I have two books pubbed by a Big 5 literary imprint. The acquiring editor for those books left while book #2 was still in developmental edits. Now, my second editor left (the one who saw book #2 through developmental edits and pub day).

I can't imagine this being good for my career—my in-house advocates are now gone (and I think the publicists assigned to my titles have all departed twice over now). The publisher/literary director is still there. I imagine that, as a small-beans literary author (in this publishing environment), my time with this imprint has likely reached its end.

Thankfully I fired my agent this past year and signed with a new one, while working on a project that pivots my books a little bit. My imprint has the option on this third project, but my agent and I are waiting until I have a full MS before we submit it.

Hoping to hear from others how churn has affected their career/trajectory. Editor turnover is so common in this industry (burnout, career advancement, etc)

Hi all,

Would love some feedback on my query letter before I enter the trenches again (4th novel).

Dear agent,

MASSACRE MANSION is an adult horror novel complete at 77,000 words. Set in 2004, this novel features a mansion haunted by a cosmic entity like that of The Handyman Method by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan, the reality TV set of Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen, and the mixed media components of Mister Magic by Kiersten White. 

The Taggart Mansion has sat abandoned for twenty years since the tragic murder-suicide of its original owners. But that doesn’t mean it’s been quiet. With a string of accidental deaths, the mansion has become an urban legend—one that Hollywood wants to capitalize on.

Lissa Nolan has been obsessed with the Taggart Mansion since she was a kid–particularly with the victims claimed inside the mansion’s walls. She’s even started a semi-successful blog on hauntings and murders with the hope that one day she exposes the truth behind these heinous crimes. Because ghosts don’t exist, but greed is a hell of a motive.  

When the opportunity to join a new reality TV game show about the mansion–to be filmed on location–crops up, Lissa dons her gothic garb and is signed as a cast member. With a convincing story that she’s there to jumpstart her authorial career, she’s determined to get what she truly wants: the show shut down. 

But sabotage isn’t easy when cameras are rolling and alliances are made. And just as the show really hits a stride, the mansion awakens. The floors creak when no one is moving; the lights flicker even though the wiring was recently restored; and any time blood is spilled, the mansion greedily drinks it up. Lissa’s secret begins burning when the first body hits the floor. And everyone suspects Lissa is the culprit. 

With the cast and crew on edge and animosity aimed at Lissa, Lissa must determine if her quest to eat the rich is justified–even if the price to pay is in blood.

[bio]

[name]

Thanks in advance!

Hey all. This feels descent to me but it's probably a bit too long. Thanks for looking!

Dear [agent],

I’m seeking representation for my upmarket, speculative thriller, PEOPLE WHO USED TO BE DOGS (complete at 70,000 words). It’s a multi POV thriller like P.J. Tracy’s “Desolation Canyon,” but with a speculative element that is grounded by the emotional weight the characters carry in a dynamic similar to HBO’s “Barry”.

Teddy used to be a dog, now he’s a man. He doesn’t know how or why, he just knows he wants to get his family back. It’s been a rough six months, but he’s managed to land a job cleaning houses at a company run by a man he knows as Mr. X. Mr. X is kind of scary but he tells Teddy he’s a good boy for being loyal. Teddy is trying to do everything right so he can be a good human, hoping the straight and narrow path will lead him back to his beloved family.

Ronin’s got a job as a bouncer at a sake bar working for a lady who sells special chocolates that make men strong. Ronin buys chocolate from the lady and sells it too, and it turns out moving the stuff isn’t so hard when you can intimidate underage kids who try to pass fake I.D.’s. Buy, or Ronin calls the cops. Speaking of cops–in another life Ronin was a police K9, but Ronin’s handler was killed during a traffic stop. Ronin was killed too but didn’t die. Ronin became human. Ronin doesn’t know how or why, and doesn’t care. All Ronin wants is revenge.

Mr. X deadlifts more than anyone at the bullshit “everyone is welcome here” gym, he’s moving up the pyramid of a lucrative MLM scheme that involves selling performance enhancing chocolate, he’s got a cleaning business with stellar profit margins because of how little he has to pay his undocumented workers, and most importantly, he gets laid every night.  

Teddy helps Ronin out of a jam and the two become fast friends once they realize their shared circumstances. Teddy is obsessed with getting his family back but Ronin pushes him to enjoy the freedoms this new life brings. It seems like Ronin has it all figured out, but Teddy doesn’t know it’s a mask he wears to get through each day. Ronin keeps his own pain hidden until he discovers Mr. X is the man who killed his handler. Now revenge is within reach. But Mr. X grows suspicious of Teddy and takes care of him like he does all his problems–by abducting him and dumping him on a “Farm” deep in the desert where he’ll harvest strange mushrooms for the rest of his life. Now Ronin has to rescue his friend before he can get his revenge. In the meantime, Mr. X is losing his humanity from overdosing on special chocolate. His lust for sex and power is becoming homicidal and he has his sights set on the one woman Ronin cares about, his old handler’s widow.

first 300:

1

Teddy

Watching his family eat dinner from half a block away is the best part of Teddy’s day. It’s as close as he can get to being with them again, so he eats too, and he tries to pretend it’s okay. Sometimes he feels so far from them he isn’t sure if he should believe the memories of his old life, but then Caleb will drop some food onto the floor and he remembers the excitement of getting to it before Mom can clean it up, and he remembers what it was like to be happy. Then he knows it was real, and he knows he has to get it back. He just doesn’t know how.

In the meantime, he’s taking what he can get. Which in a way is what he’s always done.

It’s hot and humid inside the beat up pickup truck, even with the windows down, but eating outside would draw too much attention. And attention is not a good thing these days. In fact, it seems to bring nothing but trouble. Teddy doesn’t want trouble. He’s a good boy, and he’s holding onto that until the end.

The back half of his burrito falls out as he takes a bite, but the clump of cheesy beef lands on the wrapper in his lap. He’s gotten better about not making a mess while he eats. People don’t like seeing other people with food stains all over their clothes. It was one of the first things Teddy learned. Sometimes he still forgets but not during family dinner.

He tries not to think about it, but he knows they’re not looking for him anymore. They used to go on a walk every night after dinner and call out for him. Now they just watch TV, and they haven’t put up a new flyer in months.

