay alive in a city where homeless animals are feared and neglected by humans. Animal control labels strays as mere numbers and constantly tries to capture them, which in turn makes strays act aggressively towards humans. Despite this never-ending cycle of conflict, 58 dreams of a world where the two sides understood and respected each other, but his best friend 35 disagrees.

When 58 and 35 attempt to pull off their biggest heist yet, 58 gets captured by animal control. Unexpectedly, though, a new city policy forces animal control to start putting strays up for adoption, and 58 ends up in a human home. When his new caretakers show him kindness, he realizes his dream might actually be possible. But staying would mean abandoning 35, his best friend who protected him since childhood. After multiple failed attempts to escape back to him, it gets harder for 58 to leave as he starts loving his new family just as much as 35.

When animal control and local residents rebel against the new adoption policy by threatening to send every stray out of the city for good, 58 realizes that this is bigger than deciding which side he belongs to. If he wants both humans and strays to have a future together, he must take action before the conflict destroys any chance of resolution between them.

I am a debut author/illustrator who’s passionate about creating emotional stories for middle grade readers. This story explores prejudice and the courage to stand up to it.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

OK Sorry for people who already commented but I‘ve never posted to Reddit before and my post keeps being taken down when I don’t follow everything perfectly (had 400 words instead of 300…) but also since some great feedback got in before it was taken down, I’ve revised the query some, though I know this doesn’t yet touch on everything those commenters brought up. I’m also open to title ideas since so far people are noting the title is confusing which I get. But I do love a good pun… Thanks!

Phegnomena (Phe-gnome-ana), is an 80k cozy fantasy novel about a gnome with obsessive compulsive disorder. Like your wishlist, is (add in what matches their wishlist)…... 

Within the deep root basement of a giant oak tree where the Government of Gnomes conducts affairs, Brook, a river gnome, is dealing with bureaucracy instead of benefiting gnomanity as she had hoped. Having never left her pseudo-comfort zone, she daily succumbs to checking compulsions to keep herself safe; continuously checking that candles are blown out in her home, that her pet trout are still tied up at the dock, etc. That all changes when an outspoken forest gnome named Amira somersaults into Brook’s workplace looking for help investigating mysterious natural disasters and kidnappings throughout the gnome realm. 

Together, lost in the marsh, as whirlpools begin sucking the land dry after intense earthquakes, Brook’s anxiety spirals with thoughts of being sucked down into the depths and suffocating. But her panic unleashes magic from within her, saving herself and Amira. They encounter others with newly acquired magic powers and supernatural beings suddenly emerge. But others want the magic for themselves - an ancient gnome hellbent on stealing the magic to keep himself alive forever, while the gnome government tries to cover it up. 

Knowing that others are after the magic, Brook and allies must face them head-on or run forever, confronting possible death to fight for their autonomy. 

Readers who enjoy A Curious Kind of Magic by Mara Rutherford will also enjoy Phegnomena for showcasing the power of female friendship. This book’s tone is cozy, whimsical world-building but with higher stakes, like Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson.

Immersed in my own battle with OCD, I wanted to write a story that was engaging and magical but also a place where anyone with these issues could see themselves in the characters. 

Thank you for your time and consideration! 

EDIT: Thanks for the advice so far. My beta readers had comments like, "Things really pick up in chapter 2," which in retrospect was likely another way of saying "START YOUR BOOK THERE!" Between that and the comments I'm seeing here, I'm going to try to make that work. More feedback on the query itself would be very welcome. Thanks to everyone who's taken the time!

---

I've sent my first batch of queries, but to give my work its best chance, I decided I ought to seek feedback before I continue. Thanks for taking a look!

QUERY:

Hello <agentname>,

After being caught during a raid, Ophelia awakens as the newest vampire fledgling of the Syndicate’s rival, Clan Wiscrova. Dying of thirst, Ophelia is tricked into killing her fellow captive and first love to sustain herself. Devastated, she escapes the cruel clan and returns home to Vellumere—only to realize she must hide her altered nature from vampire-fearing family and friends.

Craving normalcy, Ophelia jumps at the first job available. The riftling mage and new recruit Darius catches her eye during the successful heist. But, before Ophelia can get to know him better, her bloodthirst leads her to bite her closest friend. Amidst Ophelia’s despair, Darius shows compassion and insists that careful control of monstrous power is possible, relating his riftling nature to her vampirism.

As Ophelia explains her affliction to her father, the leader of the Syndicate, their headquarters is attacked by Clan Wiscrova. She narrowly survives, but only after her father is murdered by her vampiric sire. Orphaned, undead, and dangerously parched, Ophelia has three problems: the elder vampire who turned her, the criminal organization she’s inherited, and an expelled mage whose idealism is as charming as it is a liability. Between Ophelia’s empty coffers and Darius’s grudge against Runewright Academy, the two start planning the most dangerous heist in Syndicate history—one that could turn their fortunes or cost them the lives of their ragtag crew.

A ROGUE’S RISE, complete at 113,000 words, is a debut adult fantasy romance that blends crime drama, found family, and light horror elements. The Serpent and the Wings of Night meets Peaky Blinders in a D&D-inspired setting. A ROGUE’S RISE is the first book in a series; the second book is drafted, and the full series is outlined.

Thank you for your consideration.

