I wanted to come on here and share my success story in hopes of encouraging others to keep going.
I started querying back in late August of 2019. I queried about 35 agents (some from in person pitches, some from Twitter pitch contests), got about 6 full requests and 2 partials. Most of the fulls came back as rejections, though two were still up in the air. I was offered rep in April by an agent I queried back in September and she seemed great, but I wanted to reach out to others who still had my manuscript (as you always should). I nudged every agent who still had a full, partial, and even a query. This led to another full request from an agent who had a partial, but she politely passed.
Here's where it gets really exciting: One day before I was set to sign with the agent who made the original offer, an agent who I queried in Feb emailed me to say she was sorry she missed out on my MS and that I should let her know if it ever becomes available again. I responded to let her know I hadn't signed yet and she asked me to send her the full so she could pull an all-nighter. And she did. She emailed me an offer of rep/phone call early the next morning and I accepted. I think that might have been one of the craziest whirlwinds of my life and definitely of my writing career.
Let me just tell you that I almost didn't even reach out to agents with only a query because it seemed like an impossible feat to squeeze in a read in a small two week time frame. But as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I'm so glad I went with this agent as she seems amazing already. She's very knowledgeable and has a lot of years in the industry, including novel editing experience for a big publisher.
Here's my other piece of encouragement: I almost gave up on this MS so many times. I've been working on it for years. Years. I revised it so many times and worried I'd never get it right. I'm so glad I didn't give up. This book turned out to be everything I always hoped it would be and I know with her editing notes, I will sharpen it even more before submission.
Don't give up on your dreams, you have no idea how close you might be.