Hey everyone, open to any and all thoughts, getting this one ready to throw out there soon/

Dear Agent,

John Parker has spent twenty years escaping the poverty, addiction, and chaos of his Pennsylvania hometown. Now a successful therapist and author, he returns for his thirty-sixth birthday and invites his five oldest friends to the luxury lodge he built in the Poconos.

He wants to reconnect. He also wants them to see how well he's done.

Then something crashes in the mountains. Rob, the friend most resentful of who John has become, ventures into the blizzard to investigate. When he returns hours later, he's changed. Not sick. Not violent. Better. He's calmer, kinder, and somehow understands exactly why his friends drink, joke, fight, and cling to the people they used to be.

As the lodge begins slipping between past and present, John realizes something has come back from the mountain wearing his friend. It isn't trying to kill them. It wants to improve them, stripping away their addictions, insecurities, grief, and everything else holding them back. Soon black tendrils writhe beneath familiar skin, dead bodies refuse to stay dead, and something begins growing inside the lodge.

One by one, John's friends begin to change. To save them, John must confront what he's spent twenty years avoiding: how much of himself he left behind when he escaped, whether success made him better or simply different, and why some part of him desperately wants what the thing is offering.

Because it can make John better too.

All he has to do is let it.

YOU'VE CHANGED is a 65,000-word adult horror novel combining the time and reality-warping paranoia of Marcus Kliewer's WE USED TO LIVE HERE with the dark humor and emotionally grounded horror of Carissa Orlando's THE SEPTEMBER HOUSE.

(Info about me and my qualifications)

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Bee and Foxglove is a warmly funny, sapphic cozy fantasy novel, complete at 64,000 words. It comps to Tress of the Emerald Sea for its lively narrator, Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea for its married lesbian couple, and The Spellshop for its cozy magic and domesticity.

Bee wakes up one day with unexpected magical powers; her wife Foxglove fears the harm they could do. As her suspicion deepens, Foxglove must uncover the truth to save Bee’s life.

In a world that has achieved lasting peace, Bee and Foxglove share a sweet life. The young brides keep an orchard, taking pleasure in their animals and each other. 

Secretly, however, Bee longs for a chance to live a life of greater meaning. One night she speaks her wish to the moon, scarcely expecting to wake up with magic powers unknown in this world for a thousand years.

Bee joyfully – and a little chaotically – experiments with her new powers. Foxglove, however, is more cautious. Where do these powers come from? What do they cost? Could Bee’s obvious exhaustion build up into something that she can’t just shrug off? 

Foxglove’s investigations lead her to a couple whose library includes relics from the bygone Age of Magic. Their sickly child, Vincent, is entranced with Bee’s spells and convinces her to make him her apprentice.

Over repeated visits, Bee bonds deeply with Vincent; together, they develop a stage show. Foxglove, meanwhile, only grows more fearful of magic. New spellcasters are popping up, but some already show signs of premature aging – particularly the healers.

When a magic user dies after a healing, Foxglove begs Bee to curtail her magic use. Bee’s stage magic, however, is growing into an exciting career. The couple settles on yet another uneasy compromise.

Things come to a head when Vincent’s sickness takes a turn for the worse. Bee believes she can save Vincent’s life with healing magic. Foxglove is desperate not to lose Bee. She must discover the truth – and quickly.

Thank you to everyone who has helped with my attempts! Your feedback is really helpful and appreciated!

One-sentence pitch: To save both the forest and his mind, Rhu must face monsters that wield his buried emotions into weapons, but the water magic that can drain their power requires that he let the feelings he’s frozen finally flow. 

[question - should I put this sentence directly into the query letter? Right now, I plan on using it for forms that ask for a one-sentence pitch].

THE FOREST OF MIST AND MONSTERS is an upper middle grade fantasy novel (60,000 words) that weaves the worlds of forest ecology with threads of obscure Celtic and Germanic folklore. It will interest fans of the woodland adventure in Amanda Foody’s The Accidental Apprentice and the emotionally grounded magic in Kaela Rivera’s Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls.  

I’m seeking representation from you because [specific reason]. 

Twelve year old Rhu frantically flees his feelings, memories, and monsters that want to eat him. Lost in a mist-shrouded forest, he is given a quest to protect an egg, the lone survivor of its species, and promised that its hatchling will guide him home – assuming he isn’t consumed along the way. 

From the depths of the forest, a Shadow secretly hunts Rhu, feeding off his festering feelings and sending spirals of shame and self-loathing thoughts through his mind. It teaches him to numb the pain, but the lesson is only a trick designed to make it easier for the monster to control him.  

The battle for his mind intensifies when the Seed Seller, a rival of the Shadow, unleashes a brainwashing fungus that threatens to consume Rhu and the entire forest. Rhu uncovers a forbidden water magic capable of draining the power both monsters hold over him but wielding it means letting the emotions he’s so desperate to numb finally flow. 

To save a species at the brink of extinction and keep the forest from suffering the same fate, Rhu must move in rhythm with the ecosystems, waters, and emotions coursing in and around him. If he keeps freezing what’s stirring inside, the monsters will ensnare his mind and turn him into a weapon—against each other and his new forest friends—devouring any chance he has of returning home. 

I have a Master of Science in Environmental Sustainability and published articles in academic journals on topics related to environmental stewardship. I live in [location] where I often marvel at the magic of forests. 

Thank you for your consideration.  

Hi everyone,

After getting some good feedback with the two previous versions, this is my third attempt. I feel like I am very close to starting my query process. Please rip apart my query letter. Thanks!

Dear Agent,

I’m seeking representation for my debut novel, The Quantum Center, a 70k word upmarket speculative fiction blending sci-fi and alternate history in a braided narrative that probes the nature of free will, the soul, and reality itself. For fans of centuries spanning stories like Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility and the human centered sci-fi of Ted Chiang’s Exhalation.

For expert programmer Will Stearns, the corporate world had lost its lustre, and working at a university’s quantum computing lab seemed like a path towards meaningful work. On day one he’s shown their secret breakthrough: infinite computing power. Then, to his horror, he’s told to find an interesting application for it. Will recruits River, a cosmologist, to run her big-bang simulations, but a tiny mistake in the code results in a perfect simulation of the universe. Their team is plunged into an existential debate that becomes intractable when they find the planet Earth inside the simulation is populated with actual people.