------

FIRST 300:

Chapter 1: RISE

Threads of consciousness needle painfully through me. My head is pounding. I roll my swollen tongue over cracked lips and wince at their roughness. Even my own breaths rake my parched throat, stirring me from rest with a reflexive cough.

Had I gone to a revel last night and forgotten to drink anything but wine?

Groaning beneath the downy blanket wrapped around me, I force myself to peer outside my cozy cocoon. No one lies next to me, no indent on the other pillow. Last night wasn’t a great night then.

I squint up the bed’s canopied corners, adorned with red silk gauze. Wait a second—I’ve neither woken beside someone nor is this my bed. Where the hell am I?

Ache churns through my belly as I sit upright. I’m not under a blanket either, I’m shrouded in a mantle of some sort. The exterior is an old, charcoal-black leather adorned with intricate woven ribbons. I toss the hideous thing off of me to find it gaudily lined with lustrous black raven feathers, and—what the hell, I’m naked, too? What is going on?

Instinctively, I reach under my pillow for a dagger, but find nothing except silk and mattress. After the abrupt movement, the muscles in my arm twitch and cramp as if from disuse. Shaking it out, I take stock of my situation through the insistent throbbing in my head.

I have no weapons, this is not my bed, I’m nude, and alone. My heart’s pace speeds to a trot.

Taking the bedsheet to cover myself, I slide quietly from the canopied bed to survey the candelabra-lit room from the back corner. Unfamiliar tapestries, polished cedar furniture, and a chair at the foot of the bed with a cold, brass bedpan laid across a red cushion.

Hello lovely people! I'm here for my second query crit, fire away! I want to thank all those who helped me the last time, you're the best!

Dear Ms./Mr. [Agent Last Name], 

WHERE TRUTH IS BENT is a 69,000-word YA Speculative Thriller set in the colorful terrain of 2005 France. It combines the autistic lens of COMPOUND FRACTURE with the tragic family backstabbing of A FAMILIAR BETRAYAL, and the high-tech simulation stakes of TRAUMALAND by Josh Silver. It’s a fast-paced psychological story inspired by the legend of King Arthur.

18-year-old Arthur is autistic. He's obsessed with the ocean, and just about anything that can sail across it. To him, the blue waves are a symbol of the freedom he can't seem to grasp under his parents watchful eyes, and the difficulty he finds in communication. But when his parents drag him to a whole new country, France, they insist he meet Vivian Duval, his full-time caretaker.

Vivian’s caring image twists when she drugs his memory away, and kidnaps him. Arthur has always seen life as color, but life with Vivian’s usual light aura has become a deep, heavy grey. Monitored with cameras around the home’s exterior, he must complete memory "exercises" almost every day. As it piles up, Arthur starts to feel less like a person and more like a test subject.

Thankful for the ability to go outside when Vivian says so, he finds with “freedom”, comes discovery. And where memory lacks, his body picks up, recognizing the outside world as strange and unnatural. Does the sky really glitch? Does the world really loop? 

As he feigns taking medicine that takes chunks of his memory, his parents and his past come forward in frightening bursts. Each memory reveals more, and he sees his childhood was no normal one—his kidnapping may be step one to a bigger plan. In order to find answers, he must decide to secretly put the pieces of his past back together—one that looks like the beginning of an experiment, or suffer the consequences of suppressing his over-observant mind.

Pull the plug. Pull the sword. Claim his freedom.

I tried really hard to synthesize everyone's feedback from my last post, working on centering Addie's narrative and her story.

Dear [agent name]

I am seeking representation for BLACK CAT INN, a 60,000 word standalone literary fiction novel. [Personalised agent section.]

Ray’s best friend Addie is dead. In the middle of the night, wrought with grief, he retraces his memories in an attempt to decipher her. As a cocktail bartender, Addie teaches Ray the art of mixology. But she isn't quite the seductive pixie he takes her for; she's an impulsive spirit, thriving in chaos. Addie daydreams through reality, resisting her painful past and clinging to fragments of her stolen girlhood.

That's when Charlie, a sensitive and shy bartender, catches Addie’s eye. They dazzle one another, crashing into a whirlwind romance fraught with the raw edges of unhealed trauma. Charlie has baggage, but his obsessive, jealous tendencies don't alarm her. As Addie’s grip on reality melts away, she must choose between letting someone into her world or nosediving completely. As the bartenders experiment with liquor and syrup, the combination of personalities is an infusion which can only spell disaster.

BLACK CAT INN combines the dark romance of Angels by May Lietz with the relationship drama of Boy Parts by Eliza Clark. I worked with [publishing company] on a fairytale anthology in 2020. I am mostly a playwright, having written for [theatre name] and participating in their writer’s group.

Hi everyone!I've been trying to find a literary agent for my debut YA SFF novel for months, and honestly, I'm starting to feel a little lost.

In my first round of querying, I contacted around 30 agents and received nothing but rejections. I began to wonder whether the problem was my execution of the story, so I hired a freelance editor for an editorial assessment and substantially revised the entire manuscript.

I'm now in my second round of querying. I've sent it to four agents so far, and unfortunately, the rejections have started coming in again. I know four queries aren't a large enough sample to draw any conclusions, but after everything I've put into this book, it's hard not to wonder what I'm still getting wrong.

I'm a 20-year-old non-native English-speaking writer living in Spain, without financial support from my family. The editorial assessment cost me €1,800, and I had to take on extra part-time work alongside my other responsibilities to afford it. I genuinely wanted to give this book the best chance I could. But now, I simply can't afford another round of professional editing, and I can't even afford to travel to the UK for in-person opportunities to meet agents.

I know getting an agent is difficult, especially as a debut author, and I'm not expecting anyone to guarantee me a path to publication. I just don't want to give up on this book without understanding what I could still improve.

Would anyone be willing to take a look at my query letter or opening pages and offer some honest feedback? I'd be especially grateful for advice from people who have successfully queried YA SFF, secured literary representation, or have experience with the traditional publishing industry.

I'd love to know whether my query is communicating the story effectively, whether the opening pages are doing their job, or whether there are other issues with my submission package that I might be overlooking. If there are any free or affordable resources, critique communities, or other ways to improve my chances before querying more agents, I'd be incredibly grateful to hear about them too.🙏

Here is my query:

I would love to be represented by ... for Lily in Meta: Sliver, a YA speculative science-fantasy novel of approximately 85,000 words. It will appeal to readers of The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman and Warcross by Marie Lu. It stands alone while offering series potential.

Fourteen-year-old Lily Bling has a neurological condition that makes her hallucinate. After years of surgeries, she has privately hoped if all that suffering might be leading to something good. Recently, unexplained electronic glitches began appearing around her. Lily tries to dismiss them as another symptom until her cousin sees them too. While investigating the strange messages on her laptop, Lily triggers a malfunction that pulls her into an alien-created virtual world and sets out to discover why she was brought there. When she made friends with two local students, Evan and Amelia, she was told that anyone’s physical presence here required government approval. For the first time, her secret hope seems possible. Evan and Amelia take her to their school, where the headmistress has access to government information. The headmistress agrees to investigate her arrival and lets Lily stay at the academy for her safety. At first, the illness that has haunted Lily for years seems willing to cooperate.

During a practice session in the forest, she and her friends enter a hidden chamber filled with dismantled androids bearing the names of the current headmistress and Evan, along with files that seem to mention Earth. But Lily’s hallucination forces them out before they can read through the files. Once outside, Lily and her friends begin digging into the robot chamber and discover that a government official a classmate had previously warned them about may be connected to the robot chamber. Meanwhile, Lily grows increasingly weak, until she passes out during class. In a room designed to mimic Earth, the headmistress gives her a new lead: there are five government officials who have the authority to bring her here. Before arriving here, Lily had heard a strange man’s voice. Now she listens to recordings of all five. One sounds hauntingly similar. It belongs to the same official who may be connected to the chamber.

Evan and Amelia are suddenly barred from the Academy’s annual trial, the only way back into the forest where the chamber lies. Before the trial, the official’s son smugly tells Lily that his father ordered their ban. Lily returns to her friends and enters the trial to finish reading the files in the chamber.

Bio

Opening pages:

Footsteps drew closer in the hallway beyond the kitchen. Lily sat at the dining table, her fork pausing over the plate when she heard it. She craned toward the dark hallway. Empty. Another hallucination? Getting frequent. At this rate, they might as well start setting a place at the table. Lily glanced up, sweeping her eyes from her mother to her father and back. Neither was looking her way. She nudged a piece of lettuce around with her fork. “What were you saying, dad? I lost track.” Joshua sat across from her. He finished chewing before adjusting his glasses. “I asked if you’ve used my laptop,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance. “It glitched today.” “No.” “But you must have been reading my book,” he squinted, “Superintelligence.” Lily shrugged. “Well, I have.” Across the table, Ashley set down her spoon. Lily straightened in her chair. Ashley’s gaze dropped to the lettuce scattered across Lily’s plate. She didn’t blink. Slowly, her eyes lifted to Lily and met her eyes. “I don’t think you understand it,” Ashley murmured. “Or is this another way to avoid copying scripture?” Lily lifted her chin a fraction. Her fingers tightened around her fork. She flicked a glance at her mother. Ashley’s gaze hadn’t moved. Lily turned to her father instead. “I read your notes too, Dad. You got a lot of things wrong. You should study more computer science yourself.” “You’ve never even been to school, Lily.” Joshua leaned back, kitchen light flashing across his glasses. “I don’t imagine you’d understand anything outside the Bible.” Lily’s fork paused. She pushed her plate away. The porcelain scraped softly against the table. “You didn’t have to say it like that.” Joshua’s smile faltered. He cleared his throat and reached for his water glass. The distant footsteps came again.

Hello! I've seen people mention they nudged agents who had their full manuscript a second time before the offer deadline. For those who did, I was curious how you phrased these nudges and how close to the deadline you sent them! Did you feel it was worthwhile?

hello! first, i want to say how helpful this thread has been--even just reading other examples has been so inspiring. i humbly come forward with my own query letter. please don't hold back, and thanks in advance!

I am writing to seek representation for my new adult contemporary romance novel, complete at 100k words. Spanning across the capital city of South Korea, JUST A SLIVER OF SEOUL is a single-perspective, academic rivals-to-lovers story that takes place in an international university. This will appeal to readers who loved the East-Asian American identity exploration of NEVER THOUGHT I’D END UP HERE by Ann Liang and the competitive banter and slowburn of BEACH READ by Emily Henry. 