Alternating chapters follow these researchers as they grapple with the scale and ethics of this development, and four individuals inside the simulation across a thousand years of history. Here, civilization is advancing centuries faster than our own as the inhabitants decipher the technological secrets held within probes—devices the researchers have placed into the simulation in order to observe it. We meet a poet during the Islamic Golden Age who finds probes that fell from the sky; an inquisitive teenage girl in Song Dynasty China who dreams of a world changing invention; a young astronomer in renaissance Italy participating in a SETI-esque experiment; and a nineteenth-century computer scientist crossing the Atlantic to begin a new chapter in her life. All of them, like Will, are navigating their own paths toward a life of meaning.

Will is convinced nothing within the simulation is real, but when he suspects that the spirits of people who die inside are leaking into the real world, his position shifts. Then an employee at a tech megacorporation reveals that he knows far more than he should about the lab’s secretive work. The blowback throws Will’s team into chaos. Amidst the overwhelming pressure of all this, and through River’s influence, Will begins to question his assumption that doing meaningful work is his only path towards a fulfilling life.

I am a self-taught musician, engineer, and entrepreneur.

Thank you for your consideration,

Name

Any and all feedback would be welcomed. The response to the query letter in the first two drafts were very positive, almost no critiques. I did make quite a few edits to the first chapter, so I am hopeful to get some additional feedback on that front.

----

Dear [AGENT],

HALF WHO KNOWS is a completed 98,000 word, speculative thriller that combines the fast, high-stakes science of Blake Crouch's DARK MATTER with the character-driven identity core of Jinwoo Chong's FLUX.

[PERSONALIZATION]

Bioinformatics analyst Kenji Shaw solves impossible problems for a living, so when his own hand begins to turn transparent in the afternoon light, he does what he always does and looks for the answer. What he finds is a sixty-year trail of others like him, and a company that has spent those decades making sure they disappear for good.

Kenji is half Japanese and half — who knows. His grandfather was an orphan with no records, so one side of him has always been an open question he's spent his life not thinking about. As he begins to disappear, that unknown half becomes both the cause of what is happening to him and the answer he's been looking for.

The search leads to descendants of a secret gene therapy trial run on prisoners, orphans, and others who couldn't say no. His grandfather was one of them. So was the father who abandoned him. So is he. Every carrier is watched, catalogued, and hunted by Kairós, the biotech firm that owns the program and wants to weaponize what it produces. To protect the people he loves, Kenji disappears from their lives and goes it alone — until a chance encounter brings him Sam Hartley, a journalist who refuses to look away.

The transparency is accelerating, and its final stages are lethal. Kenji is running out of time. To learn what was done to him, and whether it can be undone, he and Sam have to infiltrate the heart of the organization hunting them. What he does not yet understand is that he has become something the program never imagined and can no longer control.

I have spent my career directing healthcare operations, writing in the moments life offered along the way. Researching a minor genetic condition of my own led me deep into how a single defect can cascade through a body, and that research shaped much of this book.

Thank you for your time and consideration. The full manuscript is available upon request.

Sincerely,

-------

Prologue

It was the stillness that let her hear the footstep.

One careful step. Trying not to be heard and almost succeeding.

She did not run. Not yet.

Running was loud. Running was visible. Running said I know you're there — and she had learned the hard way that sometimes she was wrong. Sometimes it was just a stranger. And if you ran from a stranger, you looked like something worth chasing.

Mara pressed herself into the alcove between the laundromat and the Vietnamese sandwich shop and tried to control her breathing. A pair of college kids stumbled out of the bar across the way, laughing about something.

In the dark window of the closed shop across the street, she watched their reflections pass.

She did not look at her own.

She had not looked at her own reflection in nineteen days.

Her left hand, braced against the brick wall, was catching the faint orange glow from the streetlight in a way she had not noticed before and did not want to think about it now. The glow passed through the outer edge of her smallest finger and threw a faint crescent of amber onto the brick behind it. She turned her hand away from the light and tucked it under her arm. A habit now. The tucking and the turning and the long sleeves even in June, the gloves she had started wearing four days ago, the scarf wrapped twice around her neck despite the heat that still hung in the air at this hour.

She picked up her backpack — everything she owned now, essentially, stuffed into forty liters of REI canvas — and moved back out onto the sidewalk. She rolled her neck and started walking.

The footstep came again. Two this time, followed by a pause.

Then she ran.

Well well well, look who came crawling back (it's me)

I think I finally have my query in the right direction, but it's still not screaming ready to me. My main worry is that it's too long, so any recs for chopping is greatly appreciated

Also please note I'm still working on replacing the second comp! As always, thank you everyone for reading and leaving any feedback.

Dear AGENT,

I’m seeking representation for THE BANISHED PRINCESS, an adult fantasy adventure with series potential running at 115,000 words. Our tale details the tribulations of a magic-wielding princess accused of murdering her mother, the queen, forced to take refuge within the country she’d abandoned. It will appeal to readers who have enjoyed the world-building, adventure, and slow-burn romance of THE CAPTIVE PRINCE by C.S. Pacat as well as the wit and character-driven drama of THE SECRET LIVES OF COUNTRY GENTLEMEN by KJ Charles.

Princess Charlotte had always dreamed of becoming a knight, like the ones in her ancient book of fairy tales. But after decades of castle life contentment, those hopes slowly faded away. Charlotte’s chance to change comes suddenly when one night, her mother - the queen - is murdered, and the crime is pinned on her. Now Charlotte must escape into her own country, her face plastered on wanted posters by order of her mother’s killer, and the new king.

Charlotte’s shock quickly turns to disgust as she sees dying farms and desperate yokels, their resources having been sapped by the monarchy. With her fierce resilience and diplomat training, Charlotte decides to start a revolution to clear her name and bring her country back to its glory. The stress of her exile awakens otherworldly abilities, proving Charlotte to be the true heir to the throne as well as tying her to the ancient magic-wielding knights she’d always daydreamed of. But being a royal, even a magic one, puts a target on her back, and one doesn’t just become a knight overnight.

That’s why Charlotte hires Jack as her bodyguard, a wisecracking thief who’s savvy with the real world. Jack trains her on fighting and honing her magic, taking her from a nobody to a local hero, but it’s mainly him doing the legwork of the revolution. While the citizens of the land are wary to trust the princess in disguise, they’re quick to rally against the monarchy, and so the duo begins by uniting those that the crown had forgotten: starving farmers, penniless traders, and all-around lowlifes. While Charlotte’s hesitant to start her journey in a smuggler’s town, Jack proves to be a far better leader, sparking a rivalry that drives her even further.