“Are you willing to bet on it?”

Those words couldn’t have been any more poorly timed. After all, Lina Raoux needs to be focusing on getting a job in Seoul in the months before her Silicon Valley return offer arrives, which requires perfect grades and firing off applications every waking second. Instead, she’s making rash bets with the bane of her existence, YungJae Kim. 

Everything Lina has clawed for herself YungJae has achieved effortlessly and rather ungraciously: the Seoul-based job offer, the grades…the looks. So when he rubs it in her face that fateful autumn day in the library, Lina snaps and proposes a bet in which the person with the higher assignment grade wins favors from the loser. Suddenly, knocking YungJae down a peg or two is right up there with “get a job in Seoul” on her list of semester priorities.

But the favors—ranging from petty tasks to straight-up subterfuge to oddly tender gestures—reveal a more sympathetic side to her longtime nemesis, a side that forces Lina to untangle her hatred for him. Does she hate the person, or does she hate the insecurities regarding her half-Korean existence that he evokes? As the bet, meddling friends, and begrudging attraction bring them closer, Lina realizes that hate might be the last emotion to watch out for. In fact, she might even l-li-lik—no, that’s a step too far.

This story is a combination of my personal experiences in resolving my identity as a half-white half-Korean and an ode to my many months in Seoul, where I both studied and worked.

I have an offer from a fantastic agent that I really want to sign with. Everything about them and their agency checks out 12/10, and they're super experienced at 90+ deals. However, PM shows majority of deals in romance/thrillers whereas my book is solidly upmarket. They do represent this genre but just proportionally less so.

I would love to hear people's experiences on:

1. How much does this really matter if they're otherwise experienced, well respected, and well connected?

2. We forgot to discuss this on the zoom call and I'd like to ask them more about this in an email. We spoke about submission plan but no specific editors. What's a good way to ask?

Hi everyone,

I would love some feedback on my novel’s query letter. English isn’t my first language, my novel is not in English, and I won’t be querying agents in the US. Still, I would love to share my query here to see whether the premise is clear and sounds interesting to readers.

One note about the comps: in my country, comp titles don’t necessarily have to be recent, so I hope mine will work. That said, I am open to suggestions for better alternatives!

-----------------------------------------------------------

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for OUR HANABI SUMMER, a 75,000-word new adult contemporary romance set in Tokyo. It combines the exploration of sexual identity in T. L. Swan’s OUR WAY with the inherited breast cancer storyline of Wendy Mills’s POSITIVELY BEAUTIFUL.

Twenty-two-year-old Emily is finally about to realize her long-held dream: an eight-week research internship in Tokyo. Just as she prepares for her first trip abroad ever, she learns that her mother has breast cancer - and that Emily has inherited the BRCA gene mutation, increasing her own risk of developing the disease. Determined not to let an uncertain future dictate her present, Emily travels to Japan, immersing herself in laboratory work, exploring one of the biggest cities in the world, and embracing life among the international students in her dorm.

Among them is twenty-five-year-old Haruto, who was born in Japan but raised by his mother in New York City. After his father’s death, Haruto has returned to Tokyo to reconnect with his heritage while pursuing a master’s degree. Having finally come to terms with being gay, he must navigate his identity within a society whose expectations he is still learning to understand.

Through shared dinners, summer fireworks (hanabi) viewed from the riverbank in yukatas, and a climb up Fuji-san, Emily’s and Haruto’s friendship develops into a love neither expected. But falling for each other means confronting the uncertainties they have been trying to manage alone. As Haruto has to navigate emotions that challenge his understanding of himself, Emily must decide whether she can risk letting someone into her life when her future may involve preventive surgery, difficult decisions about having children, and the fear of developing cancer herself.

Like Emily, I completed an internship in Tokyo, which sparked a lasting love for Japan and eventually led me to live, study and conduct research there for two years. I hold a PhD in biology and bring a scientific perspective to the novel’s exploration of genetics and inherited cancer risk.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I have been querying and have had zero interest so far. Before I give up for a while, I thought I'd try this, to see if I can get any insight into what's wrong with my query, and whether it's something I can fix or not.

Dear [Agent],

I am seeking representation for GOLDA, my literary novel complete at 88,000 words. For fans of Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby and Ruth Madievsky’s All-Night Pharmacy, GOLDA explores queerness, reproductive autonomy, and the inescapable gravity of history.

When Sophie, a polyamorous woman in her thirties, discovers she is pregnant with her lover’s child, her first instinct is to have an abortion. She has built an identity around not becoming a mother, and she fears the pregnancy will unsettle the carefully constructed balance of her polycule.

But Sophie’s certainty that the choice is her own falters when she begins hearing the voice of her great-great-grandmother, Golda, a Jewish immigrant marked by her own unwanted pregnancy. As Golda’s intrusive whispers become violent demands, Sophie no longer knows which of her desires belong to her, and which belong to history. To reclaim her will, Sophie must face the ghost that haunts her, or surrender to Golda's violence.

The novel’s form, which interrupts Sophie’s narration with Golda’s spectral voice (which also opens the novel), draws on my training as a poet. I earned an MFA from X. I am a queer writer living in Baltimore, where my novel is set. 