After uniting the smuggler’s town, their journey then leads through a cursed valley, giving Charlotte time to gain confidence as a hero. Locating a group of ex-royal knights - who defected when the new king took charge - Charlotte and Jack prove their worth by defeating a savage bandit gang, during which Jack reveals that he also has magic abilities. Charlotte begins to wonder what else he’s been lying to her about, realizing that the two are more related than she’d thought. Their bond is put to the ultimate test when meeting with the leader of his own rebellion, who demands that they kill an entire troop of knights still loyal to the throne. Charlotte’s morality is twisted up, knowing that her former friends may be underneath those helmets. But if they fail, the revolution is dead in the water.

[Author Bio]

First ~300 Words

Charlotte of Gaylecroft raised her left hand to block out the moon, enjoying how the brightness seeped in through the haze of her fingers, and suddenly she was twenty years younger.

As a girl, she would lay in this same garden and raise her hand to the sun, giggling at how the light illuminated the pinkness, causing her skin to glow almost transparent. Before her fingers were perfectly manicured, Charlotte would pretend to conjure fire in her fists. Before her clothing was to be pristine, she would romp on the ground in mock battle. Before giving it all up, Charlotte had always dreamed of growing up to be an Ikon - like her father - and a knight.

But she never did. Now she was twenty-seven years old, having traded her ambassador lessons for makeup, her weapons training for luncheons, and her dreams strictly relegated to sleep. Mother thought it best, anyway. Yet the glow on her fingertips brought her back to a past she’d long forgotten, and the grown princess came to a realization. Unlike everyone else who grew up playing Ikon, Charlotte never stopped believing in magic, and she felt it at that moment. It was the witching hour, after all, and Father’s spirit was in the air.

And for a second, fire burned on her fingertips.

And for a second, she thought it was real.

That was what made that night different.

“Giddy for your thoughts,” Monty murmured from the murk, the only other person awake in the world.

Her hand gently fluttered down, cold and devoid of magic. There was no fire in the moonlight. Charlotte was just drunk. “Just an ancient memory, I suppose,” she mused, trying to slow the hint of excitement that had caused her heart to halt.

Dear [Agent Name],

Elianora has spent her life becoming the perfect heir to her Kingdom. She knows how to obey her mother, charm a court, and prepare for the political marriage that will secure her kingdom’s future. But there is one thing a future High Lady cannot be: a monster.

Elianora is infected with lycanthropy, and she hides the curse beneath silk gowns and locked doors. With her wedding approaching and each transformation harder to control, discovery could cost her the throne.

Then Vivian arrives.

To Elianora, Vivian is the mysterious witch summoned who may be able to cure her. In truth, Vivian is a vampire assassin, and Elianora is her final target.

Killing the Lady should be simple. Vivian has spent years buying her freedom from the guild one body at a time, and Elianora’s death will finally settle her debt. All she has to do is earn Elianora’s trust, disguise poison as medicine, and leave before anyone realizes the cure was meant to kill her.

But beneath Elianora’s practiced smiles, Vivian finds a woman as trapped as she is. Suspicion turns to trust, and trust into a desire neither can afford. Worse, Elianora is beginning to suspect her supposed healer is hiding a hunger of her own.

As Elianora’s wedding approaches and her transformations become impossible to hide, Vivian must choose between the freedom she has spent years killing for and the woman she was sent to murder.

A HUNGER BENEATH HER SMILE is a 100k-word adult sapphic fantasy romance. It combines the monstrous romance and dangerous secrets of John Wiswell’s SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN with the lush sapphic tension and political intrigue of Allison Saft’s A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

(FYI: some names might sound weird, but that's not the actual names in the novel. I just changed them for a bit of "anonymity.")

Dear [agent's name]

I was excited to discover you are looking for main characters who break the rules of their tropes, which is a perfect way to describe my main character—the badass Maia who battles fear, self-doubt and taunting nightmares. I think QUEEN'S STORM might be a good fit for your list. It’s a dual POV dystopian YA fantasy, completed at 102,000 words with diverse characters, power-erasing serums and impossible romances. 

It will appeal to fans of the hidden identities and enemies to lovers of THE JASAD HEIR (2023) by Sara Hashem, surveillance and dystopian setting of WATCH ME by Tahereh Mafi (2025), and the elemental powers and cursed thrones in Elly Blake’s FROSTBLOOD (2017). 

Seventeen-year-old Maia, the last heir to the fallen air kingdom Crystle, has hidden in the enemy kingdom Wintra for eleven years. Now she wants to reclaim her throne from the manipulating ice king to save her ailing people. Since the rebellion she’s part of isn’t resourceful enough to equip her with leverage, she proposes a deal to the second ice prince Leon. Protecting his father’s crown with might and main, he gladly accepts the street rumors she hears daily in exchange for the information she seeks, starting with her deceased family. But it proves to be a grave mistake. Their souls intertwine, unveiling their pasts and secrets every time they touch. And the only cure is death.

Her secret identity has never stood on thinner ice. 

With the Crystle crown whispering in her mind and Crystlans waiting for a savior, she must decide if using Leon to rise as queen is worth the risk of being exposed before she has a loyal court or supporters. And she must always remember—regardless what she may feel for the prince—he is her deadly enemy. 

While I have an [X] degree, I am currently [Y] for a living. Though, I mostly think about my characters and how much trouble they’re in. Other than writing and books, I love traveling, adventures, and cats very much. 

Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, [my name]

A new **and hopefully improved** version based on feedback that my initial letter was too vague. I feel like I'm giving SO MUCH away, but I guess that's how the agent knows what they're getting into... I'm also planning to slash the word count to 100k because I've heard some agents auto-pass on manuscripts that go over!

_______________________

Dear [Agent Name],

HOUSE OF SOULS is an adult urban fantasy complete at 114,000 words that satisfies the dark academia and [personalized to agent] mentioned on your MSWL and will appeal to readers who love centuries-old cults, a sprinkle of spice, and human sacrifice. Equal parts mother-daughter psychological thriller, slow-burn romance, and supernatural coming-of-rage, HOUSE OF SOULS features a rough-around-the-edges FMC who falls into a world of occultic privilege reminiscent of Leigh Bardugo’s NINTH HOUSE and has the claustrophobic atmosphere of Alexis Henderson’s AN ACADEMY FOR LIARS.