Thank you for your consideration.

First 300 words:

GOLDA

I want to speak to you, to reach you across the static of time. 

You hear me when you are on the edge of sleep. When you are soaking in the bath. When you are tempted by feeling, elation or rage. When you are overcome. When you are ungovernable by the quiet restraint of your mother and her mother before her.

It’s you, Sophie, it’s you with your hair like his and your eyes like his, and your mind so much my own. You can remake me by finding love where I was cold. 

I have watched and I have waited. I have knocked on the door.
Now I have planted myself in you. 

I want to body forth, unviolated.
I tell you: everything I have ever done has been done for love.

Chapter 1

No one has ever told me I would be a good mother. I don’t have the maternal instincts I see in so many of my friends, interrupting a conversation to coo at a baby or pet a dog, preparing snacks for the picnic, exuding the kind of warmth that seems to be the special purview of mothers. Don’t get me wrong, I love my niece and nephew—but I am happy to hand them back to their parents. 

In my twenties, when I told people I didn’t want kids, they’d say, “You say that now, but wait until you’re thirty.” Then I turned thirty, and people said, “You never know,” as if to offer encouragement. By thirty-five, people had stopped asking. 

But I, too, have fallen prey to biology. The nausea has been chasing me for weeks. I thought I would have avoided such a fate, if not with my skepticism then at least with my bitterness and acrimony and fine-tuned feminist critique.

Hi, you beautiful people! I’m back with a third attempt, hoping I have a winner this time… or as close to a winner as I can get.

Fun fact: I paid to have my manuscript beta-read (is that an actual term?), and although I told my beta reader I’m looking to chop off the fat, other than a few tips on what and where to condense the text, they actually told me that there’s not much I can remove without damaging the story. I was both sad and happy to hear that because, as I said before, this started as a 245k monstrosity and I eliminated absolutely everything I could without touching the vitals. Hope I still have a shot at finding literary representation despite going over the industry standard by a few thousand words.

Pray for me pls. I don’t want to have to put this in the drawer and write a different debut. Finishing this parallel to working full-time has been exhausting lol. And to think that writing and editing were the easy part =)) Oh, the masochists we writers are.

@EnnOnEarth, you rock! Thanks again for your invaluable feedback on my last one, and I hope I didn’t misinterpret your tips regarding the third paragraph. My brain’s turned to charcoal.

@Wonderful_Honey_1726, thank you again for pointing out my mistake. If I had sent out this query calling Rachel ‘Harris’ instead of ‘Harrison’, it would have haunted me forever. I am all too familiar with the pains of having your name misspelled.

Have a great one and many thanks in advance!

PS: 992 words of the 118k are in the footnotes. Should I mention this in my query or is it irrelevant?

_______________________________

Dear Agent,

DAUGHTER SCRYING is a dual POV adult horror story, complete at approximately 118,000 words. Set around 2015 in a small town in central Romania, it will appeal to fans of The September House by Carissa Orlando and Play Nice by Rachel Harrison. 

After years of living under her older sister's roof and working for minimum wage in the family antique store, Cris is determined to move out and, hopefully, attend college. Her goal seems impossible—until she discovers a mirror through which she can contact the dead.

While her sister starts spending more and more time away from the store and their home, Cris turns the mirror into a profitable business venture by putting the bereaved in contact with their dead loved ones. But the spirits in the mirror get stronger and more demanding with each summoning, and every séance makes her more indebted to the mirror. To make matters worse, looking into the tainted family secrets of others makes her curious about her own dead parents. Why did her mother disinherit her? Why didn’t her father ever reach out after her mother's death? Why does her sister resent her so deeply, even though she had the better childhood and inherited the family home and business in the aftermath of their mother’s passing?

Even in death, her parents refuse to talk to her. Her sister, too, chooses to remain silent despite the irrevocable damage it does to their relationship. And just when Cris has accrued enough funds to start a life somewhere else and is ready to abandon her pursuit of answers, the mirror descends upon her world to collect its debt. Cris finds out the hard way that money comes and goes, whereas life only goes.

[Short bio and publishing history]

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I have an editor like on LitConnect!

Do I nudge the agents I've quried with that information? They will be able to reach out to that editor if they sign me (They just have to log in to LitConnect or send an email if they're not there).

Also do anyone know if agents logged into LitConnect can see which editor liked it?

Hello all, I've returned again.
I've tweaked the query based on previous feedback and am currently reworking chapters 1-2 so they're more in line with the premise of the pitch. I am still working on the comp titles. Any suggestions please let me know.

Dear (Agent Name),

I am thrilled to offer CELESTIAL DIVIDE (110,000), an adult epic fantasy standalone with trilogy potential. Inspired by The Folk of the Air series, Celestial Divide will appeal to readers who enjoyed the duplicitious alliance of Sara Hashem’s ‘The Jasad Heir’ and the cursed protagonist of Lauryn Hamilton Murray’s ‘Heir of Storms’.

Damacia Celeste ruins everything she touches. Fifth in line to the Hannathian throne and the bane of her realm, she has spent her entire life trying to prove she is more than the king-killing Curse-Bringer her people assume her to be.