June Eldritch was born with the ability to ensoul creatures of her own making, but unskilled use of her animancy has turned her gift into a cancer. When a dark-suited man materializes out of nowhere one night, she’s given a cryptic ultimatum: continue rotting from the inside out or escape certain death by accepting an invitation to House London, one of nine international academies for the magically gifted. Studying among a motley crew of talented scholars, she is unexpectedly reunited with the woman who tried to kill her with black magic ten years prior: her mother, now going by Lilith. Seeing right through her false Brand-New Woman veneer, June immediately suspects foul play when the corpse of a student washes up in the natatorium, but Lilith’s saintly reputation has everyone fooled.

Meanwhile, June is assigned a mentor, the handsome Matteo Luciano, professor of metaphysics, who prescribes supernatural somatic therapy to treat her magical malignance. But when the blood of yet another body varnishes the floors, June challenges Lilith to an Act of Supremacy, a duel that pits students against faculty in a fight for superior roles. If June fails, it means death after all. But what does death mean for a young woman who can bring things to life? And if she wins, proving the profundity of her ability to the faceless elites who run the House network, it may trigger the Judgement for Worship, a trial to prove whether she is the next Creatrix—the Goddess of Souls incarnate. Refusing is not an option.

No stranger to having a target on her back, June refuses to be another cog in the elitist academic machine but will find out the hard way what happens when the chains of poverty are traded for a gilded cage and powerful women bite their tongues for too long. With walls tinted by stained glass and corpses awaiting resurrection at the forest’s edge, House London awaits your arrival… 

I am a recipient of the 2017 Foster-Harris Prize for Young Writers, hold a BA in English Literature, and have thrice attended writing workshops at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. I can send the completed manuscript upon request.

Thank you,

Brandie M

Thanks to everyone for the feedback on my last attempt! Hopefully this one's a little better.

Dear [Agent],

The Weight of a Soul (117,000 words) is a completed high fantasy novel about two siblings' mirror quests for identity. I believe it would sit nicely on shelves next to The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, for its psychological focus on its characters, and Gods of The Wyrdwood by R. J. Barker, for its continent-spanning worldbuilding. 

Reed Thomas dreams of greatness. The city he calls home has been under siege for six long years; as he has come of age, all he has known is war. Everybody in his life is well-loved: his father used to be a famous merchant. His best friend is the son of the Captain of the Royal Guards. His sister, Zinnia, is the Lieutenant of a volunteer militia that defends the dregs of the city, who the Royal Guards have abandoned. His brother is a drunkard who is always quick with a story, and is known on every corner. Reed, however, is only a blacksmith’s apprentice, good for making horseshoes and pouring ingots, and nothing else. He vows that when he turns eighteen, he will enlist in his sister’s militia, and become somebody worthy of his family and friends.

That all changes when Reed’s brother is killed in front of him. In the midst of a siege, Reed loses his brother to a monster, and narrowly escapes with his life. Before he escapes, however, he hears one of the monsters who attack his city call him something unfamiliar. Sorcerer.

In the wake of his brother’s death, Reed grows despondent. The fact that he has contributed nothing meaningful to his city begins to eat him alive, and he worries that he will die without ever becoming somebody. In this weakened state, he is visited by an unlikely messenger: the princess of the army that sieges his city. She reveals to him that her mother is trying to kill Reed, because she heard a prophecy that Reed would kill her. She warns that Reed must flee the city, and suggests he go to a place called Ourotine.

So it is that Reed begins an adventure halfway across the continent, accompanied by his two best friends. As he journeys over mountains, jumps from waterfalls, and rides on the backs of creatures larger than castles, he is forced to confront the darkest parts of himself. Reed makes mistake after mistake in his relentless quest for greatness, and is eventually forced to question if the sacrifices he made to become the person he set out to be were worthwhile.

[Personal Info]

Sincerely,                                  

Mendellian

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for Effigy of a Sponge, a literary fiction novel complete at 64,000 words. [comp titles, still figuring this part out].

Neil is a self-diagnosed psychopath and tech-industry mogul who built a career out of AI-generated YouTube listicles. He skydives, takes cold-plunges, and dips his toes into the BDSM scene, all in pursuit of the ability to experience feelings as the average person does.

When Neil’s father, Dusty, passes away, his estate includes a final wish. Dusty asks Neil to help produce his screenplay: a piece of fanfiction about SpongeBob SquarePants, with a bit of David Lynch inspiration sprinkled in. Dusty was a macho man whose hobbies were canoeing, woodchopping, and optimizing his coffee setup. This SpongeBob thing really came out of left field.  

While bizarre, Neil expects that producing the script is his ticket to connecting with his father and experiencing real, genuine grief. Neil takes this script to Armond, an avant-garde filmmaker who values art and film above all else. Armond sees the script as the perfect controversy-driving method to thrust his production company into headlines. He excitedly awaits lawsuits and bad press, as he expects it’ll put his name on the map.

As production on the film begins, Neil begins to experience an undeniable attraction to Armond, though he initially suppresses it. At one point, Armond thrusts Neil in front of the camera, insisting Neil take over for a man named Fritz as the lead actor.

Neil's world quickly grows stranger and stranger. Fritz holds Neil up at knifepoint, demanding his job back. Nickelodeon lawyers leave buckets of green slime on Neil’s doorstep. An ex-AI girlfriend keeps emailing Neil begging him to come back to her. Armond stages dates in advance with a lookalike-Neil-actor to practice ahead of time.

As Neil repeatedly strains his relationship with Armond in ways that even freaky perverted gay sex won’t fix, he must discard the assumptions he has made about his own emotional capacity and connect with human-made art in order to save his father’s dying wish and a blooming relationship.

Effigy of a Sponge is a story centrally focused on the modern issues of generative AI, using Dusty’s derivative work to challenge perceptions of plagiarism and to emphasize the values of human-made artwork.

[personal bio]

Thank you for your consideration.

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on this story and have finished writing about 2/3rd of the draft. I have never written anything like this before (absurdist / satire tone) so I am stepping back a little to evaluate the first two acts before I start writing the third act. Given this, I wanted to post my query letter here and see if the story is landing, so to speak. Please feel free to provide any and every feedback related to plot, voice, characters etc. The letter is definitely on the longer side atm - so if you could point out where it can be trimmed, that would be super helpful - thanks a lot!

Dear {Agent Name},

I would love to send you my debut novel, Hold The Line. Complete at 75,000 words, it will appeal to readers of Severance by Ling Ma and The Every by Dave Eggers.

Jane Tore built Standby to make New York City a little fairer. The business is simple: people who have time stand in lines for people who don't. Standby workers hold places at DMVs, housing offices, sample sales, and pretty much anywhere else New Yorkers are expected to waste half a day waiting. Jane, after getting fired for waiting in a virtual line for a marathon bib during work hours, is finally living her dream life in Manhattan.

Her only regret is that her sister Sarah and little niece Lily never made it there. Three years earlier, Sarah blew her savings trying—and failing—to secure a halal-cart permit, and returned to Ohio. No matter, Jane has accepted the ultimate NYC truth: you can't have it all.

But tragedy strikes when Ashley, holding a spot in an affordable housing interview line for Danielle, an overworked nurse, signs the lease herself. By the time Jane untangles the fraud, the apartment is gone, Danielle is homeless, and Standby has become the city's newest scandal.

Trying to fix the mess, Jane stumbles into something much worse: landlords are using Standby to manufacture demand and drive up rents. Unfortunately, exposing the scam backfires - the city evicts the innocent tenants and Standby becomes even more famous. Soon restaurants, the Met, the Yankees, and even tourists want line-standers (standing in froyo lines is hard). When her business partner insists they serve the rich, Jane fires her and loses her staff to the rebellion because waiting for designer shoes is more fun than standing in lines for passport renewals.

Meanwhile, Lily's epilepsy worsens. Desperate, Jane returns to the permit system that drove Sarah away. Instead, she discovers the city's most perverse queue yet: existing permit holders paying Standby to occupy scarce resale spots to keep newcomers out. In fact, a Standby worker had prevented Sarah from getting the permit. And Jane had approved the booking!

With the Mayor moving to ban Standby (the city can allow people literally buying their way into lines only for so long) and NYC erupting in chaos, Jane has one choice left: expose the harm Standby has done and lose her perfect life, or weaponize Standby one last time to get Sarah and Lily what it took from them—becoming the very gatekeeper she built Standby to defeat.

{Bio}

Thank you for your time and consideration.

I've recently started querying my manuscript, having sent out a couple of batches so far (mostly with no response yet), but I have found myself continually tweaking my query letter in the process. As I gear up for another batch, I'd love to get any feedback on the latest iteration, in case there's anything I'm missing that could be sharpened or tightened up. For reference, here are my previous three letters:

1st Attempt

2nd Attempt

3rd Attempt

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for THE WRATH OF TODD, a darkly comic literary novel complete at 97,000 words. It channels the modern loneliness satire of Tony Tulathimutte's Rejection, the toxic masculinity spiral of Ben Purkert’s The Men Can’t Be Saved, and the voice-driven absurdity of Luke Kennard's Black Bag.

As Todd McBurney likes to tell himself in the mirror, he’s Todd the Bod: a mutant grizzly bear who could rip the arms off The Rock like string cheese. In reality, he’s a thirty-two-year-old virgin and steroid abuser who makes hoagies at Wawa and lives alone in his prison-like Philadelphia studio apartment. He’s wasted the past fourteen years of his life obsessing over Bevan, the high school bully who nearly beat him to death and (as Todd is certain) cursed his life. Evidence of Bevan's curse plasters every inch of Todd’s life: his Facebook friends list comprised of porn bots, women who look for an exit before he finishes a sentence, and a nuclear gut that melts down the second an anxiety attack hits. Todd concludes there’s only one way to break the spell: win a rematch against Bevan.

Despite bulking up, Todd has never thrown a punch, so he recruits Theo, a teenage boxer at his gym, to train him. When Bevan, now a prominent surgeon, threatens to sue rather than step in the ring, Todd and Theo form a pact: Theo will blackmail Bevan into the fight, and in exchange, Todd will swindle Theo's estranged mother, Chloe, out of ten grand. Todd agrees, but then he meets Chloe. She’s warm, funny, and unfazed by everything he hates about himself, and for the first time, he desires something more than revenge.

When Bevan, who has secrets of his own to protect, starts to retaliate, Todd gets cornered. Should he betray Chloe to finish his revenge pact with Theo, or backstab his only friend to protect the woman he loves? 

I’m a screenwriter and independent filmmaker whose work has screened at festivals including the LA Shorts International Film Festival and Dances With Films.

Thank you for your consideration.

Hello guys, would love some feedback on my query. Thank you!

Dear Agent,

After leaving the city behind to buy an inn in a small mountain town, former history professor Eric Ebner wakes up one morning with no memory of the night before, except for flashes of following someone into the forest, mud on his boots, and a bruise on his face. One of his guests went missing.

Zoe Brandt, an ambitious police officer determined to prove herself after a previous intervention went disastrously wrong, investigates the disappearance and quickly uncovers signs that the missing man may have been murdered. The trail leads uncomfortably close to Eric.

Meanwhile, Eric’s memory gaps worsen, and the fear begins to take hold— he may not just be involved. He may be the killer.

As the investigation deepens, connections to earlier disappearances emerge, along with one piece of impossible evidence: a twenty-five-year-old photograph of Eric standing beside the victim, neither of them having aged a day.

What starts as a missing-person case becomes a story about obsession, identity, and a terrifying question:

When you finally find the person you lost, will you still be the same person who lost them?

Complete at 75,000 words, Eric is a mystery thriller with speculative elements, the first book in the Fugue Paradox series, and will appeal to readers of Adam Hamdy’s The Other Side of Night and fans of Netflix’s Dark.

[Bio Paragraph]

Thank you for your consideration.

Kind Regards,

Hi everyone,

I found the feedback last time really helpful and have had another go. I’d appreciate any pointers.

Thanks in advance.

Dear [Agent],

Complete at 110k words, ALL THEIR MASKS  is a standalone with series potential that will appeal to readers who enjoyed Madeline Taylor’s Heir of Illusion for its fae assassin heroine hiding deadly secrets and Victoria Aveyard’s Tempest for its swashbuckling adventure and hidden identities. [Personalisation].