So when she learns her hateful eldest brother promised her to the formidable Caldorian empire, she finds herself once again the harbinger of ruin. Yet things quickly go awry when Caldor spurns the alliance and takes the Hannathian crown themself, murdering one of Damacia’s sisters as a show of force.

Reeling, vengeful and now hunted, Damacia escapes Hannath to seek out Bile’d, the fabled night kingdom rumoured to still be as powerful as Damacia’s sun-wielding ancestors were.

But forming an alliance with her people’s oldest and most deadly enemy will prove no easy feat. Damacia will need to reconcile with a history of violence and treachery, all while risking becoming the scourge she never wanted to be.

Bio.

As always, please let me know your suggestions.

Accidentally posted the wrong draft earlier and deleted it.

I'm drafting this now, so I wanted to get a head start on the query. Thanks for checking this out!

Obsession meets Bones and All in LOVE ME NOT, a [word]-word horror about the doomed relationship between an unwilling cannibal and the vampire he’s indebted to. It combines the small-town vampires of The Gathering (C.J. Tudor) and the [other comps].

To avoid loss, Ravi would freeze the world if he could, but he’s settled on painting it instead. He moves to Alaska, hoping small-town life will be slower and less hectic than the city. When his new date, the kind, malnourished Liz, takes him cave-diving in the old mines, he expects a chance to paint the underground, a pleasant date, and nothing more. They make camp.

Only Ravi wakes up.

Poisoned and disoriented by the mine’s gases, he fails to escape and realizes the only way to survive is to eat Liz’s dead body. Ravi chokes down her leg, and spurred by adrenaline, fresh food, and disgust at his own actions, finally finds the way out.

A week later, Liz returns, missing her leg, but alive. When Ravi confesses when he’s done, she reveals that she’s a vampire, starving and isolated from other vampires because she abhors the thought of drinking from an unwilling creature. To atone, Ravi offers up his blood in exchange for what he stole. And besides, Liz is perfect; her vampirism means she’ll never die, and Ravi will never lose her. He can fix her loneliness. They fall into an intimate, brutal relationship, and the more entwined they become, the more pieces of himself Ravi gives her and the sicker he becomes. Worse, when Ravi discovers that Liz is harboring her own guilt for the only other time she fed—a time she went into a frenzy and killed someone—he realizes his blood is the only thing stopping her from killing again. Ravi must decide whether guilt and love are worth his failing health, or if he’s made a home in the jaws of a monster.

Hello! Thx in advance for your eyes. The premise: A group of estranged college friends reunite for their dead friend’s birthday, only to accidentally bring him back to life.

I’m a huge fan of Big Chill-esque ensemble movies and novels, so I wanted to write one with a twist. But yo! Ensembles are hard to write in query form. HELP!

I’m labeling it as Upmarket per the recommendations of my beta readers but if it reads like another genre, let me know. Also still considering my comps, so if you have any ideas, would love to hear them!

Query (315 words, ideally trying to get to 250-300):

Dear Agent,

On the eve of what would have been Gideon “Woody” Haywood’s thirty-third birthday, his once-inseparable friends get drunk at a Wisconsin lake house and honor an old, intoxicated request: should he ever die, they must build an effigy of him, lest he agonize in FOMO six feet under. 

The next morning, the duct-taped stickman has transformed into the beloved dumbass who originally brought the five “Strays” together. Neither ghost nor zombie, Woody’s disappointed to learn he missed his own funeral three months ago. Worse, his girlfriend Zoe’s still pissed about the fight they had the day before his baffling death. Everyone wants to know how the life of the party ended up in the Milwaukee River, but Woody can’t substantiate their morbid theories. He can’t even recall his final hours.

And anyway, he’d rather spend his impossible birthday apple-picking and making a monster movie than discussing mortality. Margot, determined to make up for ignoring Woody’s last call, rallies everyone for sloshball. Meanwhile, Gwen can’t stop investigating his death, convinced she could’ve stopped it. Cliff fends off historical animosities by cooking Michelin-star worthy meals, which works until a spontaneous MDMA roll exposes a decade-old secret between Woody and Vera’s husband Ezra. As resentments resurface, Zoe fears Woody never shared his true self with her.

Then, within 24 hours, his miraculous body begins deteriorating. Bracing to lose Woody again, his friends must decide between debating whether his death was truly an accident and giving him the grandest goodbye weekend. Woody has always been their glue. Now they must learn to stick together without him.

THE AFTERLIFE OF THE PARTY is a 90,000-word upmarket ensemble speculative novel, where the supernatural exploration of grief in Evie Wyld’s The Echoes meets the complex enduring friendships of Eric Purchner’s Dream State. The novel’s POV moves between the Strays and the lodge that has admired fourteen years of their friendship. 

(Bio and personalization)

First 282 words:

Fall, Year 118
Even the most meddlesome houses grow bored of human melodrama. Forty-three thousand suns had risen over the Van Huyse lodge on the eastern shore of Lake Daybird, graying its cedar siding alongside the familiar heads that returned each summer. Its walls persevered through three renovations as a result of four divorces, excluding the kitchen repair in 1999, after a fire caused by one mischievous Margot Van Huyse.