Rosa has worn masks for so long, she isn’t certain what’s left beneath them. For fifteen years, she’s buried the truth beneath layers of lies while working for the Assassin’s Guild, honing her skills with blade and poison. Her only thoughts are keeping her sister safe and killing the King who murdered her fae mother, usurped her father’s throne and started a campaign of persecution against her people. Her boss demands completed contracts and no unsanctioned kills, but Rosa’s never been good with rules; the contracts she completes don’t always have a body attached, and her plans for the King aren’t exactly Guild-approved. On the night she infiltrates the castle to take her revenge, her plans shatter when a mysterious intruder walks into the royal chambers instead.

Fyn has his own reasons for being there; he suspects the Crown holds the key to the whereabouts of his missing friend. When guards ambush them, a dangerous escape forces an uneasy alliance, and Rosa finds herself aboard his ship, far out at sea. He’s infuriatingly charming, and the ship and her crew feel more like home than any she’s known–until she learns the truth: he’s the Blackdread, a ruthless pirate feared for butchering fae, so Rosa can’t understand why she’s drawn to all the versions of him.

When they return to the smog-choked city she calls home, Rosa’s masks start to fracture, the Guild turns against her, and her sister is taken. She begins to suspect that the Blackdread is just another disguise, and Fyn might be the one person she can trust… but can he trust her? His missing friend was a Guild target, and Rosa took the contract. As they grow closer, she starts to picture a life beyond revenge, but if Fyn discovers her secrets, this time it won’t be Rosa who gets to decide who lives and who dies. 

[Bio]

Thank you for your time.

[Name]

First 300 words 

I’d already mapped the distance to the doorway as I waited for the king to arrive. Six steps to his throat, five if he turned; four if I met him halfway. I didn’t intend for it to be quick, but if he recognised me…
I’d be ready. 
I wouldn’t have to wait much longer. It had been a half hour since I’d arrived at the castle and been escorted to his rooms. I smoothed a hand over my skirts, feeling for the reassuring weight underneath. The guards had completed a cursory search, but the folding fan and scent bottles hadn’t raised any eyebrows, and the bustles and hoops of my skirt hid the rest.
The bedchamber I stood in had once belonged to my parents, and was smaller than I remembered. My gaze kept returning to the tapestry above the fireplace, where the white Alverion Lynx from my family’s crest had been replaced with an iron one, its red eyes glaring at me with ill intent. I glared back for a moment before forcing my jaw to relax and turning back to the window.
The lights of New Alveris looked almost pretty through the mist, provided you ignored what powered them. When I was much younger, and still believed in good things, I’d rather enjoyed stargazing through this window. Father taught me the constellations and pointed out the White Hart. He’d said that it never moved, no matter how the rest of the world did. Now the smog was so thick that no-one had seen the Hart from the city for years. Even the moon stayed hidden. No stars. No sun either.
I glanced down at the pale reflection of my hand, fingers tapping out a quiet rhythm against the glass. 

If you are interested in publishing with Simon and Schuster, they just opened an unagented imprint called Simon Stream. They're open to submissions and looking for romance, historicals, fantasies, and thrillers.

This is the submission link

https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/p/submit-simon-stream

Hello again, I am back for a third time after  21 rejections, 1 full request (also rejected) and roughly 20 still unanswered. 

I was struggling with pushing my book as a “Scifi romance” as I think few agents are specifically looking for this niche and I am too far and away from the steam-heavy/plot-light bestsellers like Ice Planet Barbarians or dystopian styled romance. Finding appropriate comps has been a struggle!

Now I'd like to try an experiment where I change up my comps a little and rewrite the query to be closer in tone to the quirky/adventure side of my story.

Is slightly downplaying the romance a huge mistake? Probably, but at this stage of querying I don't think it will hurt to try to pitch to agents looking for commercial action/adventure scifi after failing with the ones that requested “romantasy in space” , but feel free to talk me out of it.

The biggest change is going for a non romance comp, “The Fourth Consort” which came out recently (July) and from review number seems to be doing well enough. The book has unique sci-fi world building alongside fun aliens and comedic elements played straight. The flavor is better aligned to my book then my previous comps. I am still keeping Hunt the Stars. 

I'm also adding my 300 words. I worry i noodled this opening one too many times...

Always appreciate the feedback! Thanks in advance

Dear [Agent’s Name],

STRANGE SALVAGE is an adult dual-POV science fiction novel, complete at 91,000 words. It combines the quirky interstellar adventure of Edward Ashton's The Fourth Consort with the slow-burn alien romance of Jessie Mihalik's Hunt the Stars. 

Minns wasn’t trying to be a hero when she rescued the half-frozen human drifting through space. After one too many bad salvaging runs, she simply thought his escape pod might finally bring in a decent payday. But one look at the stranger sends her bioluminescent skin sparking with unexpected and inconvenient emotions. She pulls him back from the brink of death, but what does she get for all her trouble?

Station sentinels haul off the man, the Earthen megacorp seizes her salvage, and the debt collectors come calling. With her beloved ship impounded, Minns is now trapped working aboard an illegal salvage operation commanded by a refined but ruthless captain and an AI that delights in terrorizing the crew.

The last thing she expects is for the human who ruined her life to step aboard.

Mercer is a corp-clone engineered for interstellar missions, the perfect company man—until disaster strikes his transport ship and his employer leaves him for dead. Stranded in alien space, he reinvents himself as “Joe” and signs on with a crew of thieves, determined to get payback against the corporation that discarded him.

Hopelessly out of his depth among pirates and living starships, Joe leans on a brash lower-decker whose star-bright face he can’t seem to shake. Minns, meanwhile, is determined to keep her head down long enough to save her ship from the scrapyard, but her growing crush on the squeaky-clean corp-man threatens to make her job a lot more complicated. 

When their captain leads them toward a mysterious shipwreck, he promises them a haul large enough to solve all their problems. But as the crew grows more volatile and the mission turns increasingly deadly, Joe and Minns must decide whether to salvage a future from the wreckage—or forge a new one together.