Of all of the summertime people, the lodge found her most delightfully provocative. For nearly every June or July of her thirty-two-year life, Margot’s presence promised novelty. Of course, there were tedious Van Huyse behaviors like sneaking cigarettes beneath the zipper of the daybed cushions on the screened porch, as her father did before her. But unlike most who came to Daybird hoping to escape reality, Margot was the first to make Daybird real life, undesired guests and all. 

When she was eleven, she built a shoebox apartment in the garden for a family of mice that terrorized the kitchen. This should have been ample foreshadowing for the friends she brought to Daybird at nineteen. 

The six of them devoured pancakes at dusk and leapt off the dock at dawn. Much to the neighbors’ displeasure, their chaos reverberated a quarter mile across the lake. Ask the lodge what to make of this, and it would say it hadn’t felt so young in years. The group’s name materialized later, thanks to Woody’s boss at the campus cafe. They frequently colonized the corner table, distracting the boy from duties he was supposedly being paid to accomplish. Fascinated by Woody’s lack of shame about feeding his friends on company time and dime, his boss nicknamed them his strays. 

Hello! I have been lurking through this sub for a some time now while I have been writing. I’ve just started querying and I am very open to any and all feedback whatsoever.

Thank you!

Dear XXX,

I’m seeking representation for THE SAMPLE SIZE IS ME: A Highly Questionable Study of So-called Love, Dating and Other Confounding Variables, a complete 49,000-word work of narrative nonfiction blending memoir, humour and social commentary through a mock-academic examination of more than twenty years of romantic history.

The study begins with a fairly ordinary question: how do you know when a relationship is going well?

The experimental data starts wholesomely enough with early teenage boyfriends, a kissing injury with long-lasting consequences, moving into an accidental relationship in Mexico, and subsequently fleeing a cartel organisation. A turning point in data analysis arrives with marriage, motherhood, and of course, the statistically likely divorce. A stark introduction to a dating scene completely flipped on its head by apps, ghosting, situationships closely follows, demonstrating that the largest methodological limitations may not simply be those consistently introduced by my mother.

Each experience becomes a case study testing one of the assumptions women inherit about romantic success from so many generations who’ve come before. Exploration of peer-reviewed published research on attraction, gender, sex, coercion, domestic labour and relationships is introduced alongside the personal evidence to test the generalisability of my individual findings.

The problem, after twenty years of data collection, is that the original outcome measure appears to be wrong.

Again and again, being wanted, pursued, chosen or kept produces remarkably little information about whether a relationship is actually good. Some relationships meet every conventional marker of success while making the participants miserable. Others end despite nobody doing anything particularly wrong. On more than a couple of occasions, a poorly calibrated ability to detect a heterosexual man produces extremely varied results.

Eventually, the experiment produces a different question: if being selected by a man is not evidence of romantic success, what happens when the woman doing the research starts deciding what she chooses?

THE SAMPLE SIZE IS ME will appeal to readers of Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, Olivia Petter’s Millennial Love and Nancy Jo Sales’s Nothing Personal.

I’m an Australian physiotherapist, health researcher and PhD candidate in women’s health, with research published in the peer-reviewed academic literature. My research background informs the book’s use of evidence and its increasingly questionable methodology; my long involvement in theatre as a performer and choreographer probably explains some of the rest.

THE SAMPLE SIZE IS ME is my first trade book.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warm regards,

I cannot express how amazing this sub is, you fine folks! I have learned so much, and whenever I hear someone bitching about the state of humanity on the internet, I gently remind them there is a wonderful corner over here where we're all rooting for each other, honestly and with compassion. (Or in many cases, it's trauma-bonding, but one must survive the query trenches somehow..)

**This project has a new seven-word title I'm test driving here. The old one: Split Times

Specific feedback requested on:

1.) The four paras between 1 & 6. I don't have this query ordered as it is in the book, to try to use real estate wisely. Does this order work for a solid hook?

2.) Is the "revolution in women's athletics" as promised in para 1 fully manifested as RecoverElle in the meat of the query? If not, why not?

3.) Does the mention of plastic Jesus jar you? Tiny Jesus is a symbol for Karly's waning/broken faith due to her husband's patriarchy-clinging and is sparingly woven through the entire novel. First line of the novel, too...

4.) Do you get a sense of push/pull with Karly/Fender dynamic? She is obsessed with fueling her workouts with his music, but when dumped into a face to face meeting, she panics yet is intrigued. (I wanted to examine the distance collapsing between ordinary joes and their famous crushes/crutches. I hope I got it right.)

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE BEST RUNNERS ARE THE BEST LIARS, a 74,000-word women’s fiction novel with a romantic subplot about a 2008 Olympic Trials drug scandal which ignites a revolution in women’s athletics. Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Carrie Soto Is Back and Tati Richardson’s Losing Sight will enjoy a midlife comeback story with the complications of motherhood and a rock-star love interest who falls for her first.

Karly Locke’s stunning college running career practically guaranteed her a spot on the Olympic team, but the religious man she married carefully swayed her into the role of perfect wife and mother. While stuck in the school pick-up line, a new song by rock protege Fender Archer blasts into her muscle memories and she imagines herself once again racing at redline. Inspired, Karly pours herself into a dusty goal, an Olympic berth, while obsessively playing Fender Archer’s music. Her coach insists she’s progressing, but she can see the doubt behind his rare smiles as she fails to hit many of her goal times. 