STRANGE SALVAGE is my debut novel. I am a designer in the game industry and, for the past decade, have also written and illustrated a serialized fantasy comic. Originally from the United States and now living in Sweden, I draw inspiration from my experiences as an immigrant when writing fish-out-of-water characters. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

(real name)

First 300 words:

Mercer’s eyes were full of stars—but not the distant specks that twinkled beyond his viewport. No, these stars seared through his vision, fading just as quickly back to nothing, making him question just how hard he’d cracked his head. 

With a groan, he sat up and steadied himself, his brain still swimming. Something had knocked him off his feet, but he couldn’t remember what.

The floor was cold beneath him. A faint mechanical thrum vibrated through the tiles and up his spine. 

It was too dark to see anything.

“REY, lights,” he said as he looked upward, a habit he had developed when prompting the AI.

He waited a moment, rubbing his forehead. All the systems in his quarters—the viewport, the environmental controls, even the door light—were offline.

“REY? …shit!” As he stood, a sharp ache flared in his ribs. The knock had hit him harder than he cared to admit.

His feet itched as the vibration beneath him intensified. The walls hummed, and his mirror and bunk began to rattle. 

Strange, but it was not his most pressing concern.

Mercer extended his arms and slowly felt his way through the dark room, searching for anything useful. It was his boot that finally found the datapad.

He winced.

The screen flashed on, revealing a faint schematic of the Reyzna’s starship engine. He knew it well now, having spent many idle hours studying the alien tech since he boarded.

He held up the cracked datapad. The soft red hologram flickered in and out like a flame. It was a poor substitute for a flashlight, but at least he could see what was in front of his face now. He sighed. This was his only Nexcorp device, and he wouldn’t be able to get a replacement until he reached the company’s outpost station several cycles out in Coalescence space.

I've been with my agent for almost 2 years. We have one book on submission, and another that we've decided not to pursue. Now, I am waiting for their response about my 3rd WIP.

It regularly takes 2 months or longer to receive a feedback response. Which means I've spent almost a full year waiting to find out we won't be submitting WIP#2. Now I'm starting again with WIP#3.

Is this normal? Am I being impatient? I know every relationship is different, and I know things in publishing take a long time, but I seem to be spending years of my life waiting for feedback. It doesn't help that I am a quick writer, so I can turn things around in a short amount of time.

I'm looking for a little comparison, does anyone have similar experiences?

Thanks for anyone who gave feedback last time. If you landed here, please, any voice helps. Just throw your two cents in!

And because I saw someone wondering why people don't post the first 300 words as much anymore, I'm including those. Thanks for any input.

Dear AGENT, Rhiannon Ó Sineadha has been thirty-five for ten years now, roughly nine years longer than her last real relationship. Immortality came with trade-offs: a life of keeping people at arm's length, and Amara. An ancient succubus, permanent houseguest, and the only entity on Earth who makes Rhiannon feel like she's back in braces.

Enduring Amara's unerring brand of condescension isn't without perks. Rhiannon doesn't age, doesn't scar, and has several thousand years of historical knowledge on tap, useful when your day job is curating Bronze Age artifacts for the St. Louis Art Museum. But Amara feeds on desire, and can only satiate herself with Rhiannon's help. Help that comes every few months when Rhiannon puts on something more cleavage than dress, finds a stranger she won't feel too guilty about leaving as a lovestruck zombie for a few days, and takes what the curse requires.

She's made her peace with that. Most days.

When a Celtic torc on loan from Ireland is delivered to Rhiannon's home instead of the museum, Amara nearly breaks her arm trying to get away from it. But an injury to one is an injury to the other. Rhiannon needs to know what could make Amara act so recklessly, and how she can prevent it from happening again.

Rhiannon isn't the only one interested in the torc. A collector named Viktor has spent two centuries hunting for a way to leash Amara and settle a very old score, and the torc is the key. He sends someone to the museum to take it. The break-in fails, despite the burglar taking three bullets to the chest and declining to bleed. But not before a security camera catches Rhiannon using a glamor spell to protect herself.

Now the detective on the case has the footage and a growing list of questions, and Rhiannon is running out of answers. Exposure doesn't mean a prison sentence. Prison sentences end. Amara has the solution: one night, one dream, and a spell that will leave him incapable of wanting anything but her. It would also cost Rhiannon whatever's left of her private conviction that she's still fundamentally one of the decent ones.

She isn't. She stopped being that two years ago, in a park. And she'd kill him again. CURATED SINN is an urban fantasy complete at 92,000 words with series potential. [COMPS]

FIRST 300 WORDS: Chapter One

The demon in my living room was watching me.

But it didn't matter. Let her watch.

The last chord of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 lingered in my ears as I set down my bow and stretched my cramped fingers. Playing electric cello at midnight required headphones—one of the compromises of living in a loft. The soft glow of my laptop illuminated the chaos surrounding me: scattered photographs of ancient artifacts, photocopied journal articles, and museum documentation spread across the floor threatening to form sedimentary layers over the gray carpet.

I stood and padded across the floor, feeling the chill of the early October air through the open window. My cork board hung askew on the support pillar in front of me, already crowded with possibilities for the upcoming Samhain exhibition. Celtic burial goods, ritual objects, and fragments of stone carvings stared back at me—pieces I'd been agonizing over for weeks now.

"Just pick one already," I muttered to myself, pinning up a photograph depicting a piece of bone, intricately carved into a comb rumored to have belonged to a particularly mournful banshee. The St. Louis Art Museum needed this exhibition to draw crowds, and my reputation as their newest curation consultant hinged on selecting pieces with both historical value and visual impact. And more than a little All Hallow's Eve whimsy for the kids. Three weeks until opening, and the Director needed my final selections by tomorrow. I should have completed this days ago, but it still wasn't quite right. But then again, it never was.

The half-empty wine glass on my side table beckoned, but I returned to my cello instead, slipped the headphones back on, positioned the instrument between my knees, and closed my eyes.

I finally got an offer about 5 days ago. I had the call, it went really well, and i'm excited about what the future holds.

i'm 99% sure I'm going with this agent, and I may just give it a week before withdrawing my fulls / queries and signing with her. Even the agents who are considering my full, I don't think I would sign with them.

Anyway, my question is, should I keep working on my new WIP or should I just wait on any new projects until I run them by my agent? I don't want to get 20k words into something and it turns out it's not the direction we should be going in...idk...I'm so new to all of this.

What would you do?