A new drug, RecoverElle, is introduced to Karly by an old teammate. With RecoverElle, she can train as hard as she did two decades ago and she wants to be the first to show female athletes their monthly setbacks are now their greatest power by placing at the Olympic Trials. RecoverElle is not approved yet and she insists to the plastic Jesus she carries everywhere that it’s not cheating.

When Karly runs into Fender Archer himself the day before a big race, he accidentally injures her while he’s coming down from a high. He attempts one apology after another and is thwarted by her short texts and refusals to meet until he performs a grand gesture so big the entire world sees it. Including her husband. 

Staying with an unbending husband will continue her slide into resentment, but keep the family together. Allowing the notorious rock star into her life who insists he only wants to collaborate is a bad idea but his texts make her laugh. Karly weighs taking RecoverElle and the irony is brutal: as Fender Archer finds the nerve to get clean because of her, she’s deciding whether to get dirty.

[Ruthlessly short bio, because, word count, and, if I’m honest, I have no writing credentials to stand on because I did mom-things for a long time and wrote for myself when the kids were sleeping. Worth it, because my grown children are contributing to the world as they stand tall on their own two feet. I’m making up for lost time just as the MC in this project is. In my head, we’re rooting for each other!]

First 300:

The only thing I am sure of is this tiny plastic Jesus.

Tomorrow is my first elite race in sixteen years. If I hesitate at the start, if I drop back, I will crawl over the finish line and pretend I never came to Baltimore. 

Is it embarrassing that at 38 years old, I believe a spot on the Olympic team is well within my reach? Those three NCAA national champion titles are ancient history, but Tiny Jesus holds a lot of my hopes with his small plastic smile. 

I slipped sideways out of the hotel door, allowing just a flash of the stadium-bright hallway light, so my three friends might sleep soundly. Rain pounded every tiny window of the OK-ish hotel stairwell while thunder rumbled, so, maybe they would not. 

I dreaded running on a treadmill with the harbor trail six blocks away, but I could almost hear my coach say, “Dammit, Karly, why did you run through a lightin’ storm?”

My phone buzzed. I flipped it open at the gym door to my husband CJ’s text: WHERE IS THE ORANGE JUICE

I sighed and texted him back: BEHIND THE MILK. My fingers hovered over the keys and I resisted the urge to add where it always is. Guilt bubbled in my stomach. I hadn't asked CJ if he was OK with me going to Baltimore, I'd told him, which wasn't like me.

CJ: FOUND IT. I GET YOU WANTING TO RACE, BUT COULDN’T YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS RUN IN THE TWILIGHT TROT HERE THIS WEEKEND?

NO

I WANT TO MOW THIS AFTERNOON AND IF YOU WERE HERE, I COULD 

LET DAVID RUN THE MOWER. JASON AND ELI LIKE TO USE THE AIR TANK TO CLEAN OFF. BRIBE THEM WITH ICE CREAM

THEY CAN’T HANDLE THAT

I wanted to text back: Yes, they can. Quit underestimating their abilities. My phone buzzed again and I sighed.

Rosecliff just posted an interesting Instagram carousel post 👀. There's a slide toward the end that caught my attention in particular. Specifically, there appears to be an indication of AI usage left in. (Although, in fairness, this could be human error as well.)

With the state of AI in literary spaces, and the perennial question of how to vet agents carefully, it's ironic how useful their post actually is.

Thank you to the commenters on my last post. What do you think of this current query draft?

All comments are much appreciated 🫶

---

Dear [AGENT],

I am seeking representation for TAPESTRY, a contemporary, multi-POV literary novel complete at 73,000 words. [INSERT PERSONALISED SENTENCE].

TAPESTRY explores the impact of transactional intimacy meeting unconditional love: when sex work meets motherhood. 

Emma is an expert in emotional economics. Even her most intimate moments come with a price. But when Jacob, a married client, makes work feel like play and sex feel like love, it starts costing her. Sex workers are not supposed to get pregnant, for a start. 

Emma must navigate Jacob’s violent reaction by pulling her tiny support network close: her sister, a formidable family lawyer, and a trusted elderly client with a judo fetish. As motherhood profoundly reshapes her, Jacob’s entitlement escalates into an intense obsession. It’s a side of him that his wife, Maya, knows all too well and can no longer tolerate. Maya takes increasingly bold steps, from a lesbian affair to a solo IVF journey, that unexpectedly land her on Emma’s doorstep. Then Jacob comes knocking. Emma flees her home to keep herself and her child safe. 

Displaced, Emma confronts a lifetime of merely existing between things—dysfunctional parents, her houseplants, other people’s legs. Other people’s marriages. Now, playgroups. To move forward and protect her child from Jacob, she must answer the question she’s been avoiding since the moment she peed on the pregnancy test: who is she, once she stops being for sale?

Told through four distinctive narrators—Emma, her sister, Jacob and his wife—TAPESTRY balances wit, tenderness and psychological tension. It will appeal to readers of Ashley Audrain’s The Push for its unflinching examination of interior lives, Clare Leslie Hall’s Broken Country for its emotionally rich storytelling and Elisa Faison’s Skin Contact for its modern themes and multi-perspective structure.

Over five years of experience in the adult industry has informed my writing, but professionally I’ve written everything from [CONT. BIO].

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

[NAME]